Anyone taking/stopping Klonopin?

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I have been on this for years, and for the past year, I have been weaning off of it. For at least 6 months, I have been on the .5 mg pill. Just one in the morning. It doesn't help me any more. It does absolutely nothing for any anxiety, but if i don't take it, I have withdraw symptoms. They are nasty, and I hate them. I have been told I can cut the pill in half, but I have this thing about cutting pills in half and not having them be the correct dosage. It is an OCD thing (yes, I have that too). I want to just stop the last pill. My psych has told me it is OK to stop taking it cold turkey, because the dosage is low enough (they do have a lower dosage, but my insurance will not pay for it since it is a dissolvable pill, and I "have no issues taking pills" so they will not pay), but I am not looking forward to a week or more of symptoms.

Has anyone ever come off this drug, and if you have, what have you done to make it successful or to ease the withdraw symptoms?? I hate them. Even today, I was a few hours late taking it, so I have had a numb buzzing lip and achy teeth all day. At least I don't feel nauseous. I just want off this. I don't like having my body addicted to something. If I needed it, that would be different, but I don't. I am only taking it so I don't have withdraw symptoms.

I had to come off a rather high dose of Klonopin a few years ago and I tapered it down to .5 mg and then stopped. I remember feeling headachy and nauseous and lost my appetite for a week or two.

I don't have any advice on how to deal with it though, sorry. I just suffered through it, knowing it would end eventually.

Thanks. I think what is bad for me is they not only make me feel like I have been hit by the flu, but I also usually kick off a migraine when I don't take it. I just got over a 5 day migraine. I was thinking of doing this in a week and a half (when I finish with school for the summer), but I would really like to not feel like crud. I know I needed it at he time I started it, but right now, I hate this med. If I needed it, it would be one thing, but I only take it so I don't go through withdraw.

Benzos are notoriously hard to give up. They're up there with alcohol and morphine on the addictiveness scale. I really do suggest you go down to .25 for a little while, that or you can take a .5 every other day. This is doable because klonopin (clonazepam) has a really long half life: this means it stays in your system for a while. There's also the possibility of switching to diazepam (Valium), which is used for benzo withdrawal (it has an even longer half life). 0.5 mg of klonopin is equivalent to 10 mg of valium. And valium is available down to 2 mg. The best way to ween off this drug is slowly. I know you want to be rid of it as quick as possible though. And you're not in any danger if you stop cold turkey, because you are on a low dose.
What helped me LOTS is regular exercise (cardio-vascular, try to get you heart-rate to about 70% of maximum for 30 minutes a day). A diet that's the same as someone with hypoglycemia (because for all intents and purposes you will be for the duration of the withdrawal). Do some googling on "hypoglycemic diet" or ask someone who knows about it. Ginger tea will help with the nausea, the exercise will help with the headaches, and the hypoglycemic diet will help with mood/anxiety. You WILL be very emotional at times, you will experience very vivid dreams, very vivid memories that pop up and seem to stick in you head for hours. I suggest you not freak out about those symptoms, and use them for the purpose of self-discovery, and if you follow a therapist, you can make some significant breakthroughs in a fraction of the time it would have taken under normal circumstances. Keep your head high. Oh, and try not to put yourself in situations where you're going to get annoyed/angry/anxious, it will only exacerbate the symptoms you feel. Keep it very CHILL.
You'll need patience and courage. But go for it, you'll feel so much better a few months from now.

Here are some links you can peruse for info:

http://benzowithdrawal.com/
http://www.benzobuddies.org/

They keep telling me I can cut the pill in half. They tried to give me the .25 mg, but my insurance wouldn't pay for it. I would cut it in half, but my OCD often gets in the way when I cut pills. They HAVE to be perfect. I *know* they really don't, but I just can't stop myself from shaving the pills so they are exact. I also think if I would go every other day, I should just stop. I know it has a long half life, but if I don't take it by 10am, I start the withdraw symptoms. The only good that does is remind me that I forgot to take my meds in the morning. lol. My kids will be gone for the next several weeks starting next week. I might try it all then.

Thanks.

I just started taking them and have OCD as well. They are helping me but I only take .5 mg so the effectiveness is wearing off. I'm not afraid of ever being taken off of them, though, because I don't have an addictive personality.

I am happy that they are helping you. I was taking up to 4 .5s a day at the peak.

