Micro Tapering/Daily Tapering off of Klonopin – Success Story -

[Guest [Ka...]]

I was plagued with phobias. One biggie was driving. I never got my licences because of the fear, I was hit by a car while walking (when I was 16)and was in the hospital for a long time with lots of injuries.

 

Last time I tried to learn I was frozen in fear while on klonopin. I never thought I would ever drive.

 

I am happy to report that I am driving now and it is weird to be a new driver at my age  I am actually learning at the same time as my nephews. But I drive all the time, everyday, no fear no panic and I drive in rush hour Chicago traffic! I do look forward to driving.

 

Again this was a fear and phobia before ever taking klonopin. I had severe panic disorder, or I was told that. I had it before any medications. So I am sure why I don't have panic attacks and how my phobias disappeared. I am not counting the fears that developed during withdrawal, I also do not have them anymore.

[[de...]]

It is great to know that are people off this poison feeling ok. I´m feeling the pain you felt and when you know there are people just like you , you can start healing not just from the Benzo , but also you can forgive yourself and calm your mind.

 

Thak you for telling yor story.

[[bl...]]

Im so happy for you kay...

 

Bleedheat

 

[[Te...]]

A great success story, Kay, and thank you so much!! 

[[Gr...]]

Kay, I'm happy for you, and congratulations on your courage and major accomplishment of driving. 

[Guest [Ka...]]

So it has been over 9 months. I am in awe of how powerful benzos are. How they affect our system, our health and lives.

 

I'm doing well and last weekend I thought I would try some wine. I have never really been a drinker because I have been on medication for so long and was told not to drink while I was taking klonopin and before that I was taking phenobarbital. So I think I drank maybe two years out of my whole life!

 

So I had a half a glass of Sangria, and I had no reaction, I was relaxed, possible more than I should have been. Like I felt I drank more than a half of glass. but not more than a full glass. I went to bed later and no symptoms the next day. I am not sure when I will drink again, My birthday is this weekend so I might have a half of glass, maybe. I probably could have had a whole glass, I guess I am still wary of symptoms.

 

I have learned that there is an after process, a healing process after the taper. I feel better today than I did a month ago. It is like one day I realize that one of my symptoms is gone and didn't realize it was not happening.

 

But there is an adjustment back into normal living. I have been medicated over a good 20 years.

 

My last physical symptom is the shoulder or tendon. I get so aggravated with it. It is improve but slowly.  And my memory issues, I think they are a little better. Much better now than when I was tapering.

 

So all in all life is good, i'm trying to find my passion in life and am going from there.

 

If you are tapering:

Everyday you get further away from this drug.

Everyday you make progress even if you feel like you're not.

Each cut is a forever step closer to freedom from this drug.

Remember this, even if you feel sick, you are slowly marching away from this and you will eventually get there and be free and it is worth it.

Your day will come 

 

[[...]]

Thank you for your success story. I find it amazing how different we all are when it comes to tapering. Me? I just would not have had the patience that you showed, so our tapers were totally opposed. One (hopefully) learns what he or she is capable of enduring. Thanks for such a detailed entry and I'm sure it will inspire many to follow such a path for themselves. 

[[Fo...]]

Beautiful words, Kay. I can drink again myself, had five pints of cider last weekend and no hangover. I take a lot of milk kefir and think that helps mitigate the side effects. I really feel the hope and encouragement in your words and feel ready to write my success story now. God bless.

[Guest [Ka...]]

Formywifeandkids,

I am so glad to read your comment,I will look for your success story!

 

 

[Guest [Ka...]]

I reached one year off! Lots of healing. I posted in celebrations for my one year off post! 99 percent healed!

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=151429.0

 

Kay

[Guest [Ka...]]

I learned an important lesson. Even though I am over a year from tapering my CNS is still healing. i really got into the exercise kick, I pushed myself everyday and the intensity of my exercise was the most I ever had, more intense then before withdrawal. This I thought was a success, proof that I was all the way back.

