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Can you feel klonopin hit your brain ?

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
I'm experimenting with taking sublingual .125 mg of klonopin if I get woke up in the middle of the night. I'm living
in an apt complex with noisy neighbors. I'm taking a little melatonin, 1 - 2 mg and 25 - 100 mg
of 5htp every nite right now just because I don't seem to be creating these on my own. I'm 56 so this
may be the norm. I've taken higher doses of mel, 5htp and theanine, but this seems to be enough for now. Kow ..

At any rate, when the klonopin hits my brain, in about 15 - 20 minutes, , it feels like all the tension in there just vanishes. It's exactly like you've expect a strong muscle relaxer to work. I'm asleep within a minute or two afterwards. And then i sleep for 5 - 7 hours.

I don't get this from theanine which is the natural alternative for klonopin. I have myoclonus too if that makes a difference.

Anyone else ? Does this mean I need it ? Tx .. X
 

CJB

Senior Member
Messages
877
There seems to be a highly varied response to this class of drugs from what I've read here. It's something I asked my doc to try and it improved my sleep dramatically, and yes, I feel it's just what my brain needs. I've been taking it regularly for over a year and have never needed to increase the doseage. I have .5mg tabs and take one or two at night and occasionally I fall asleep without it.

The prescription was also written for me to take one during the day, but I haven't for a long while.

I'm all for pulling out all of the stops when it comes to sleep. If we can't sleep, we can't heal.
 

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
I'm with you on sleeping. I absolutely can't function without it.

You're right about it feeling exactly like what my brain needs. I've eliminated all known excitotoxins
out of my diet and yet my brain still likes this drug.

I don't seem need it unless I've been woken up tho. Once my startle response has kicked in, I can't
turn it off at night. If I took more melatonin, theanine and 5 htp after getting woke up I would still be awake for 2 - 3 hours easily. But the klonopin works within 20 minutes. : )

Hmmmm, I wonder if the same thing is happening during the day. I know if I really
get stressed out over something, I can't shut down my reaction. So, I'll try klonopin for that. But what about
taking away the little stresses with this ?
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
I really like klonopin.. it made me also feel a little bit joyous.. like glowing and did slow things down for me in a nice way.. calmer. (but not to the point where I was going to get addicted to it just due to the feeling I got from it). Yes I used to feel it hit my brain.

I personally thou wouldnt take it for the reason you are doing right now. I'd wear ear plugs if its noise waking and stimulating the neuro excitability thing. Take care

It is good thou for neuro excitoxicity in which one hasnt got any other way to prevent or stop.. It certainly did help me quite a bit when I was on constant edge (in my case for no reason at all). It did get me over a bad stage of the ME with a lot of neuro over stimulation happening which it helped to calm down.
 

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
Thanks for replying. I'm shocked at how much better it works than my sleep supplements for
eliminating my excited state of mind. Esp the fact that it only takes me 20 minutes to be sound asleep again.

I don't remember it working this well when I took it everyday. In fact, I had to take other meds like
Trazodone, benadryl and skelaxin, with it so I could sleep
and even that didn't always work. That was before eliminating most toxins from my diet tho.

My reaction time was too slowed down all day yesterday tho. So not something I want to use at that dose
regularly. I'm going to try less next time.

I'm going to invest in one of those white noise machines. Ear plugs of any kind hurt my ears.

Tx .. X
 

soxfan

Senior Member
Messages
995
Location
North Carolina
Klonopin works great for over-stimulation. I come home from work extremely wired and sometimes have to take quarter of a 1mg to calm my body down. It does take about half hour. If I can't fall asleep at night even with lunesta I will take another quarter and it is sometimes the only thing that will knock me out...
 

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
Hi sox,

It's fascinating to me just how well it works for calming that excited / hyper state. I was on this for 16 years and
it never worked this well. I was still hyper and buzzing all the time. Mostly gluten but caffeine
was keeping me riled up and ready to pounce too. Now I feel bad for all the people in my life who had to put up
with me.

So, I took 1/2 of a .125 mg
tab at 3 am this morning and it worked without giving me the head rush .125mg did. I'm feeling drugged
still after eating so hopefully this will wear off soon.

I tried this after trying another 2mg melatonin + 100 theanine + 50mg 5 htp an hour earlier. The supplements
made me feel sleepy but didn't induce sleep.

Tx for replying everyone. It's great having others totalk about this with .. Tc .. X
 

xks201

Senior Member
Messages
740
I am of the opinion that a neurotransmitter test would be a good idea (pee test) before one tries psych drugs. Low dose klonopin is fairly benign as far as side effects go. It is probably ironically one of the psych drugs with the least side effects when taken in small doses. I have no doubt in my mind that neurotransmitter abnormalities are involved in CFS.

