Posted by JohnX2 on March 17, 2002, at 0:21:51
In reply to Do Drug Holidays for benzo tolerance work?, posted by 3 Beer Effect on March 16, 2002, at 23:44:44
> I take 4 mgs of Klonopin per day, 2 at bedtime, 1 at breakfast, & 1 at lunch. However, I seem to be building up a tolerance to it b/c it doesn't seem to work as well anymore for social phobia (i've been on it around 2 months).
>
> I've heard of people who take "drug holidays" from their add stimulants adderall/dex/ritalin etc and in a short amount of time (a week?) without the drug their tolerance is reduced to baseline (zero).
>
> Do drug holidays for benzos work?
> MOST IMPORTANTLY, How long would the drug holiday have to be to reduce the tolerance down to baseline (zero)? (I know you can't just stop taking them cold turkey, but Klonopin has a long half life so I was planning a fast taper down to zero).
>I used Klonopin to help me with a facial neuralgia (mainly tension headaches). It worked at 2mg and also gave me a sedative/antianxiety effect. This pooped out after a number of months. I had to continually raise the dose to retain the effect (upto 6mg). Once I grew tolerant I never had that antianxiety effect and my sleep patterns were permanently goofed up.
Meanwhile we tried many anticonvulsants to try to treat the issue; most of these experiments were failures. Ultimately I found that Topamax was a suitable replacement for the Klonopin. The Topamax increases conductance at the GabaA receptor as do all the benzodiazepines.
After starting Topamax (which instantly fixed my myofacial pain), I started to taper the Klonopin. I was able to dump 4 of the 6 mg in about 6 weeks.
I got it down to 1 mg and then things got really rough. I threw in the towel and bumped the dose to 2 mg. When I bumped the dose I felt a noticeable anxiolytic effect (as when I started the medicine). This anxiolytic effect quickly wore off after a number of days resuming this 2 mg dose.I used these medicines to help me taper the Klonopin. I believe they may be useful adjuncts to help with withdrawl symptoms:
Topamax 400 mg.
Zyprexa 5mg.
Neurontin 300 mg 3x a day.Without these aids I feel the Klonopin taper would have been much more difficult. The Zyprexa exerts a fairly substantial antianxiety effect and will help with rebound insomnia (you can start this quickly, it works fast). The Neurontin will help with anxiety and any neuropathic tingling (in fact you may want to bail on Klonopin in favor of Neurontin). The topamax as I mentioned works on Gaba a bit like benzos, but I haven't heard of anyone besides me using it for withdrawl (or as a replacement).
While my sleep was goofed up by Klonopin tolerance, these two medicines restored my sleep:
Remeron, Zyprexa.> Also, my Provigil 200 mgs has "pooped" out after 2 months. It was never that great in the first place (similar to extended release caffeine without as much anxiety) but now only lasts about 6 hours now before I get extremely tired/sleepy. Do drug holidays work for Provigil, or should I just switch to a real medication like Dexedrine?
>Just my opinion, I think the dexedrine will make you too anxious while you are dealing with the Klonopin issue.
hope you feel better.
best wishes
John> (Med Summary: Klonopin 4 mg/day, Provigil 200 mg/day, Lamictal 100 mg at bedtime.)
>
> Thanks,
> 3 Beers
poster:JohnX2
thread:98374
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020313/msgs/98380.html