 

What I learned was that a damaged CNS can get worse with over exercising, even a year away from the last dose.

 

I think I caught my mistake in time and have eased up the intensity and duration, my meals and my sleep. So now I realize That I do still have a damaged CNS and that I can't do high intensity and am "listening" to my body. After a few weeks of rethinking my exercise, meals and sleep schedule I am back to feel better.

 

I still exercise, but I have a pre workout snack for energy, I have a post workout 30 mins after. My workouts were too long, I checked. So I shorten them to no more than an hour a day. I took down the intensity a few notches and I monitor my water intake.

 

I was so engrossed with it all I was really doing much more than I should have been doing. And that could have really hurt me.

 

With my changed exercise my energy is coming back and I feel better and much more clear.

 

 

 

 

[[so...]]

Thank you, Kay, for your honesty and candor.  I will take your advice to heart when I am healed and, as my friend Patty says, keep my antennae up.  Just like recovering from surgery or illness, slow baby steps and working up is best.

 

Bless you, Kay.  Keep on healing!

 

Love, Sofa

[[B ...]]

I have not come to this forum on a regular basis. Due to the many opinions of taper methods I stayed away. At first I sifted through the many opinions. I did join Jana's group in July/Aug 2013  to start micro tapering. But I rather like the term “Daily Tapering”.

 

The taper was the right choice for me. I left the group midway and just took care of myself for the rest of the taper which was considerably many months.  I found certain things not true on my own and other things very helpful.

 

I started tapering the last day in July 2013 by December 2013 I was noticing lots of improvements however I did go through two frozen shoulders, one at a time and that was painful.

 

I had all the symptoms most people list so I am not going to list every single symptom.

 

If I can look back most my psychological symptoms faded away in December 2013. I now consider that a phase one. Phase two was the pain phase, nerve pain, arm pain muscle pain and all that started to fade by October 2014 in fact I had hardly any symptoms so end of phase two and onto phase three which was the healing phase. I lost all my symptoms except for fatigue and started to improve dramatically after October 2014. I was tapering but the only thing that reminded me was taking the actual doses and being fatigued, other than that I felt pretty normal, I still had dry hair and skin though.

 

My taper took 15 months for .50mg Klonopin.

 

Did I heal before my last drop of a dose because of the taper?

 

Or was it because of the time it took?

 

Would I have healed in the total time of 15 months if I tapered faster? I will never know.

 

Am I totally healed now? I would say yes to all the withdrawal symptoms however I feel that I am returning slowly to homeostasis.

 

I am happy that I did it this way because I wanted the safest taper possible I could find and even though this was incredibly slow it delivered what I wanted. I was tapering and able to regain a lot of my life and function while tapering. If I had to go back and do it over again I would do exactly how I did it.

 

I was on Klonopin for over 20 years and in my opinion this was the best plan for my situation.

 

The first time I tapered I tapered 5 percent every two weeks and I got down to .25mg a day. I held for eight months due to my best fried passing away.  Then one morning about 3:00am I woke up in a bolt of blind terror. I had no idea I was in acute tolerance withdrawal. After about a week of that I went to the ER, I had no idea it was the klonopin because I was still taking .25mg a day.

 

The ER Doctor gave me .50mg of Klonopin and when I got relief of my symptoms I realized that what I experienced was klonopin withdrawal. The ER Doctor did not tell me I was in withdrawal all he said was to throw out the rest of my klonopin and he wrote a prescription for seven days of Xanax. I tore up that prescription and called my prescribing doctor who then told me it was break through anxiety and just upped my klonopin to .50mgs 3 x a day.  I knew it was withdrawal and I only took .50mg twice a day for two days when it hit me that this will just happen again in the future. I went back to .50mg a day and started to look for taper types and learned about daily tapering. I took my .50mg dose and put it in whole milk and divided it up to take three times a day, I did this for a month because  that helped me to be stable.