The addiction I am talking about is not like being an alcoholic or hard drug addict where you HAVE to have the drink/get the hit and will do anything to get it. This is a case where my body (not my mind) cannot deal without the medication. If it was just me, I would stop it now, but when I do, my body rebels. In fact, I could very easily not take my pill tomorrow morning, but I would just feel like crud for about a week after wards until it is out of my system completely, and my body realizes it doesn't need the stuff any more. I am simply a baby, and also have some court related things going on so I don't want to appear messed up in court. And I am a baby (I think I already said that).

Maybe you should just keep taking it then. If your body likes it and you feel worse without it then why not just stay on it? Unless it's expensive for you, then I would understand.

No, they are not expensive, but my body does not need them. It just thinks it does. The withdraw isn't forever. I am just a baby and don't want to go through it at all. Plus, if I forget to take it, I feel lousy. If I am not taking it at all, then I will not get those nasty feelings and migraines if I take it late. Plus, I take enough pills as it is. It would be very nice to not have to take it. If I do stop taking it, my dr still wants me to keep it around in case of "emergency." If it is completely out of my system, then it may actually work if I need it. As for now, it is just like taking a sugar pill. It does nothing for me. It is annoying.

I feel for you. I came of Klonopin by kind of a mix-up and I didn't realize it and I thought I was dying. I had no idea it was the klonopin. I went to the hospital and they double checked my drugs and gave me a dose of Klonopin and it "fixed" me. I would not worry about being precise and cut the pills in halves then in fourths later. You can get a pill cutter to help with the preciseness.

I realize I am dragging this back up again, but this is on t he front burner again, and things are a little different.

My kids never went to their dad's fr visitation, so I did not get a chance to get off of it. In fact, I actually upped the dose to two a day because I thought it would help something. It did momentarily (for maybe a week). Now I am ready to get back down. I am trying to stop my dose at night (since I think cutting the am dose first would be a mistake) and I am having some issues. About a month ago, I forgot to take the Klonopin for about 36 hours. I thought my mind was blowing up. I was agitated, angry, and I felt like hell (I almost went into the ER because my eyes were being really strange, and I felt like my heart was going to implode. Plus, I had these uncontrollable jerks (they would only be one full body jerk - like a huge chill shiver, and annoying as hell). When I remembered that I had forgotten to take my med with me on my trip, I took it as soon as I got home and it made everything better.


Now this weekend, I started by not taking the evening dose. I did take the Sat morning dose, but by about 6ish Saturday evening everything (including myself) was bothering me. I wanted to bitten my kids heads off for being in the room next to me (we were watching a movie - what else would I expect them to do??). I just said hell with it and took the Klonopin, which made life better again.

I hat this stuff. As I said to a friend this morning, it is icky, disgusting, nasty and evil. I hate it. If I NEEDED to take it, I would not care, but I do not need it unless I am in the middle of a panic attack (which are pretty rare right now). I think I have another issue with getting off of it:

I had baricatric surgery years ago. This has made the absorption of medications different for me than most people. I am wondering if I am actually more sensitive to the drug than most people are because of this. If you take alcohol, for example, I get sloshed over less than a 1/2 can of beer. I have to be careful. I have become very drunk by accident before because of this. I am thinking that the meds are the same. Even dropping down .5 is too much for my body. I did it before when I did not have the kids at the house. I could get through the feeling nasty. It is not so much the feeling physically ill that I do not want my kids around. It is the very bitchy behavior. I mean, I annoy myself! It is bad. I want off this stuff. I didn't take the pill last night, but did this morning. I will see how I am this evening. My daughter knows that I am not taking it, and I have already warned her what the symptoms are and apologized in advance (although I am sure there will be more apologizing later). I think I can get past the night time pill okay (except for being a grump), but I am really afraid about the last pill. I don't want to feel like I am going through hell with the kids around.

Oh, I did talk to the dr about replacing it with diazepam, and he said no.

I was on Klonopin a while for Essential Tremors & anxiety issues including OCD but it never helped at all. I was on other psych meds at the time & I eventually gradually weaned myself off all my meds within a few months. I decreased the dosage amounts very slowly every week or so. It was not fun but it wasn't really very bad either. I did notice I had some side-effects with Klonopin when the dosage would wear off; I would get really shaky latter in the day when I just took it in the morning. Perhaps some of the side-effects you are having are due to it wearing off latter; I think it would be best to stop it now if that is the case. The side-effects should wear off after a bit