Trying to take myself off klonopin for sleep

Yeah, Klonopin really screws with sleep.

Well the main reason I'm on it is for sleep because I don't sleep without it...so I don't think it messed me up or anything. Unmedicated, I pretty much don't sleep, and regular things to help with sleep don't do it (melatonin, Ambien, Lunesta, Seroquel, trazodone etc)...

Yeah, one of the reasons I was prescribed K-pin was for sleep. The problem for me was that I started out with a mild, occasional insomnia and, after years of K-pin, developed a severe insomnia and depended upon K-pin to sleep. My biggest fear about going off the stuff is when I get down to 1/4mg/day...then nothing...and cannot fall or stay asleep. My experience before (off K-pin) was being semi-asleep, but in a weird twilight state, unable to truly fall asleep.

Oh, my insomnia was bad. I developed it when I was in middle school and like I said, we went through everything to try and make me sleep and nothing worked til we got to the benzos. I'll get off it again eventually, but not now. Now is a bad time -- too many changes going on in my life, so I'm just going to keep things as stable as I can.

Stability is key.

For sure. And like, I just started a new job and I'm working certain hours right now but as soon as training is over I'll be working different hours...so it's just easier, and I think better not to mess with things right now.

I agree.

If my doctors weren't so aggressive about wanting me to come off Klonopin I wouldn't feel so anxious about doing so. I do want to come off it, mainly because of cognitive issues, but I just hope I can take it slow. It seems like doctors sometimes forget that stability is priority.

Anyway, it sounds to me like you're making the best choice for your well-being.

I think so too. And it is what it is.

I was super tired last night, so I thought hey, let's try going to bed without klonopin! And I took the rest of my meds like normal, turned on a show on Netflix and set my sleep timer like normal, and must've fallen asleep like normal because I wasn't still awake when my sleep timer was just about up I did wake up around 5:30 this morning, but I'm not sure if that had to do with the fact that I didn't take any klonopin or that I had more to drink before bed than usual so I just simply had to pee. I think I'll try again tonight and see.

Round 2 went even better! Again, fell asleep within my normal time frame, and this time, didn't wake up until 7:30 I feel so positive that the trend will continue that I didn't even put the klonopin in my pill box for this week...and if I'm wrong, I'll just get it out of the bottle, no biggie. I knew it would happen when the time was right, it always does.

Ok -- bad news. I've been sleeping fine, my anxiety is fine...but physically, I'm in so much pain and feeling just awful. I guess it has to be withdrawal What do I do?

Yeah, that sounds like it could be withdrawal. The only way to avoid w/d is to taper the medication really slowly. In my experience, Klonopin is not like, say, heroin...you can't just 'kick it' and get better after a couple of weeks. If you don't taper Klonopin down, you just stop the medication and you go into w/d, the longer you let the w/d go on the worse it gets...the sicker you become.

It's just so weird. I can't even tell you how many times I've gone from 1mg to none with absolutely no problems at all. But I'm just going to start taking it again and hope that it reverses itself, and then I may go down again, but it's not like the klonopin was causing any problems, so I could just continue to take it indefinitely.

Klonopin is so strange that way. Very unpredictable...and you never know when you will slam into horrendous withdrawals.

Do you have any memory loss from Klonopin?

No. No side effects from it at all which is why I'm fine with going back on it. I'd just like to have one less drug in my system is all.

Yeah. I know how you feel.

First time I took didn't like side effects nor seemed to help anxiety.. Stopped no problem after daily use (as prescribed.)

Tried it again. Great benefit, then dosage was increased for sleep when Trazodone stopped working. But getting off....uhh...While mentally I felt better over time getting off...physically not so. And I didn't realize there could be stages to withdrawal even once off. Hard lesson learned. But I think I reduced too quickly. I was just judging based on my thinking ability - instead of also paying attention to my body.

Even in reduction if I missed a dose - next day I could tell by early morning something was seriously wrong. My mind wasn't right. Reason I keep notes now.

This time doing much slower reduction, and accepted I might have to be on small dose for awhile for body/mind to adjust before I can finally get off.

Over nine months I have managed to reduce the Klonopin by a 1/4mg. I had gone down (from 2mgs) to 1.5mgs, but I was a MESS. Anxiety so bad I couldn't do it. So, went back up a tiny bit.

I don't know how on earth I'll ever come off Klonopin and live through it.

I am gradually weaning myself off of it. Alas, I have taken it for years. But I am getting there. I just cut down again a few days ago and am doing okay. My doc told me he thought it was affecting my brain. I was even diagnosed with "mild cognitive impairment." He said to get tested again when I am totally off of Klonopin. I just hope it hasn't permanently messed up my brain.

As someone said, it's good you didn't take it daily for years.

I'm not sure how long I'll be taking it. I've decided I'm not even going to try going off it again until summer so I won't have the stress of school and just having moved on me. But I might try and go down to 0.5mg. I did just have my interim pdoc write my Rx for 1mg tablets instead of 2mg ones, so if I can easily split it to taper down. But this is something I'll talk about with my real pdoc when I see her which will probably be in the next few weeks and definitely within the next month because I'm out of wellbutrin refills so I've only got 30 days of that left. I'd like to see if I can take something else for sleep. Maybe try gabapentin again.

Good idea to wait until school is over.

Definitely. I want to avoid any med changes during the semester if at all possible. I've been doing pretty well on my current combo and dosages for about 5 months which for me is a really long period of stability. That's not to say there weren't points in which I could have used a little bit of med tweaking, but I was okay enough to see that it was something I could get through without. Plus it's really hard when you live 3 hours away from your pdoc and everything is done via phone or email.

Well if you were going to go off of sleeping medication now would be the time, with the days being so short and all.

That makes sense, but now would be just about the worst time actually because I'm moving, I'm starting school -- I'm basically adjusting to a new life, and med changes during times of change are almost always a bad idea.

I'm on Klonopin 4x per day. Am taking .5 split in half so .25 for a total of 1 mg/day.
Have incredible anxiety from Rexulti. Klonopin is helping a great deal. Right now I don't want to go off, but I get scared at all the stories. My doc may substitute gabapentin for anxiety soon. But I know he will really taper me down. The good news is I don't use K for sleep.
Has anyone successfully tapered off K or does everyone have these serious withdrawal symptoms?