Can You Get Off Klonopin and Start It Again Months Later

Tranquilizer Detox Withdrawal Can Final Years

FDA, patients say quitting "benzos" abruptly can lead to horrific side effects.

December. i, 2008— -- Americans take a lot of "benzos," even if they don't know exactly what "benzos" are.

In 2007, U.South. doctors wrote more than 82 million prescriptions for a type of tranquilizer called benzodiazepines, often called "benzos," which includes Valium, Ativan, Xanax and Klonopin.

The positive effects of benzos are widely discussed in blogs, and in the media. But the much appreciated "mother's little helper" drugs can have dangerous side effects that final for years. Some of the worst problems actually start one time someone tries to stop taking them.

Negative symptoms began "probably the mean solar day after I stopped taking it [clonazepam] completely," said Colin Moran, 41, co-founder of benzobuddies.org, an emotional support site with practical advice to help people safely end taking benzodiazepines.

"I woke upwardly and I thought I had a stroke," he said. "My scalp, down the middle of my body -- everywhere on the left was numb, and I could barely motility on that side of the body.

"Even though I thought I had a stroke, I was in such a confused country that I didn't fifty-fifty feel inclined to do anything nigh it," said Moran.

Moran had taken clonazepam (a benzodiazepine often chosen Rivotril or Klonopin) for well-nigh two years before deciding to take a pause. He fifty-fifty tried to "safely" taper off the dose over six weeks.

Finally, a friend forced him to call a neurologist, who informed him that he had not had a stroke just that he was experiencing withdrawal from the clonazepam.

The numbness was only the beginning. Moran later experienced nightmares, feet, nighttime sweats and a bewildering mental fog.

Moran said he had never had such symptoms before he was prescribed clonazepam for a seizure problem, called brainstem myoclonus, which was characterized past spontaneous jerks in the body, trunk and limbs.

"Now I had to proceed on this small dose, merely so I could move," he said.

Eventually Moran would join a minority of people who suffer from protracted withdrawal syndrome later on stopping benzodiazepines.

"The two most dangerous drugs to detox off of are benzos and alcohol," said Dr. Harris Stratyner, vice chairman of the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependence.

"A lot of insurance companies want you in the hospital if you're coming off of alcohol or benzos," said Stratyner, who is also a clinical acquaintance professor of psychiatry at the Mount Sinai School of Medicine in Manhattan, and vice president of the Caron Treatment Center in New York.

Withdrawal Tin Strike At Random

Non just do benzos create a physical addiction, Stratyner said the drugs can alter how the brain processes neurotransmitters that calm a person down.

In fact, the U.S. Food and Drug Assistants recommends short-term use of benzodiazepines for that very reason, warning that quitting benzodiazepines abruptly can event in more than 40 withdrawal side effects, including headache, anxiety, tension, low, insomnia, confusion, dizziness, derealization and short-term memory loss.

However, for Moran, side effects of benzos extended to the fourth dimension he was taking the drugs, likewise.

Since clonazepam was the only drug available to treat his status, Moran tried for years to have the drug, and then to taper off for 3 months earlier he congenital upwards besides much of a tolerance, and then to beginning once again.

"I was a complete mess on benzos -- confused, irrational and unemotional," he said.

Ii years subsequently he started the new drugs, Moran decided to end his six-year romantic human relationship.

"It just felt wrong. When I told her it was over, she told me that the medication had changed me," said Moran. "I thought it was merely a reaction to the breakup."

Just six weeks subsequently his last dose, Moran said a he felt a flood of feelings he hadn't felt in years.

"I think it was just normal emotions, but it had been years since I experienced them then, I wasn't used to coping with them," he said.

Moran said he then realized his ex-girlfriend was right.

"I tried to repair the damage I had washed to my personal life, merely it was mode too tardily," he said.

To this day, Moran walks with a limp on his left side. He said he sees himself as an extreme case of mutual withdrawal symptoms.

Stratyner said x percent of people who quit abruptly may experience a "syndrome" of withdrawal symptoms that extend long later on the drugs get out their bodies. This change tin can reverse, just for a small proportion of people, it can have months or years to recover.

"If y'all of a sudden stop taking Klonopin (clonazepam) speedily, y'all ordinarily get cramping, you lot can accept convulsions, y'all can have auditory hallucinations, nightmares," said Stratytner. "It'southward not unusual at all."

Merely no ane told that to Geraldine Burns, 53, the first time she decided to end taking a benzo chosen Ativan (lorazepam).

"I never had a panic set on before I stopped taking Ativan," said Burns, who remembers she was driving down a busy artery in Boston with her infant girl and young son in the back seat when she suddenly felt like she couldn't breathe.

"It was similar you're just coming out of your peel," she said.