Even the scientists argue over what CFS at its heart is - a serotonin excess, a serotonin upregulation from a possible serotonin deficiency, a dopamine deficiency....? And then one can make the argument that without adequate gaba and serotonin, dopamine will convert to adrenaline at an alarming rate. This is definitely a possibility.

For me at least I can't really function that well on klonopin during the day.

In the end I think that the majority of CFS patients are not producing key neurotransmitters. A whole field of medicine is about to evolve which will focus on bacteria that produce specific neurotransmitters. For example I believe Reuteri produces GABA. Killing off these bacteria with antibiotics and setting up the terrain for a bacterial infection (where good bacteria are dying sufficiently enough from antibiotics to lose their power over the bad bacteria in the gut) could produce CFS. I don't know what is stopping this new form of medicine, possibly the FDA. In any event a pee neurotransmitter test is something I would like to see for myself since two people I know with CFS both had low serotonin levels. I know that in the presence of an infection serotonin can be destroyed in the gut to the point of there being virtually none. There was a study showing a man with no serotonin or dopamine. Restoring his serotonin levels made him go from fatigued and sleeping all day to normal. Personally, 5-htp puts me to sleep. I think a lot of it depends on if it is getting to the brain or not. There is no guarantee 5-htp will cross the blood brain barrier, especially in the presence of genetic mutations. As I mentioned before it is possible that in serotonin deficiency the receptors become so upregulated that the slightest amount of 5-htp will put someone to sleep. I am just posing this idea, and it is just one idea, not a blanket statement.

I do believe though if an intelligent study was done comparing neurotransmitter levels via urine test and their metabolites of CFS patients and controls, the treatment of this disease would have progressed much further than it has.
 

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
I felt drugged all day from 1/2 of my .125 mg of klonopin. When I'm up to experimenting with this again, I'll take 1/4
of this tab at bedtime and see how it works. I slept like a log all nite last nite after taking 2 mg melatonin and 100 mg 5 htp.

I wouldn't call this a psych drug anymore than I'd call any drug which affects our neurotransmitters a psych drug.
Granted some psychs probably consider it a psych drug but they're known for over reaching when it comes
to what falls into their realm. Not all psychs make this mistake tho.

I'm more inclined to try a supplement or med to see how it works in my body as opposed to using generalized studies
on a group on people. Our chemicals are individual and change based on other chemicals. So what we need
today may not be what we need tomorrow or next week.

Tc ..x
 

taniaaust1

Senior Member
Messages
13,054
Location
Sth Australia
For me at least I can't really function that well on klonopin during the day.

It often depends on how much one is taking. Some well known ME/CFS specialists have said that if it is making one feel tired or not functional during the day, it often means the person is taking too much and dose should be cut back.

Some of us only need like an eighth of the smallest dose of it. It varies in all of us.
 

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
I took 1/4 of .125 mg last nite and don't feel as hung over but I still have klonopin head. Even tho I was tired,
I forced myself to get out and run errands for 3 hours so I was unable to sleep thru the nite.

An 1\8 didn't work last nite but I was jazzed up from being on the go so long. Maybe it takes a lot of
adrenaline to keep my body functioning and adrenaline doesn't clear easily ?

Btw. I was prescribed klonopin for myoclonus.

Tx .. X
 
Messages
19
Location
Taiwan
I dont understand how Klonopin something that makes you feel sleepy helps with something like CFS!! I am sleepy all day, a klonopin is bound to knock me the **** out???! not perk me up. Have I misunderstood something here?

I understand that klonopin calms the nerves down in some way and this might stop us feeling tired by allowing our brain to 'relax and recuperate' if done correctly in small doses. If this is not the case I will seriously look into using this klonopin.

thank you
 

xchocoholic

Senior Member
Messages
2,947
Location
Florida
Klonopin induces sleep if I'm over stimulated like from a loud noise in the middle of the nite
and can't fall asleep. I don't normally take it. Even 1\4 of the .125 mg tablet leaves me feeling drugged
for 24 hours ..

I was prescribed this drug for myoclonus and a seizure disorder, probable tonic clonic. I take it as
needed.

Sleepiness during the day can be from food intolerances or blood glucose problems. Wheat / gluten
Caused me to have narcolepsy for about 16 years but it went away only 7 - 10 days after removing
it from my diet. Your trigger could be any food tho ..

A sharp drop in blood glucose will cause sleepiness. A gtt + insulin can diagnose glucose problems.

Tc .. X

Ps. This thread wasn't meant to encourage anyone to use this drug without just cause. All drugs have side effects.
 

Calathea

Senior Member
Messages
1,261
Please be careful - this is a highly addictive drug. What tends to happen with benzodiazepines is that the effect wears off, so that higher and higher doses are needed to get the same result. Coming off them is well-known for being nightmarish. Yes, you will find people who say that they are fine, but the risk is still there. Personally I am very careful not to take any benzodiazepine for longer than a few days in a row.