 

I started out tapering at .0005mg a day August 2013 then doubled that to .001mg in November 2013 and decided to stay there for as long as I could.

 

I did not have to slow down towards the end, in fact towards the end I felt really normal. All I had towards the end was fatigue.

 

I keep seeing posts of people saying that slow tapers have to face acute after their tapers and this did not happen to me at all! So it is not true everyone faces acute even if they do a very slow taper. How slow do you think tapering slow is?

 

This taper might not be for everyone but it was the best one for me. I don't have fear of acute anymore, I have freedom from withdrawal and doctors. All my phobias disappeared.  even my phobias I had before withdrawal and before I ever took a benzo.

 

My hair is starting to thicken and the dry part is softening up some.

 

My shoulders are still sore from the frozen shoulders episodes, I hope with exercise my muscle will return. I have already been exercising while tapering and have upped my exercise now and I am building up my muscle mass.  Exercise energizes me now, instead of wearing me out. My skin is making me happy now, no more dry skin (I was so sick of the dry skin) .

 

I do not have any withdrawal anxiety whatsoever.

I do not have any depression whatsoever.

I sleep like a rock now and wake up feeling good and do not have that tired and wired feeling.

I have had coffee and sometimes I feel jittery and sometimes I feel fine,  so I don't know what that means.

 

I will not drink now, maybe will try in a year.

 

I never doubted that the taper would not work, but it took such a hell of a long time that I felt it would never end. But it does end and we do heal, maybe not when we wish but it does and when it does it is wonderful and worth it.

 

I do think it took me such a long time and that was a bummer, however I was able to function like anyone else and that was the plan, I had no idea it would take 15 months. But in my mind I had to pick from fast and non functional or slow taper and fully functional.

Congrats Kay happy for you!  By daily cuts, did you use a scale and just take off a little daily, Good luck for your future.

[Guest [Ka...]]

B Strong,

No i put my dose in whole milk, then divided it up into three doses and took about 6 - 8 hours apart. I used an oral syringe to take the tiny cuts out daily before splitting the dose into three small jars.

 

[[B ...]]

Thanks Kay for responding, I'm close to trying a liquid titration myself. Trying to decide between milk or water/vodka mix.

Did you have any major problems with your's? Did you crush your pill before putting in the milk, or put in whole? How much milk did you use? How long did you leave it before dividing? You said you cut at .001mg, what size syringe did you use? I guess one of my main questions is your ratio of milk to mg and how you got your .0005 and .001 reductions.

Did you have to hold to start to get used to the liquid adjustment? I'm at .375 K once nightly, do you think I should go up slightly(maybe to . 4)to start? Sorry for all the questions, but hope to hear as much as possible before I start mine.

My dose is at least partly for insomnia? Did you have this problem? ....especially after splitting doses? Also have major anxiety and panic.

Kind of new here....

Any advice is appreciated.

[[B ...]]

I sent you a pm with a little about my history, I hope you don't mind.

I've never sent one so hope I did it right.

[[ar...]]

I learned an important lesson. Even though I am over a year from tapering my CNS is still healing. i really got into the exercise kick, I pushed myself everyday and the intensity of my exercise was the most I ever had, more intense then before withdrawal. This I thought was a success, proof that I was all the way back.

 

What I learned was that a damaged CNS can get worse with over exercising, even a year away from the last dose.

 

I think I caught my mistake in time and have eased up the intensity and duration, my meals and my sleep. So now I realize That I do still have a damaged CNS and that I can't do high intensity and am "listening" to my body. After a few weeks of rethinking my exercise, meals and sleep schedule I am back to feel better.

 

I still exercise, but I have a pre workout snack for energy, I have a post workout 30 mins after. My workouts were too long, I checked. So I shorten them to no more than an hour a day. I took down the intensity a few notches and I monitor my water intake.

 

I was so engrossed with it all I was really doing much more than I should have been doing. And that could have really hurt me.

 

With my changed exercise my energy is coming back and I feel better and much more clear.