A psychiatrist prescribed Ativan for Burns at age 33, shortly subsequently she gave nativity to her daughter. She said she felt physically off at the time, like she weighed 1,000 pounds, but that her doctors thought it was a post-partum depression.

"I was handed Ativan in the hospital and told to go see a psychiatrist," she said.

A year later, afterwards receiving a prescription for Ativan, Burns said she withal felt off.

"Then I read an article nigh how women could feel only how I felt, and it was an infection of the womb, and you lot don't necessarily have to have a fever," she said.

Burns said she called another medico -- an internist -- about the commodity and he prescribed her antibiotics. Within five days of taking the antibiotics, Burns said she felt much better.

"So I stopped taking Ativan," said Burns. "I didn't know that you lot couldn't just terminate."

The Danger of Going Cold Turkey

After the first panic attacks, Burns called her psychiatrist who, co-ordinate to Burns, told her she shouldn't take stopped the pills and that she needed to have Ativan "for the rest of my life."

Burns continued to take Ativan and antidepressants for ix years; meanwhile, her anxiety and agoraphobia simply increased. During that fourth dimension, her body developed a tolerance for the drug, making coming off of it all the more risky.

And then, one solar day, at historic period 42, Burns went to a new gynecologist who informed her that benzodiazepines were extremely addictive. Burns decided to endeavour and finish, and so sue her psychiatrist.

"I was OK for about 6 months, and then I went into protracted withdrawal," she said.

Burns experienced ringing in her ears, twitching on her face and hallucinations that bugs were crawling all over her scalp.

10 years later, many of her symptoms have calmed down. Simply Burns decided she would spend her fourth dimension helping others through benzosupport.org and Benzobookreview.com.

Cindy, who asked ABCNews.com not to utilise her final name, found assistance through Burns and her Web site last year. Like many people with benzo withdrawal symptoms, Cindy said the only sign that she wasn't crazy were others on the Internet with like symptoms.

"Three years agone, I was a very, very healthy 49-twelvemonth-old," said Cindy, of Rhode Island. "I never had a psychiatric history; I never was on any psychiatric drugs. Never on any drugs, really."

Cindy's gynecologist first prescribed her Valium after she hit a tour of insomnia with menopause. It worked, but eight months later, she began to feel depressed and have rashes. Cindy said her medico told her she could quit taking the drug if she liked, so she did.

Three weeks later, Cindy said she couldn't stand or walk without holding on to a wall, and she had inexplicable feelings of physical fear. Somewhen, her two college-aged children found her unresponsive on the floor. They wrapped her up in a blanket and took her back to the gynecologist.

"I said, 'I demand to go to the hospital,'" said Cindy. "She told me to get dwelling."

Cindy said she has recovered slightly but is still so disoriented that she has problem reading and writing. Somewhen, she had to quit her task as a social worker.

"It took four months. I literally lost my listen," she said.

Withdrawal Can Pb to 'Derealization'

In addition to the fright, Cindy said she went through a "depersonalization," where people and objects appeared unreal and untrustworthy to her, as if she was in a dream world.

"Nothing was right," she said.

Now, Cindy said, she mistrusts doctors, and volition absolutely refuse to take another drug again. Instead, she relies on emotional back up from Burns while her body slowly recovers.

Burns and Moran acknowledge their online support groups accept stirred mild controversy with people'south doctors for the medical advice about tapering doses of drugs. However, they said all hold their sites tin provide initial emotional support to people struggling with withdrawal.

"Don't allow the horror stories become to you lot," said Burns. "Nosotros've got lots of people who go better."

Alison Kellagher is one such person. She took benzodiazepines for 17 years, originally just to care for a couple of panic attacks she had in a new job.

"I went to a psychiatrist and he merely immediately prescribed a Xanax, and it was to accept every mean solar day," said Kellagher. "Information technology helped for a number of years, but equally the dose got higher, the side outcome of depression became stronger."

Kellagher somewhen decided to stop, and fifty-fifty went to a detox program to help her slowly taper off the drugs. Even so, the years had taken their toll and she experienced withdrawal.

"And then, I was in a profoundly alerted consciousness, immediately after stopping," said Kellagher. "It was the feeling of being in terror, but it was just a physiological state of terror."

Kellagher said she thinks she's lucky considering it only lasted several months.

"The offset iii months was 24-7. Then, information technology started to allow up a little chip past three to six months. By a twelvemonth, I was pretty comfortable," she said. "I wasn't 100 pct, but I was operation and feeling near normal."

The feel motivated Kellagher, who worked in the bicycle vesture manufacture, to become a master'south degree for counseling. Now, she coaches people through protracted benzodiazepine withdrawal over the telephone.

"People commonly need some help keeping hope alive," said Kellagher, who runs the site stoppingbenzos.com. "It'southward hard not to get bogged down in low, because information technology's a long process."

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Source: https://abcnews.go.com/Health/DepressionNews/story?id=6354685&page=1

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