What you should know about Klonopin

People, in general, don’t like to talk about their problems, but we all know what anxiety is, since we have all experienced it. If you even try to remember a situation in which you were anxious, it is likely you will be uncomfortable from the very thought of it. That being said, you can only imagine what life must be like for the people who are frequently anxious and who suffer from one of the several anxiety disorders. Thankfully, today we have the medication to control both the acute and long-term effects of anxiety and the medication we will talk about today is one of the most popular in the world – Klonopin.

Klonopin is the common name for Clonazepam, introduced as a generic drug to the US market in 1997. In essence, it is a benzodiazepine type of medication with anxiolytic, anticonvulsant, muscle relaxant and hypnotic properties. What does all this mean, you are probably asking yourself? Simple, anxiolytic means it alleviates the anxiety, anticonvulsant means it tones down the convulsions that may occur in patients with seizures. As a muscle relaxant, it relaxes the entire body, which can frequently be stiff and unusually tense after an onset of panic, and as a hypnotic, Klonopin has the effect of slowing down the patient and frequently putting him to sleep.

Klonopin is considered to be one of the most long-acting benzodiazepines insofar that it has a very long half-life, which may be anywhere from 18 to a staggering 50 hours. This means it will not leave your body for a couple of days after you take it and throughout it will have some effect. Its slow onset indicates that, as a drug, Klonopin peaks about four hours after ingestion, with a high effectiveness rate and low toxicity.

As any other benzodiazepine, Klonopin is a potent and prescription-only drug and you shouldn’t even consider taking it after your own initiative. In order for you to be prescribed Klonopin, you must first go see your physician and discuss your issues, and only after a thorough psychiatric exam, in combination with a physical, can they determine which drug is the best for you. Only after they recommend Klonopin should you start worrying about your treatment. Since Klonopin, as a high potency benzodiazepine, can cause tolerance and dependence, its recommended period of use is up to four weeks.

Klonopin is used to treat a variety of medical issues, including, but not limited to, anxiety and panic disorders, mania or acute psychosis, spasticity, various forms of parasominias (sleep disorders such as night terror), even epilepsy.

Finally, like most other benzodiazepines, Klonopin causes certain side effects. The most common ones are drowsiness, decreased motor performance and euphoria, followed by loss of libido and paradoxical effects such as irritability and aggression and psychomotor agitation. In extreme cases Klonopin can cause seizures, behavioral disturbances, psychosis and liver damage, and the most common long-term effects of the drug are depression, loss of libido and, ironically, disinhibition.

First of all, we hope that you do not actually think that you will learn everything about Klonopin in this short article. Instead, it is an article that will provide you with the basic info on this medication, giving you an idea what it is used for, what kind [...] Continue Reading…