You can lose B12 if you have low stomach acid from heredity issues or from using too much acid reducing drugs or antacids.
Vegan lifestyle too can cause low B12.
Your liver stores some for up to 5 yrs or less.

If you have relatives with pernicious anemia low B12 results
From that.

Do not discontiue your clonazepam suddenly. It requires a
Careful taper supervised by a doctor.

Thanks mrsD,
I dont know if it is important but this magnesium supplement contained citric acid. Is it possible that when I withdrawn it the body lost some acid which it was used to, although my doses were below the recommended ones? However I continued the multivitamin with a lot of B12, and I am eating foods containing B12, e.g. a lot of fishes.

I am tapering down clonazepam but its quite difficult.

I will try to check the B12 testing, but didnt find it till now in my country.

Can vitamin B12 defficiency have such extreme effects on cognitive issues as I described I have?

Hi smithy1928 and welcome to NeuroTalk

I have used Clonazepam for 14 years, sometimes on a relatively high daily dose and sometimes on an as needed basis (I currently am not using Clonazepam).

A few years ago I needed to have NeuroPsych testing done. The Dr. told me that Clonazepam can cause cognitive dysfunction. In my case Clonazepam was not the problem but something I needed to be aware of.

Are you on any other medications? Such as a cholesterol lowering medication? These have been known to cause cognitive dysfunction.

Best wishes on coming off of Clonazepam I have read it can be quite difficult. Please speak with your prescribing Dr. if needed. As has been mentioned slowly tapering down is very important.

The video link I gave you has dramatic true stories of patients with low B12.... You should watch it. One of the patients is a doctor himself and almost died from low B12. Even if you have to pause it several times due to your inattention issues, you should watch it.

The citrate in the magnesium supplement is not enough to cause any problem. Citrate is common in our foods.
Citrate is not acidic....it is actually alkalinizing (basic)

Thank you for your responses.

Snoopy, what was the neuropsych testing about? My only medication currently is clonazepam, which Im trying to lower but its very difficult.

mrsD, I was thinking today about B12 and checking some info. My cognitive problems started very suddenly over a few days, Im not sure if the B12 could have been depleted so fast, and they started immediately after withdrawing the magnesium supplement. Actually my cognitive skills came 100 % back in February when in 2 days I ate a big amount of almonds and cashew nuts. I tried them because of high magnesium content but anything could have helped. Almonds for for example a lot of vitamin E.

I checked also vitamin B12 in them but they dont have any. I didnt think it was normal to eat such a huge amount of nuts just to be able to think normally so I quit. Then I reinstated the previous antidepressant for month but it made my state even worse. Now the nuts cannot help that much, anyway its strange to eat so much of them for my brain working normally.

I have no idea what happened and cannot figure it out, as before nothing like this happened even slightly. Both problems, strong cognitive issues and akathisia seem for me to be neurological problems, but cannot figure out what can help, and for the brain even whats going on.

You only need 3 oz of almonds to get 270mg of magnesium.

The RDA for adults is 380mg-400mg a day.

Magnesium is typically calming to the nervous system. So I don't understand your problem at all.

SSRIs do cause your problem of Akathisia.
This should dissipate with time after you discontinue. Stopping SSRI drugs causes a withdrawal period... this should end in about 2 weeks.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Akathisia

I dont understand also why there are these cognitive issues, thats why Im trying to figure out. I just had strange reaction to that magnesium supplement, it wasnt calming for me, but dont know why.

Hi Smithy, sorry to hear of your neurological issues but glad you found us! Hope you get some answers soon.

In the meantime, just wanted to address the withdrawal from the benzo. Did your prescribing physician give you a written schedule for tapering down and off of this med?

Trying to withdraw from a benzo on your own is dangerous. You could have a clonic-tonic brain seizure if you titrate too fast, and even in the best of circumstances, there is a whole host of symptoms which accompany benzo withdrawal you should be aware of. These symptoms can continue way past the point where you are physically able to stop taking the benzo altogether; for example, 'depersonalization' and 'derealization' can last as long as 18 months. These and other effects are bloody awful, but it helps to know what's going on and what you can anticipate experiencing as you titrate down and OFF of this type of med.

For more info on this, as well as support while you are going through the process, there is a website you may want to check out called benzobuddies (I believe). As I recall, one aspect of meds in this class is that over time, they can actually start recreating the very symptoms they were originally designed to treat. You might be experiencing some of this - perhaps it will help to explain the cognitive issues you mention?

Regardless, I commend you on your decision to discontinue this med. Just wanted to make sure you were aware of some of the difficulties (cognitively and otherwise) you may be in for, and the importance of having a physician supervise your withdrawal. When I went through this a couple of years ago for lorazepam, I worked with an addictionologist rather than the prescribing physician (who frankly did not seem to know much about benzo withdrawal). This may be something for you to consider, depending on how willing and how able your prescribing physician is to oversee your withdrawal in all of its aspects.

Wish you the best of luck, both in the resolution of your neurological issues and in getting off of the clonazepam. Please keep posting, let us know how you're doing!

Alison

Hello Sea Pines 50,

thank you very much. I am doing it under medical supervision, however much slower than the doctor told me. Now I am for 3 weeks on 0,75 mg and cannot get lower. Akathisia started to worsen that it is almost unbearable so it looks that clonazepam was still suppressing it.

I am registered at benzobuddies, there are some useful information. I have been decreasing the dose the last probably seven weeks, but now really dont know what to do, as akathisia even worsened, and cognitive issues didnt improve.

I think with the brain maybe there is another process not related to clonazepam as I didnt see any cognitive improvement over the weeks, and anyway it started after withdrawing magnesium supplement.