Any Reactions From Weaning Off Clonazepam?

[looneymom]

I finally got the results back on my son's sleep study test. He was borderline but a machine was not recomended for him. They put a machine on him during the sleep study and it made his symptoms worse. The sleep disorder doctor visited with my son's neurologist about the night time medicines he was on and suggested that he be weaned off the clonazepam. Come to find out, Clonazepam can cause daytime sleepiness if used with other medicines. So it is in our best interest to wean him off this medicine if possible. Since I have cut back on the medicine, my son is not able to stand up at all. The neurologist says this is a side effect and it will go away. I hope it does not get any worse than this. Just wondering what other reactions I might could expect?

[HopeSprings]

There are tons of possible benzo withdrawal symptoms (you can look them up) and Klonopin in particular can be nasty. It's going to be hard to sort out what's withdrawal and what's POTS (I assume POTS?) because there is a lot of overlap in symptoms. Just make sure it's a nice slow taper and then give it some time after he's off (months even) to determine where he is at naturally. I hope it goes smoothly.

[Kellysavedbygrace]

I'd be interested to know more about what is going on in this case. What is the problem prior to weaning off? Why was he put on it? Did it help those symptoms? What, if anything will be used to address those original concerns. And one more thing, How much did he take before?

The reason I ask all these things is that I was originally prescribed this in a low dose .5 mg at bed to help w oscillations of the heart and to gently relax the CNS. It is a med that I've tolerated really well at that dose. It has also improved mysleep. What I didn't know is that our Mast Cells have benzo receptors which help to stabilize the cells so my Mast Cell doctor wants me to add two additional doses in the day time and work up slowly (starting at adding .25 2x a day in addition to my .5 at night until I get the side effect of sleepiness in the daytime- ideally he'd like me to get as high as 1.5 3x a day.).

So this makes me wonder is "weaning off" the right approach or "tapering down the dose" the right approach?

I did get off Clonazepam for 2 weeks while at Vanderbilt. I had no noticeable side effects other than it was a little harder to fall asleep. But maybe that was just because I was in a strange place.

[looneymom]

My son was put on this medication two years ago for a vocal tic (0.5 mg once a day). It worked great. He was kept on this medicine after he was diagnoised with POTS. However last summer his vocal tic got worse and he was put on Intuniv 1mg and eventally raised to 2 mg twice a day. He was taken off clonazepam for a short while but was but back on it because he had more trouble with the tic at night and could not fall asleep. He started taking 2 (0.5 mg) tablets at night and he was able to fall asleep again. His tic also went away. This last January he caught the flu and he started having problems getting to sleep and staying asleep. So he was put on 100mg of trazodone and 75mg of amitriptyline for pain. He was able to fall asleep but was still tossing and waking up several times in the night. He complained that he was tired when he got up in the morning and usually had circles under his eyes by noon. He had a sleep study in March. At this time he is down to taking 1/2 of a 0.5 tablet of clonazepam. My son seems to be more alert this morning. Will keep posting as weaning off continues. Hope this helps someone.

[margiebee]

I have taken a similar benzo med (Clorazepate otherwise known as Tranxene) for about a year now. I was originally prescribed it before my diagnosis of POTS, but as it turns out it does help with many of my POTS symptoms. My daily dosage was fairly small, 7.5 mg which is equal to 0.25 mg clonazepam, but of course I am very sensitive to meds so I feel that this dosage was quite effective on my body. I have been taking it daily since around this time last year, but I have managed to taper down to half of my original dosage, so I am currently taking only 3.75 mg (=0.125 mg clonazepam). Initially the taper did cause some symptoms, which seemed more like a ramping up of my POTS than anything else. Lots of dizziness and bowel issues. But I have found that taking the taper very very slow has been successful for me so far. I am not sure if your son's neurologist would be okay with a slower taper (I cut 10% of dosage every 2 weeks), but for my sensitive system that was the best option for me. For the record I am weaning off of clorazepate because of similar daytime sleepiness issues, I do think these are good meds but the physical withdrawal aspect is unfortunate.