Posted by mrgeek on November 15, 2005, at 14:17:45
I actually have a few questions which all relate to my situation. If anyone has answers for these I would be very grateful. First let me give a quick background.
I was on Klonopin for about 18 months. I started at 1.5 mg/day for the first 6 months and then gradually moved down .5 mg over the last 12 months. At first, it was like a godsend offering me almost complete anxiety relief. I was happy, sociable, and successful. This lasted for about a year. At this time the anti-anxiety effects continued, but I started to become more and more detached or emotionally "numb" to the world around me. I was depressed and became increasingly unhappy with life although I was doing the best I ever had both socially and professionally. I decided to taper off the klonopin. One month after the taper completed I am now back to my old self again. I'm experiencing lots of anxiety again, but virtually no depression even though my life is falling apart around me. But thats another story. Onto my questions and suspicions.
First off, I'm wondering if it's in any way possible that over time the klonopin built up in my bloodstream to an amount that was unnecessarily high, thus having an exagerated effect on me. Seeing how the half life of klonopin is anywhere between 18-50 hours, our days are 24 hours, and most everyone taking it long term is taking the same dosage daily, wouldn't this leave the possiblity of a "build up" in you blood to a dose higher than intended over a sufficiently long period of time?
Of course there may be something fundamental I don't understand about drug metabolism, but using layman logic my conclusion makes sense to me. If this is wrong could someone please explain why?
Now second, granted that my logic is correct--it would seem to make sense that if you are affected by this then you should probably come up with an alternative dosing schedule, as opposed to simply dosing daily at specific times. Does anyone have any experience with this and klonopin?
Thanks in advance for any insight on this!
poster:mrgeek
thread:578982
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20051112/msgs/578982.html