The reason you don't notice a day or two missed dose is because Clonazepam has such a LONG half-life in the body. It is still there during the skipped periods.

Wait a week or more and you will notice something. It appears that your anxiety disorder may be due to a defect in the GABA
system, and you have a threshold minimum you need to provide with the drug. And there is a big difference in the actions of
habituation vs addiction. They are not the same. In habituation the body NEEDS a drug to function and withdrawing it causes regression and increased symptoms. Addiction is a craving and desire for the drug for euphoric/enjoyment purposes. The body rewards the use of the drug with a dopamine hit, and thus the dopamine release is the trigger for the craving. Doctors often do not understand this difference, and misuse the terms often.
So do lay people.

The benzodiazepines have anti-convulsant properties. I have an explanation of this in the Subforum:
I strongly suggest you learn how neurons work:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post828704-7.html
and
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/post829772-9.html

Anti-convulsants are commonly used in the treatment of nerve pain. They dampen signals. When suddenly removed, they will cause a rebound of pain.

And yes, it is not an easy path...to discontinue this drug. Everyone who has to do this for some reason, suffers in many ways.

It will be your choice as to whether you want to continue in the tapering to zero of this drug.

There are supplements that help with anxiety, and hence PN as well, by affecting GABA receptors in a more natural way.

1) Theanine which is in green tea. Joano brought to this forum information from Dr. Blaylock's newsletter about this in fact.
This is the thread:
http://neurotalk.psychcentral.com/sh...light=theanine
Since then I've been using Doctor's Best Theanine at bedtime with good results. My effective dose is 300mg. Amazon has this at affordable prices.

2) Another useful supplement is PharmGABA. Normally GABA is not absorbed orally, but there is a new form, from Japan that has some oral activity. I tried this last spring when our kitten went missing...it was a very upsetting, stressful time. And this product worked well for me. I've had anxiety at times during my adulthood, and I think this comes from my unpleasant childhood.
This is not expensive if you get it at Amazon. I took one capsule twice a day. It is not addicting and has no sedative effects on me. Doesn't affect driving or create sleepiness.

Either or both of these can help with anxiety, and I do think the Theanine at least, helps with sensory pain issues as well.
I never needed the higher doses that Dr. Blaylock recommended.

As far as the elderly go.... Doctors don't understand drugs at all. Many elderly develop sleep problems, and are given this drug or another benzo (this practice is less common today however). But we now know benzos are BAD for the elderly because they cannot clear the drug as well as a younger person. So because melatonin is used to fix sleep cycles it is tried. But the CAUSE of the sleep disturbance in the elderly may be low B12 levels. Methylcobalamin is the cofactor in synthesizing melatonin in the body. People over 50 or those taking acid blocking drugs start to lose B12 because of poor absorption due to lack of intrinsic factor in the stomach. Intrinsic factor is the carrier of B12 from food into the bloodstream. Low B12 then leads to poor sleep because melatonin cannot be made properly. So melatonin WOULD help these people. But it does not work like benzos do biologically. So you cannot compare them. It is like apples vs oranges.
Both drugs promote sleep...but by different mechanisms.

So the bottom line is you or your doctor don't know what will happen if you get off the clonazepam completely. The initial rebound can be worse than your typical baseline pain. That would be temporary hopefully, and you would return to your baseline with time. Drugs that affect receptors in the body can CHANGE the number of receptors present. We know that opiates do this. If the benzos do this, and I suspect they do, considering how hard it is to get off them completely, it is possible you have changed your system in a more or less permanent way.

You will have to decide what to do. If you are thinking of a "cure"... that is not likely for you with Cipro as a trigger. Basically PN is for life. We all understand that here. Once nerves are damaged they often do not return 100%. Where severed nerves grow back, they will often misfire and send odd signals as a result. So accepting that you will always have some form of PN discomfort is important. You will need to learn to deal with some level of chronic pain. Many of us do that daily.
You can control anxiety to some extent with breathing exercises, and mindful meditation.
This is a link to a very good exercise that was posted on RSD forum recently. It is a guided example of diverting your mental attention away from pain or noxious stimuli.
http://www.openfocustraining.co.uk/exercise.html

I've used similar relaxation (auto hypnosis) techniques for over 30 yrs. They can be very effective.