 

Hi Kay,

 

How intense were your workouts?  Sometimes I over do it and it might be setting me back slightly.  Thanks for your warning.  I was a half marathon runner so hopefully I can get back to that someday.  Congratulations on your healing!

[[sw...]]

I learned an important lesson. Even though I am over a year from tapering my CNS is still healing. i really got into the exercise kick, I pushed myself everyday and the intensity of my exercise was the most I ever had, more intense then before withdrawal. This I thought was a success, proof that I was all the way back.

 

What I learned was that a damaged CNS can get worse with over exercising, even a year away from the last dose.

 

I think I caught my mistake in time and have eased up the intensity and duration, my meals and my sleep. So now I realize That I do still have a damaged CNS and that I can't do high intensity and am "listening" to my body. After a few weeks of rethinking my exercise, meals and sleep schedule I am back to feel better.

 

I still exercise, but I have a pre workout snack for energy, I have a post workout 30 mins after. My workouts were too long, I checked. So I shorten them to no more than an hour a day. I took down the intensity a few notches and I monitor my water intake.

 

I was so engrossed with it all I was really doing much more than I should have been doing. And that could have really hurt me.

 

With my changed exercise my energy is coming back and I feel better and much more clear.

 

This surprises me after reading your success story. How much is too much? I long for the day I can run again. Is a few miles too much for you?

[Guest [Ka...]]

To answer both questions, I was doing high intensity spinning on a spinning bike 5 days a week for 60 mins, then every other day along with that strength training with weights.

 

I had no pre workout meals which I have now started and it has helped.

 

I scaled the spinning back to 45 mins 5 days a week and am doing the weights again. during no weight days I do yoga or other exercises I get from a product called fitdeck, you can google it, it is a deck of cards with exercises on them. I saw then on shark tank and loved the idea.

 

I think I had other issues, such as the food and eating enough, plus not enough carbs. Besides my CNS, I think all the things added up.

 

I am obsessed  with trying to do more than before, not sure why.  I didn't scale back to much but I did change the food and hydrate more than before and stopped judging myself on the physical activity, according to me Doctor I am doing quite enough.

 

I got this attitude in withdrawal, in withdrawal its like we are fighting to get our lives back and once I felt a lot if symptoms go I just hit the exercise too hard to get me even better. But what I didn't understand was I was pushing myself too hard and once I paid attention to what my body needed instead of trying to push to the limits on an everyday basis, I started to feel better and have energy after exercising.

 

I am still to this day doing more exercise than I ever did before withdrawal and tapering. So I know you guys will get back to what your used to do or more even. I did google CNS injury and exercise and because of reading those links knew that I was pushing it. when I gave myself a break and scaled back just 15 mins and ate a small pre-workout snack it made all the difference in the world to me.

 

It is possible I could have just added the pre-workout snack and hydrate more and not change the workout at all and be better, but I opted to scale back.

 

Also I had not exercised for many years I started to work out in 2012. I don't have many years under my belt in that area.

 

As of right now I feel wonderful! My live is back to normal but I can never forget withdrawal and how it was. I think one gift we all eventually receive is being so grateful for life and taking comfort in the peaceful feeling that comes with the healing.

 

Also going through this changes you, we can't go back to how we were knowing what this was like. Everything is brighter and everything feels better.

 

 

 

[[B ...]]

Congratulations Kay. Happy for you!  Hope to be well again one day. Thanks for your help.

[[tj...]]

Does anyone think if tolerance withdrawal and tapering ever intersect?? What I mean is if I had tolerance withdrawal at .5 mg of clonazepam, and now I am up to 2 mg and I am beginning my taper. When I hit .5 mg during taper will there be issues?  Not sure if I am wording things right, but that's the best I can explain it.

[[Kg...]]

