Malissa Pistillo shares her story of benzodiazepine harm and healing for our #BenzoStories series.
#BenzoStories is a series by our nonprofit, Benzodiazepine Information Coalition, sharing powerful stories of patient harm associated with prescribed benzodiazepines. To stay updated with the latest stories, subscribe to our YouTube channel here and follow us on Instagram here.
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I have been on klonopin for about 5 years. I started off with 1 mg at 4:00 pm and 0.5 at 5:00 am. My psychiatrist is tapering me off too quick. Even to the point of practically chastising me for my constant complaints about my intense anxiety.
I woke up in pure panic and a broken sleep pattern nightly. I woke up with intense anxiety so bad that I couldn’t sleep in any position that would relieve my Klonopin brain damage.
I was put on 150 mg of Seroquel for “ sleep “. It did help me sleep for about 5 hours straight but when I woke it became pure hell. The longer I was without my morning dose. The more the anxiety grew because your body uses adrenaline to wake you up in the morning
Combine my Seroquel rebound with a spike in adrenaline i have become mean and grouchy. I also took 50 mg of Atenolol for my a-fib. This eventually dropped my BP and Heart rate about 3 hours after I took it but my now tapered dose of Klonopin from 0.5 to .025 did nothing. A recent attempt to reduce my 4:00 pm Klonopin down to 0.5 was a disaster and my psychiatrist upped it back to 1 mg.
I feel like I’m going to explode all day. My entire body hurts. To top it all off I’m on Coumadin blood thinners for my mechanical aortic heart valve and a 3.9 torn aortic aneurysm.
I feel like I’m going to die because the adrenaline spikes are pushing against my aneurysm and mechanical valve gravely pushing against my heart valve and aortic torn aneurysm. I am 73 and never know if I’m going to wake up in the morning.
I am reduced to sitting in my recliner all day except for meal times. I have lost my appetite and eat tiny portions at every meal. I have had to have 6 teeth extracted and I have the remaining 7 to remove. Caries caused by my diabetes type 2 and the meds I take. My teeth are falling out of their socket or breaking . My vision is blurry and I have had to get hearing aids to hear with.
I feel like I’m wearing a tight cap on my head. My brain is destroyed because of Klonopin. My doctors treat my symptoms not the root causes. I’ve lost my will to live because it hurts so bad. I don’t want to spend anymore time suffering with this.
My original psychiatrist said that I was bi-polar and put me on Klonopin without explaining the symptoms I was eventually going to have. Its torture. Klonopin no longer treats my GAD. (Generalized anxiety disorder).
My body, especially my hands and feet, are constantly cold, even when it’s 80 degrees out.
I fractured my spine in my lumbar area and three vertebrae in my thoracic spine and 3 cervical vertebrae were injured when I fell 2 years ago. I also have 3 bulging discs.
So besides dealing with the Klonopin issue my body is shot.
I have something I barely ever had. Suicidal ideation. I don’t want to die but I don’t want to live like this anymore. But I’m a fighter and will do whatever it takes to survive. Anyway, that’s my story.
I love your message because it’s a message of hope. I’m struggling with hope and fear I may never be my old
self again. I do not like what I’ve become. I took myself off of Xanax last November and had been taking Xanax for 10 years. The last 5 my dose was 1mg 3x a day. I stopped cold turkey and was okay after the acute withdrawal phase, for about 2 months. Something changed at the beginning of the year and I suddenly had no energy, didn’t care about anything, have this annoying tinnitus that will not go away and basically I feel pretty hopeless. Please tell me it gets better. Of If it doesn’t get better, I’m not sure I will make it.