# Does benzo tolerance ever go back down?



## Nogy (Feb 13, 2011)

I have a long history of drug abuse with opiates and benzos. I've noticed that if i stay off of opiates for a month or so then my tolerance basically goes back to baseline. This doesn't seem to be the case with benzos though. Today was my first time taking a benzo in about a month....i took 3 mg of clonazepam, and was pretty disappointed as i barely felt anything. It did seem to calm my nerves some, but i was expecting more since 3 mg is suppose to be a fairly high dose.

The only reason im troubled by this is because i think i might be able to get a script for clonazepam sometime soon. My mothers gp recently prescribed her a script for 1 mg clonazepam a day, and my mother has scheduled an appointment with her pdoc for me...and shes going to go with me and explain to her doc that my anxiety is even worse than hers (i recently tried committing suicide because i can't handle this anxiety anymore). 

So anyways, i guess my question is "does benzo tolerance ever go back down or no"?


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## polardude18 (Oct 13, 2009)

Opiates are something I can not give advice on but I can help give you some insight on benzos. If you take a benzo and begin to build a tolerance to them, this generally does not go away. Now if you go a few months or so without them it can go down a bit but then it will quickly go back up. So really once you build up a tolerance there is no going back. Sorry to be the one to tell you this I am sure this is not what you wanted to hear, lol.


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## metamorphosis (Dec 18, 2008)

No, it doesn't go away. Especially when you have an addictive personality! You will be back up to previous levels in no time at all. It's just playing with fire.


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## Nogy (Feb 13, 2011)

Thanks for the replies guys... i was hoping for a different answer but i was pretty sure that it would never go back down. I guess if i do get a benzo script then i will just not take them everyday and then take a larger dose PRN for really bad anxiety provoking situations


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## metamorphosis (Dec 18, 2008)

You know what to watch for; Increasing the dosage, using it more frequently and of course tolerance. If benzos aren't used as prn at a strict dose, than it's almost inevitable that tolerance will increase with time. For example, I have only read a few anecdotal reports of people staying on like .5 or 1mg of klonopin for years and being fine with it's effectiveness.


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