Hey people,

I was just reading the post about benzo withdrawl and I clicked on the link suggested. In it the doctor says some mighty scary things about long term use of benzos.

First of all, I'll say I am a full fledged diagnosed anxiety disorder/OCD person. I've been on every medication and non-medication treatment you could imagine. I was first diagnosed (had it years before that but lived with it) in 1995. I was so bad I had to be put in the hospital. I was very, very against any kind of medication because I had worked in the medical field for years and had seen people who started on one medication, then two, then another med for the side-effects, etc., etc.. I also had phobias about what the meds would do to me.

Anyway, initially, i was put on paxil and klonopin and at that time, I needed high doses of both. Over time, I just naturally reduced the amount of klonopin until i got to .25mg. I was on that for a few years. In 2002, I went off both the paxil and the klonopin because I lost my health insurance. I had a horrible time getting off the paxil but I didn't have too bad of a tme getting off the klonopin.

I was med free until 2004 until I had a really bad relapse of my symptoms. I couldn't eat, sleep or leave the house, the anxiety was so bad. I didn't really want to but I went back on .25 of the klonopin and it was increased to 1mg for a short time.

Now I'm down to .5mg of klonopin at night. I was okay with that dose along with Wellbutrin for the depression. Now, I'm wondering of some of the memory problems, lethargy, etc. I have from time to time are from the klonopin. I couldn't tell from the article if klonopin is a problem in such a low dose long term.

Taking the klonopin really gives me a better quaility of life in terms of the anxiety but if it's giving me other problems or will give me other problems, I'd consider going off it again. I don't like taking it or PRN because if it's too sedating that way for me, even in a low dose. I've tried the other benzos but none of them worked as well as the klonopin and the others gave me more side-effects.

Any thoughts or experince would be appreciated.

I do believe Klonopin leads to some memory loss. I am a living example of it. However, I can't say whether or not a tiny dose like that will have any real impact on memory. I never noticed lethargy, so that could be another medication you are on.

Yes, I think it causes memory loss. Not sure.

I don't remember if it does or not.