My Doctor Gave me Clonazepam to taper off benzo's instead of Diazepam.

[Supeudol]

IMO, a better choice. Clonazepam duration of action lasts much longer than that of Diazepam. Although I find Diazepam to be a more pleasant and recreational benzodiazepine. I can see why he prescribed Clonazepam for tapering purposes, because it can go down to as low as 0.25mg.

Now I'm not in full blown benzo withdrawal like I was almost a year ago, I was just thinking I was getting some minor benzo withdrawal for abusing some mild benzo's like Diazepam, and Bromazepam for a bit, and a small bit of Xanax.

What do you guys think? I don't find Clonazepam to be recreational at all, which is why I think it is good for tapering purposes. Whereas I find Diazepam to have a very nice sort of benzo buzz at about 80mg. Although Diazepam loses its effect quite quickly, anywhere from 1-4 hours. Its half life is much longer than that of Clonazepam. But still, I think my Doctor made the right choice for me. I've heard you can do successful tapers with both Clonazepam and Diazepam.

So I just thought I would get some thoughts and opinions here guys? BTW I'm no newbie to benzodiazepines by any chance, I've been them on for a good 6, pushing 7 years. I've already detoxed off them once a year ago in a treatment centre, but they never did a proper detox, as they basically did a rapid Diazepam w/ Clonidine Detox over a period of 5 days. Yes, 5 DAYS ONLY.

Thats why I am going to try to do a successful one on my own instead of having idiots that don't know how to run a benzo detox properly.

So, thoughts and suggestions people? Sorry for the long post.

 

[Tommyboy]

My doctor wanted to taper me off of xanax with clonazepam, but I insisted on diazepam since I know there is a lot of literature on tapering with it.

I think that the lowest dose of diazepam (2mg) is lower than the .25 of clonazepam on equivalence charts. For this reason, I like diazepam because I will be jumping off at a lower benzo dose.

You should be fine with the clonazepam taper. I had bad rebound anxiety with it though, whereas with diazepam I didn't.

 

[K'd-OUT-in-AZ]

The first time I tried to get off benzodiazepines my doctor just told me to slowly taper off my dose of clonazepam. 8 months later I relapsed.

So my opinion, your doctor made the wrong decision.

Just recently I tapered off benzodiazepines using diazepam and I have been clean for over two months. I suffered no withdrawals.

Clonazepam is way too powerful of a benzodiazepine to just taper off with. You'll most likely still experience some mild withdrawals after getting off it. Not everybody agrees with you that Diazepam is more recreational. I find clonazepam a much more enjoyable benzodiazepine. Also, just because clonazepam may have a longer duration than Diazepam, it doesn't have a longer half-life which is much more important when it comes to tapering. Why Diazepam is so effective is because it stays in your system so long and makes the withdrawals much more manageable & smoother.