Without running it by me, without asking me how anxious I feel or even without making sure anxiety was covered by a different med, my pdoc decided that I needed to have 2mg K instead of 3. I need to use 3 or I wouldn't do it. There are times when I don't take all 3, but mostly during the day I take 1 and at night 2 (I get suicidal and anxious).

Is 3mg a huge dose or something? Is he afraid I'll develop a tolerance (I have in the past year needed more to achieve the same effect)?

Personally, I don't care what I'm taking as long as it keeps me stable and I'm not jumping off bridges or dancing naked on bars.

What is a good way to approach him, and not sound like a total drug addict, but to ask nicely why he decided I needed a doseage decrease and inform him that it isn't working?

Hey, maybe he'll give me Ambien or something to sleep!!! This could actually be the start of soemthing good over here! Since I take K mainly to sleep (and get through work when I am working), I think maybe some sleeping pills should be in order. lol

I'm on 6mg per day. Sometimes i need to take 8mg. So you're not on that high of a dose, i don't understand why your doc would want to reduce it if it was working (or was it?). It doesn't knock me out or make my sleepy btw. As far as i know i haven't developed a tolerance to it yet, it's still working well for over a year.

Tom

He/she is probably trying to see if you can cope on a lower dose. Its despicable however that he/she has done this without talking with you about it.

If it doesnt work out, return and say so. If you need the 3mg/day then you need it.

Everyone is different when it comes to benzos. I personally am currently taking 20mg valium up to twice per day as required. Some days I take 20, some days 40, and some days none. Its working quite well for me now. My p-doc prescribes it as 20mg up to 2 x per day prn. This gives me some flexibility as to how I take it.

Hey Loon! My pdoc keeps trying to cut my Klonopin dose. I am only taking .5 three times daily. He wants me to reduce it if I can handle it because he says after long term use, it could cause cognitive difficulties. Every time I try to reduce my dose, I keep having to go back. Even going down to 1.25 per day isn't enough. I don't see what difference it makes-.25 mg.?? At least he's not forcing me. My cognitive abilities are f$#$@ anyway because I smoked way too much of something for about 10-12 years. DUH....
What were you talking about? What was I saying? mel

Your PDoc should have talked to you about this. I know they would not keep my dd on it for very long because both of the PDoc's she's had said it's very addictive and they didn't want her starting to rely on it.

my pdoc has a walk-in hour a couple of times a week for quick visits with people who need additional meds/samples they've run out of, and I'm going to go on Monday, and one of our discussions needs to be the Klonopin. I need 2-3 mg/day. sometimes i don't need much and sometimes more. that particular clinic is very, very weird about benzos and stims too, and that is why i think he cut it and isn't treating my ADD. if i weren't poor and on public assistance i'd get a new medical team. not that they're not great, but I don't agree with some of their decisions in my treatment. like- treat my ADD, it will not magically go away...

shiny and pretty Loon

Loon:

I run into this with my p-doc too. She'll be really hard on me about my usage, and then she'll lighten up. The problem is I don't know who's driving sometimes. For example:

She recently bumped me to 2 mgs a day. This was huge for her. I take .5 sometimes during the day, and 1.5 at night. Sometimes that isn't enough. I've been having panic attacks at night for almost a year now. So I also need the extra bump.

So I ran out early and she told me I had to wait a day to get my re-fill. This really pissed me off. I have been running over a lot lately because of the stress of summer. We live in a tourist town and I run a tourist business. I spent the WHOLE HOUR telling her how the past week had really been rough, and then she pulled the "well not this time" bullshit on me.

After I left I called her and said I didn't think this is fair. She KNOWS I get stressed in the summer. She KNOWS I generally need more in the summer and now I have panic attacks too. So I said I would have to skim from my husband's supply ( no one read that ) and then pay him back and start with a deficit. NOT FAIR. I told her she was setting me up to fail and THAT was annoying not to mention kind of bullying.

She called the pharmacy and I picked it up twenty minutes later.

There are other things you can do though. This will help your anxiety, and also your p-doc will see you are trying to get your anxiety under control. Here are my standard suggestions:

• meditate sometime during the day
• watch some silly TV show before bed
• get into yoga. this is really helping me
• Listen to meditation music with headphones to help you fall asleep if this is a problem
• exercise
• take some down time every day and read, listen to music, watch TV

And here is one I just discovered. Don't pop on here first thing in the morning. I realized that when I come here, there are "issues" with my friends. That produces stress. So I don't always pop on here unless I'm feeling really good and can help, or need some support myself. You can really get stressed just reading everyone else's stuff too.

If you show your p-doc that you are actively trying to do things for your anxiety, then he/she will be more apt to give you Klonopin for the rough times.

And then if they don't - stand up for yourself! IMO some p-docs are just too weird about benzos. It's not the same with any two p-docs. And I'm at a loss as to why.

Breeze

Off topic:

I'm curious as to how that works, where a pdoc lowers something without you knowing about it. Is this stuff that's automatically called in somewhere? My pdoc usually asks me what I want for refills and usually obliges if it's within certain limits. I'm looking for a new pdoc and don't want to get in that situation.

Well my p-doc told me. And I'm assuming Loon's told her too with no discussion. Or, called in a lessor amount than usual.

You would want to ask about this up front with a new p-doc. Tell them you "had a friend" this happened to, vs. "you read it on a message board". That way the emphasis is on "this is a concern of mine that happened to a friend" vs "I read it on a crazy people's web site"