![[dr. bob]](/dr-bob-sm.gif)
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.orgShown: posts 1 to 2 of 2. This is the beginning of the thread.
Posted by Dave1970 on July 13, 2003, at 13:32:27
Last November, I began seeing a psychiatrist, who happens to be the head of the most prestigious psychiatric clinic in a major US city. I now see him once a week for therapy. He immediately diagnosed me as having general anxiety disorder, and has since told me that I am in fact the most "anxious" person he has seen in the past 5-10 years. He started me on clonazepam, .5 mg per day, to alleviate my anxiety and help me sleep. It worked immediately. However, over the past 6 months, we have been pretty regularly upping my dose. Every six weeks or so it seems as though I need a little more for it to work and I am now taking 2.5 mg. per day. I have begun to feel as though the effects of the drug are diminishing again, and I think that my doctor's response is going to be to up me to 3 mg. per day. My question is, how far is too far? Am I addicted or in danger of becoming so? Is 2.5 mgs. considered a heavy/light/medium dose? I have discussed my apprehension with my doctor but he says that nothing is wrong and I need not worry -- I am no more addicted to clonazepam than people who are on high blood pressure medicine are "addicted" to that. I do know that I look forward to taking the medicine every evening and that I would be in an absolute panic if I lost my medicine or was somehow forced to skip a dose? Am I in trouble? Do I need to seek a second opinion?
Posted by avid abulia on July 13, 2003, at 18:07:41
In reply to Have I gone too far?, posted by Dave1970 on July 13, 2003, at 13:32:27
Well, in the sense that people on certain antihypertensive drugs (such as clonidine) do experience what would fit DSM-IV criteria as drug addiction, your doc cannot help but be right, either way ;)
The maximum dose (for epilepsy, anyway) is 16mg/day in 4 evenly divided doses, but if your doc is trying to keep you on benzo monotherapy and you keep needing to up the dose, there probably is something going on there, and you have every right to be concerned.
You might discuss a switch to a long-acting benzo (Valium is one, it has a terminal half-life--the time it takes to excrete the last half of the dose--of 200hrs!) and you might also discuss a switch to a different class of drugs, or polytherapy. I know there was a huge thread knocking Neurontin, and my experience was that it *was* totally useless for mood symptoms, but i (and several others i know) did/do find it very helpful for anxiety.
This is the end of the thread.
Psycho-Babble Medication | Extras | FAQ
Dr. Bob is Robert Hsiung, MD,
bob@dr-bob.org
Script revised: February 4, 2008
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/cgi-bin/pb/mget.pl
Copyright 2006-17 Robert Hsiung.
Owned and operated by Dr. Bob LLC and not the University of Chicago.