Tjsgm11:  It is hard to say what will happen as you taper down.  I noticed as I tapered off I hit 'brick walls' so to speak where my s/x ramped up. One time was at .5 the next at around .25 and then towards the end.  My 'usual dose' for years and years was  1mg but I was still doing cut and hold at that point.  What I did each time was what people told me to do - to keep going vs. holding.  I did and for some reason my body got back to its 'usual awful' vs the horrible awful. Gotta love it.  I did a micro taper using the scale when I got down to.625 mg - that helped me get over that 'brick wall'. Before that I was doing cut and hold so the micro taper did work for me.  I should have done the micro taper all the way down since for me it worked better.  If you go to the klonopin support group there are a lot of new people and some of us 'old folks' there as well all doing or having done what you are facing. I must tell you w/o my buddies there I don't think I could have done this taper. It is one of the best boards IMHO on benzo buddies. 

[[tj...]]

Tjsgm11:  It is hard to say what will happen as you taper down.  I noticed as I tapered off I hit 'brick walls' so to speak where my s/x ramped up. One time was at .5 the next at around .25 and then towards the end.  My 'usual dose' for years and years was  1mg but I was still doing cut and hold at that point.  What I did each time was what people told me to do - to keep going vs. holding.  I did and for some reason my body got back to its 'usual awful' vs the horrible awful. Gotta love it.  I did a micro taper using the scale when I got down to.625 mg - that helped me get over that 'brick wall'. Before that I was doing cut and hold so the micro taper did work for me.  I should have done the micro taper all the way down since for me it worked better.  If you go to the klonopin support group there are a lot of new people and some of us 'old folks' there as well all doing or having done what you are facing. I must tell you w/o my buddies there I don't think I could have done this taper. It is one of the best boards IMHO on benzo buddies.

Thanks!! So usually a liquid taper goes smoother from what I hear on these boards.  I am going to do small cuts and plan on a rate that will take a year and see how it goes.  My guess is I should be able to speed it up to about 200-250 days, but as advised on here just let my body decide.  Thanks again. 

[[B ...]]

Tjsgm11:  It is hard to say what will happen as you taper down.  I noticed as I tapered off I hit 'brick walls' so to speak where my s/x ramped up. One time was at .5 the next at around .25 and then towards the end.  My 'usual dose' for years and years was  1mg but I was still doing cut and hold at that point.  What I did each time was what people told me to do - to keep going vs. holding.  I did and for some reason my body got back to its 'usual awful' vs the horrible awful. Gotta love it.  I did a micro taper using the scale when I got down to.625 mg - that helped me get over that 'brick wall'. Before that I was doing cut and hold so the micro taper did work for me.  I should have done the micro taper all the way down since for me it worked better.  If you go to the klonopin support group there are a lot of new people and some of us 'old folks' there as well all doing or having done what you are facing. I must tell you w/o my buddies there I don't think I could have done this taper. It is one of the best boards IMHO on benzo buddies.

Kgirl,

Glad the microtaper helped you with the K. How slow did you go on it? (% or more like ~.001 reduction on scale?)

Did you try any liquid tapering? Which one, if you did and why didn't it work for you?

 

Hope you're doing ok.

[[Kg...]]

B Strong the smallest cut using the scale you can do is .001 grams. I started out cutting every day then went to cutting 10 days out of 14 and then slowed way down to c/h/h towards the end and then back up to c/h/c/h until I got off.  I tried liquid it didn't work for me I have no idea why but it felt as if I was taking no dose at all.  I had liquid from compounding pharmacy so it was prepared correctly.

 

I did not use %'s at all on my taper I just changed my cut rate based on how I felt.  Remember as you get lower your %'s get higher and at a certain point you are going to cut 100%.  So the lower you get the more meaningless a % type cut is otherwise you will be cutting forever. In the beginning I guess you can use %'s if you want to - but I did not.  I kept the same rate of cutting until I needed to change it which is why I like the micro taper-you can tailor it to your own body.  Some people by the way do better on cut and hold - again up to how your own body deals with the taper. My take is you do whatever works for you - the hard part is figuring out what this is.