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Hi guys,
In addition to recurring ME/CFS (which at the moment is mostly in remission thankfully), I also have generalized anxiety. I've been on and off klonopin for many years, and the last 5 years or so, I've been taking it nightly. It was 1 mg/night but I was able to ween down to 0.5 mg/night (not easily - tapering very slowly).
Anyone else notice how hard it is to get klonopin these days? I don't like being dependent on a drug that's getting increasingly harder to get and I often have pill anxiety if I travel or as I start to run out of pills cuz if I don't take it, my anxiety will be way worse (whether that's withdrawal or original masked symptoms, hard to know! Maybe some of both). I have to meet with my doctor at least once a year, and usually he tries to get me to consider alternatives. (Plus my gastro and ENT docs have both suggested I should get off this). However, I've tried many anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drugs, and either they don't work for me or they give me bad side effects (sexual side effects from all SSRI's, trazodone and remeron turned me into a zombie, etc). Klonopin just calms me down very effectively.
Anyway, I'm seeing my GP soon and anticipate he'll again offer alternatives. In the past he's offered lamictal and Gabapentin. I haven't tried either. Anyone have luck with either of those, or other alternatives, to control anxiety or ME/CFS symptoms? I know everyone is different, but would be interested in your experience.
Thanks,
~PW
In addition to recurring ME/CFS (which at the moment is mostly in remission thankfully), I also have generalized anxiety. I've been on and off klonopin for many years, and the last 5 years or so, I've been taking it nightly. It was 1 mg/night but I was able to ween down to 0.5 mg/night (not easily - tapering very slowly).
Anyone else notice how hard it is to get klonopin these days? I don't like being dependent on a drug that's getting increasingly harder to get and I often have pill anxiety if I travel or as I start to run out of pills cuz if I don't take it, my anxiety will be way worse (whether that's withdrawal or original masked symptoms, hard to know! Maybe some of both). I have to meet with my doctor at least once a year, and usually he tries to get me to consider alternatives. (Plus my gastro and ENT docs have both suggested I should get off this). However, I've tried many anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drugs, and either they don't work for me or they give me bad side effects (sexual side effects from all SSRI's, trazodone and remeron turned me into a zombie, etc). Klonopin just calms me down very effectively.
Anyway, I'm seeing my GP soon and anticipate he'll again offer alternatives. In the past he's offered lamictal and Gabapentin. I haven't tried either. Anyone have luck with either of those, or other alternatives, to control anxiety or ME/CFS symptoms? I know everyone is different, but would be interested in your experience.
Thanks,
~PW