I am the poster child for anxiety. I doubt there is anyone in the known universe with worse anxiety than me. I have been to the hospital about 12 times in the last two months for it! Every time the ER docs will inject me with Ativan and within a few minutes I am more or less calm and sleepy. You would think my regular Pdoc would have gotten wise and already given me benzos a long time ago but NOPE. He always has refused.

Well, 2 nights ago I was out of town and had a terrible anxiety attack. I was in a club and began running around all crazy back and forth to the bathroom. I would go to the bathroom, splash water on my face, then count my pulse (130), then back out to the table to sit with my friends. I told them "bear with me I am going crazy again." I was the one driving and I told them "LETS GO NOW," so we did. It pissed them off, but I had no choice. I had a 1 1/2 hour drive home. Well, I was shaking like a leaf on a tree, I mean SHAKING all over, almost like I was having convulsions. It was all I could do to drive. I almost went off the road a couple of times. (I had not drank anything!)

Well, after about 2 hours of dealing with this at the restaurant and then at the club and then in the car, I decided to stop at the ER in the next city over. Well, when I pulled into the ER my heart was JUMPING and I could HEAR it swooshing in my chest. It was palpitating and missing beats. I ran into the ER and told the clerk, "I am HAVING a HEART ATTACK, HELP." To make this short, she got a nurse who took my vitals, then they made me wait 2 hours to see a doctor. The doctor did the EKG and said everything was normal with my heart. He told me to go home and get a cardiologist appointment just to be sure. He said "you look like a healthy guy and I dont think you are crazy." I am a 27 year old man, by the way.

Well, I was more or less calm, but my heart rate was still around 100 at a resting pace, which is still too high. I still had 1 hour to drive home. Well, about 10 minutes into the drive, here it came again.. FULL BLOWN TERROR and doom. My heart was racing and pounding and swooshing and this time my chest was HURTING like someone had just beat me with a stick. It was all I could do to drive. This was about the 5th hour of straight anxiety attacks!!!!

Well I toughed it out, took my friends home, then went home myself. I tried to lay down but could not because my chest was KILLING me. At about 4 AM I decided enough is enough and went to my local hospital's ER. (They all know me in there and think I am a nut job. I sometimes hear the nurses laughing behind my back). This was about the 10th time I went in there in the past 2 months. Anyway, the doctor comes in and the first words out of his mouth are "Are you hearing voices or seeing things?" I said "No, I have NEVER heard voices in my entire life, man." He then says sorta sarcastically "do an EKG and we will go from there." They did the EKG, it was normal, and they did bloodwork and it was normal, yet my chest still hurt like hell. He told me, yet again, that this was an anxiety attack, but there was a very slight abnormality on the EKG that he wanted me to see a cardiologist about. He said it was probably nothing. He gave me ativan and within 15 minutes I was sleeping on the ER bed. Anxiety gone.

Well, the next day I got to see my Pdoc. I told him all about this and he FINALLY (jumps and shouts) prescribed me a benzo!!!!!! WOW! He gave me Klonopin and told me to take .5 mgs twice daily.

When I take the klonopin I am totally relaxed and sedated, it is great. I almost felt like slapping my pdoc in the head for not having done this WAY earlier. WHY oh WHY do these stupid docs refuse me benzos? Everyone I know who has a mental problem is on a benzo except for me. I have the worst case of anxiety disorder in America and they refuse me, yet give them like candy to those with depression etc..

The only catch is, he only gave me a months supply with no refills.

Thanks for listening to my rant.

Take care.

benzos are generally prescribed at the lowest refills necessary until your next appointment.. are you going back in a month? my pdoc for example will give me like 5 refills on zoloft while only enough refills til the next appointment for benzos

benzos are generally prescribed at the lowest refills necessary until your next appointment.. are you going back in a month? my pdoc for example will give me like 5 refills on zoloft while only enough refills til the next appointment for benzos
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Hey, sandos. I see you are on Zoloft and Trileptal. I am on those too. My pdoc took me off Prozac (told me to quit it cold turkey) and put me on 100 mgs of Zoloft. He also, of course, added the klonopin. I take 1200 mgs of Trileptal per day. How about you?

Be well.

I think some pdocs are terrified of getting their clients addicted to benzos. It sounds like you need it, though. I'm glad your pdoc finally pulled his head out of his butt and helped you. If he gives you any problems with re-rx'ing it next month then perhaps you should search for another pdoc. I've read on this board from other people that sometimes that is what it takes. Good luck.

FWIW, prozac has a really long halflife so there is no need to taper off it.

It's funny how different doctors are about benzos.


One time, when I was a student at the university, I had a severe panic attack. The university police came t investigate, and they called the ambulance. My blood pressure was 190 over something, and my heart rate was 130. My vision was blurry and I couldn't walk. I sat down on the grass. They wanted to take me to the local hospital emergency room, but I refused. Of course, I was still breathing (thanks to the asthma meds I too early that morning). My speech was rapid but coherent. I gave them the phone number of my pdoc and my the clinic of my g.p. They called both. The g.p.'s clinic said they would take as a walk in. They were also able to call my sister, who came to pick me up (I refused ambulance transportation). The police kept asking if I partied too much the night before or if I was on some drugs. I told them that it was just an anxiety attack.

