long acting benzos dont last all that long, IMO

some longacting benzos such as clonazepam are promoted to doctors as lasting 24 hours per dose

I dont think this is correct, the effective time varies a lot from person to person but, IMO, is seldom longer than 4 hours

so if having a very difficult day, a morning and lunchtime dose may be needed

dont take again before bed unless you cant get to sleep naturally

I am very against a dose daily before bed, as I dont think there will be much help the next day, and it may eventually stop you from being able to fall asleep naturally

remember that docs learn from their textbooks and drug company sales reps ,but not from anxiety sufferers

Clonazepam is usually dosed bid, and I know that one dose will last throughout my working day and begin to lose effectiveness as I approach the time for my next dose, which is 8pm. I take them roughly every twelve hours.

I'm not sure what you base your information on, Harry, but these meds have been around so long that I'm not sure it matters what the pharma reps tell doctors. There's a large body of research on the benzodiazepines. Many people do take a smaller dose three times a day. I take a small dose twice a day. It pretty much covers me. People are different and this is in the literature.

"Long-acting" is relative term to be compared to ativan or whatever. Klonopin/Clonazepam lasts a LOT longer than the "short-acting" benzos.

Anyway, you're not qualified to tell people they may need a lunchtime dose if they're having a bad day. That should be up to the doctor, and it's up to the patient to communicate with their doctors if they find themselves having a lot of those bad days.

Victoria
I am so glad you are working with your doc in this

LYN

debaser you haven't been on clonazepam for long, like any benzo they can end up actually giving you worse symptoms then you started with.

I had been on 2mgs per day for about 8months, at no time did any pdoc say to me do you know that's equivalent to 40mgs of valium. All they did was withdraw me each time I went in hospital usually in less then a week which ended up a nightmare and they' restart me.

Only recently when I was cut back to 1.5mgs I noticed I was getting more anxious during the day and that when I took my dose at night I could fel the difference. Hopefully by taking it during the day in more measured doses it'll work better and it also sets me up for a proper withdrawal.

I use to think clonazepam was a wonder drug, for short periods of time I still do but I don't believe pdocs should be handing it out for long term use.

Right on, C.

But when I was talking about Clonazepam I was referring not to my experience, but to what I've read. There's a significant body of research that strongly suggests there's not a tolerance problem with lower doses of that particular drug. A low dose would be what Roche and the FDA recommend for A/P disorder: .5 mg x2/day. There's a lot of evidence that suggests higher doses are risky in terms of tolerance. 2 mg would be considered a high dose. On my blog there's some links that are pretty interesting, and if you follow them you'll eventually get to the clinical studies I'm referring to. Numbers are numbers. These pills have been around a long time and there's lots of data.

Long story short, I'm not worried about Klonopin/Clonazepam making my symptoms worse. If that happens I'll definitely report it here and in my blog, but I don't think it will just based on the science.

I'm really interested in why a benzo, specifically Klonopin, shouldn't be used before bed, or as a sleeping aid. My script reads "take twice a day as needed", but my doc said take one before bed. Does it make a difference that I am not taking it for anxiety at night, but for muscle twitching?

I've noticed over the last 2 days that I get edgy when I'm due for my dose. I think for me it's a good indicator that the 24hr life doesn't work for me. I see my pdoc today and if all goes well I 'll go from weekly to fortnightly meetings, I'll ask him then.

I wish I had more time to post, but I have a long day ahead of me tomorrow.

Klonopin's half life is significantly longer than 24 hours, but that doesn't mean that it's therapeutic effects will last that long. The length of the therapeutic effect will vary from individual to individual, but for me it's somewhere in the 12 hour neighborhood. Interestingly, I normally get edgy around dose time, but tonight I was busy and didn't remember to take it on time...I was two and a half hours late. It didn't bother me at all until I noticed that I hadn't taken it! So some of the edginess we're experiencing might be psychological...hard to tell.

To SarahP: I've heard of a LOT of people who take their K dose an hour or so before bedtime, and their doctors told them to do that. In your case with the muscle stuff, that would seem like an entirely appropriate thing to do. What Harry failed to mention is that the sedation effects of benzos tend to go away with time if taking it regularly. That's what the studies say, anyway. If that's true for you then it shouldn't interfere with your natural ability to get to sleep. And if it did, so what? It's not going to mess you up for life if you stopped taking it. Eventually you'd return to normal, I'd think.

I just don't think there's much cause for alarm. While there are bad doctors out there, most of them are very bright and know what they're doing. If they say to take it at night, take it at night. Harry's notion that doctors don't learn from anxiety sufferers is puzzling to me. My doctor asked me questions every time I saw him for a refill, and I imagine that he does that with all his patients. Learning from textbooks? Sure they do, but they learn from their experience just like the rest of us. I've finally learned to trust doctors like I would any other professional. They're not Gods but very few of them are idiots who only learn from textbooks and pharma reps.