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?
poster:Dave1970
thread:241458
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20030708/msgs/241458.html