So my sister takes me to my g.p.'s clinic. I am still trembling violently. I visit the restroom, and have a drink of water. I wait about 20 minutes. The nurse takes my blood pressure and heart rate. My blood pressure is down to 178 over something, and my heart rate is down to 100 beats per minute. Quite an improvement. My g.p. sees me for a couple of minutes and prescribes me benzos! This g.p. is known to be stingy with controlled substances. He prescribes me TEN of the generic Xanax (alprazolam) , 0.25 mg, Take 1 pill every 4 hours as needed for anxiety. No refills. I am still shaking and sweating and trembling violently. He also tells me that I should get the prescription filled and return to school that day for my next exam. He was totally serious, too! Another patient of his was prescribed #10 of the 0.25 mg generic Xanax and was told to BREAK THE PILLS IN HALF! Also, for patients with pain, he never prescribes anything stronger than Vicodin 5/500, and never gives more than #30, ALWAYS with no refills. He gives ibuprofen for sprained ankles.

I had a pdoc at that time, too (not associated with that clinic). I called him that day and left a message about the whole episode (with the ambulance, and the Xanax being prescribed, and how it didn't help. The pdoc did not return my call. I was paralyzed by anxiety. The 0.25 mg Xanax did not help at all. I never returned to school. I did not leave the house for the next few days.

God this thread is giving me an anxiety attack.

First. Let's all breathe ok? I mean, this is nothing life threatening, but it is damn unpleasant. So is my eye that is twitching at the moment from reading this.

Mr. 27 year old Klonopin Newbie:

There are a few things you might want to be aware of.

Your body will adjust to the Klonopin and you will want to have more. You will be writing here in a few months that your "stupid p-doc" won't give you a higher dose. So I have some suggestions for you.

See if cutting the .05's in half, and taking them every 4 hours (or as needed) helps at all. I do this. I find that sometimes, a whole one is too much, so I just take a half. You will be surprised how well a half works. And you lessen your chances for addiction.

You also should see a cardiologist for the "minor thing" just to be sure.

You should investigate exercise of some kind. I have found when having an anxiety attack, that a brisk walk helps a lot. I used to have them all the time when I was running only I didn't know what they were. My heart would take off without notice, and it would start pumping three times as fast as it had been. It didn't hurt, so I kept going.

I decided that I was either going to die from this "heart attack" or it was too scary to address. So I just kept running and eventually it went away. Later I found out these were panic attacks. I would be thinking about something stressful, and all of a sudden I would go into panic. Still do.

However, I require less Klonopin now that I exercise, meditate, make sure I have "time outs" every day, and cancel things that make me jumpy. In other words - one day I might feel fine about going out with friends, but on another day I might not. So I cancel.

I am a bit older than you are - so it's probably going to be tougher for you to learn this valuable lesson. However: Only you can prevent anxiety/panic attacks.

Good luck, and don't depend on the meds or the p-doc for too long. It's your life, not theirs.

Breeze

i am allowed to take up to 3mg klonopin a day for anxiety, however usually take 1-2. when i first started taking it, i used about 1mg, and that was about a year ago. i quickly got used to the 1mg and then needed a whole 1mg in the am and 1mg in the pm, then i started having .5mg in the morning, .5 in the afternoon, and 1mg before bed. now i'm having panic attacks at night because i wake up thinking someone is going to break in, so i take the 3rd mg. often i only take 1 in the whole day, like today, i haven't had any and will only have my night dose.

i'm just rambling about that to add to the fact that not everyone develops a high tolerance to the stuff or quickly develops tolerance. when i'm out of it and can't afford it and don't take it, i feel my symptoms and i also wonder if i feel physical withdrawl (probably), but i can handle it. i'm not a raving drug addict. i only asked for that 1mg increase in the beginning and now i'm taking that other 1mg prn.

i don't understand why pdocs are so weird about giving out benzos. my boyfriend had the worst panic attacks and also was a regular in the ER when his doctor finally gave him xanax. why not sooner? we have drugs available to help wtih panic and anxiety. sure, there is a whole lot we can do for ourselves, but especially when the problem is chronic or sudden, you need something on hand!

i get morning and night anxiety attacks. in the am i have to take .5 klonopin to calm down before i can think about getting out of bed. my heart races and blood pressure goes up, i feel like i'm going to die. i get that way now too when i wake up at night and am afraid of break-ins.

i'm sorry that your doctors are doing this to you. you are the customer and your health care choices are yours to make. my pdoc told me there is the chance of physical addiction and asked if i wanted to take the risk, and i said yes, so i was informed and making my own health care decision. i wish your doctor would do that and treat you like an adult.

loon