Posted by Mair on May 16, 2002, at 22:03:07
In reply to Re: an added thought (MAIR), posted by johnj on May 16, 2002, at 14:44:21
Johnj - I'm probably the last person to be answering your questions. I'm not very knowledgeable about meds and i only know what works for me. If you look in the archives you'll probably see lots of klonopin horror stories, but it's been a great drug for me. Sleep is pretty critical for my mental health. It can sometimes be precarious under the best of circumstances. With little sleep it's pretty much a given that I'll deteriorate fast. I've taken trazadone and ambien for sleep and didn't like either one. Trazadone wore out in the middle of the night and both drugs made me feel over medicated during the day. Klonopin really just relaxes and calms me enough so I can sleep fairly naturally and I rarely wake up in the middle of the night anymore, because it has a longer life. I take a pretty low dose, between .25 and .5 mgs a night and if i have to go higher than that, I'm careful to bring it back down again once I've reestablished a good sleep pattern. If I'm really having a tough time getting to sleep because I'm too anxious or just ruminating too much, I'll add some xanax, but that tends to make me feel crummy the next morning, so I prefer just raising my klonopin dose a little. I'm sure there are all kinds of side effects, but i'm aware of none that have affected me at the low dosage I'm able to take. I think addiction can be a problem and I've read i think that getting off the drug can be hard, but I've been told, anyway, that this shouldn't be an issue, at again the low doses I use.
I'm not so worried about having to get off the drug - I'm pretty much on the ADs for life plan anyway, and as long as klonopin continues to work, i consider it to be far preferable to interrupted sleep. ADs can interfere with sleep patterns and my primary AD, wellbutrin, can be activating.
I think it's worth talking to your pdoc about this. Keep me posted
Mair
poster:Mair
thread:106336
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020510/msgs/106728.html