Opinions - Clonazepam (Klonopin) - the least of the benzo's?

[Halcion Dreams]

I've never quite understood the popularity of this med. I've taken legal scripts for this as prescribed and felt absolutely nothing...and I've had friends of friends who took like 20 (0.5 mg) pills at once and it didn't do a thing. Could this be because of the long half life?

Anyone else find virtually no effect with this med?

[darkbreed]

SWIM think clonazepam is one of his favorites. He gets he 2mg ones. A couple of those should get you pretty nice and mellow, its a pretty strong benzo (thus it comes in down to 0.5mg ones). SWIM mostly use this for is medical purpose though and not to get high as he got plenty of other benzos to chose from in larger quantities (diazepam, midazolam, flunitrazepam, alprazolam, bromazepam among others).

[Jatelka]

Prefix changed to "Opinions". "Experiences" should be reserved for trip reports/ descriptive experiences

[Blur]

Agreed,

Swim has been scripted 2 mg of klonopin for 4 years and has never been able to detect any discernable effect (unless swim runs out). This is mainly due to the set of kinetic parameters that describe the behavior of the drug in the body. Too many people take half-life as the end all be all when in actuality it is much more complicated. Valium, for example is listed as having a very long half life ( which is actually nordiazepam, not diazepam). The parent molecule diazepam is rapidly absorbed into the brain due to its lipophilicity and rapidly redistributed back out into the bloodstream. Binding to BZD receptors is what causes the benzodiazepine effect, not how much is in the bloodstream. So, it matters little if a drug metabolite has a 10 or 100 hour plasma half life in regards to subjective perception after a decently sized initial dose of the parent drug. If it is not binding to benzo receptors in the brain the drug exerts no discernible effect (other than steady state readsorption into the brain prevent fairly immediate withdrawal symptoms.) Klonopin iss absorbed quite slowly and has triple the volume of distribution of any other benzo on the market. What this means is that it is very lipophilic (fat-loving), so when you take a dose in mainly hangs out in fatty areas of the body. The VOD is a kinetic paramater that quantifies the volume of blood plasma a given quantity of drug would need to be totally dissolved.

With klonopin, being quite lipophilic and hydrophobic, only small amounts are released from fatty areas of the body into blood plasma and finally the brain where it actually exerts an effect when blood plasma levels get to be low. Pharmacokinetics is an incredibly complex subject and the overly simplified view I just gave is rife with assumptions. We just don't have the mathetmatical capability to model such complex systems. Every assumption we make throws the answer off another order of magnitude. To further complicate things, drug metabolism via liver enzymes, body composition, drug-protein binding, etc. vary from person to person so what does this mean exactly? Pretty much nothing, unless you want to measure it in yourself and even the same individiual can display vastly different pharmacokinetic behavior towards xenobiotics from week to week.

Even based on what we understand it still doesn't explain why some people love klonopin while others feel nothing. Personally SWIMfeels jackshit from klonopin and doesn't care for benzos in general although if he had to choose it would be oxazepam, then xanax, then valium. Oxazepam has a unique euphoric quality that is absent in any other benzo swim has tried. Unfortunately it is rarely prescribed.

[Politicalchalk]

that's interesting, swib, because Swim's cat never got anything off of oxazepam...she took 6 capsules (all the Rx was for?)....and in it's studies, patients with a benzo or sedative abuse history were NOT able on average to tell the difference between this drug and placebo.

Swim's cat feels there are times when benzos comes in handy, but it's not a body buzz like say, hydrocodone would give one. It's more of a chill and go "ahhhh".....like at a piano recital, listening to the notes she's NOT playing.

Swim was originally Rxed clonazepam 1.5 mg/day. People accused him of being drunk, his memory went to shit, and got very, very sleepy, so they switched him to lorazepam, which he tolerates much better. Swim's neurologist said sometimes people don't react well at first, but to wait a week or so, and try again. For some people at least, it works.