Should i follow my psychiatrist who prescribed me a 0.50 mg of clonazepam a day as my lifetime maintenance for my panic disorder? is it risky? thanks.

It depends: Clonazepam can be habituating: that is, hard to stop once you are taking it a long time. A variety of meds can help prevent panic attacks, like ssri's (prozac, paxil, (paroxetine) zoloft and others), snri's (effexor, cymbalta), and tricyclic antidepressants (desipramine, nortriptyline). If you have not tried some of these meds, you should consider getting another opinion, perhaps at a university department.

Clonazepam: If effective, Clonazepam 0.5 mg is a low dose maintenance treatment which will help control panic disorder and generalized anxiety disorder. The risks of long term effects on memory and concentration are documented and should be avoided by combining Clonazepam with other anti anxiety medications instead of increasing the dose, or by adding antidepressants which also lower anxiety.

Lifetime maintenance?: As a long-term treatment strategy it is not a bad idea as long as it controls your symptoms. Most people with anxiety disorders, particularly generalized anxiety are not prone to raising the dose of the medication. I think that is something that the psychiatric literature over exaggerates. If a person has chronic depression, and particularly if they've already had three episodes of major depression, we do not hesitate to recommend lifelong treatment. We would never tell someone with schizophrenia to stop their treatment. The same holds for bipolar disorder. I fully believe that there are many psychiatrists that think that antidepressants and therapy are all that is needed to treat the majority of anxiety disorders. I know several people like that in my area. However, anxiety disorders are often chronic. In that case stopping treatment can be as foolish and indeed as life-threatening as telling someone with schizophrenia to stop their medication. Although you may need lifelong treatment with something unless a cure is found, i would not at all be surprised if we have far better options for treatment in the future and that at some point in the future you may be switched to one of those as they come along.