Posted by Cece on March 30, 2001, at 22:33:02
In reply to Klonopin nightmare / start Zyprexa / stop Depakote, posted by Noah on March 30, 2001, at 14:27:07
Pages and pages here too, with some similarities. I can go down as low as 125mg/ of Depakote (I'm on 250mg/day now), but if I go off completely, I'm a mess. When I lowered my dose- for awhile I was on 100mg/ day, but too much sedation, my pdoc tapered me- long time ago so I forget how slowly.
I would be VERY scared of this doctor myself. Klonopin has to be tapered off very gradually, especially for someone who has been on it for some time. This is psychopharmachology 101. If he is more scared of your dependence than concerned about your well-being, something's screwy in him (I'm not there to sit in the room with him and get the full picture of course). Personally, I think, and my long time pdoc who I just changed from (for mostly financial reasons) thought that addiction/dependence is a non-issue when it comes to mental health. Mood disorders are potentially fatal- how does that stack up against dependence?! I think that it is an old Puritan uptight value that is out of place in modern medicine.
Everyone is different, so don't know if this will help, but the drug that has helped my sleep the most is Nortriptyline. I take only 40mg/day, at night- this is the lowest I can go and still get AD and 'good sleep' effects- if I go lower I'm in a depression pit in about 3 days. I've gotten it to the lowest possible because it gives me weight gain. Neurontin, which I take 300mg, 3Xday (total 900mg), I think has also helped my sleep as well as adding a subtle but important calming element.
I like your term 'drug soup for blood'- me too. This is already a long post, so I'll end here. I'm going to try to find some past posts I've sent about my drug mix and some of these issues- let me know if you are interested.
Good luck- do you have any other choice of pdoc if you decide you don't like this one?
Cece
poster:Cece
thread:58092
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20010327/msgs/58167.html