Daily Micro-Tapering Support Group

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Really SG?  I was afraid to not automatically work in holds because of the way this thing has gone for me already. It seems that when I have a major problem it takes me a while to recover. I'm getting paranoid about crashing so I thought a cut and hold pattern might be helpful based on others' experiences, but I'm open to either but think I need to at least start conservatively. I switched from four to three doses 18 days ago and because the sedation/fog/vision was heavier I got frantic and thought I should walk more, push myself to drive, do more during the day to wake up. I've been very sick/crazy all week and it's either CUZ my body hates this drug or because I went from little exercise and zero driving to walking 45 minutes a day and driving every day "just to prove I'm stable". It's like a manic frantic. I'm going to rest the next few days and hope I prove the theory that I can be balanced in my approach to life because I don't want to wake up toxic and psychotic again like I did this morning. I've had frantic episodes the last ten days when I see "I can't do something or my brain is more gone"--so I push to do something to prove that I'm in control instead of resting and it's making me sicker. Idiotic. Thanks for your help. Do you know any folks who've had success with proactive holds?

 

That's fine.  I can see why you'd want to pause and hold every so often.  All I was saying is for any given cut rate, the way to get the most out of the drug and have it help you the most is to apply that rate as a daily cut.  The ramp path will always make the best use of the drug.  But if you want to build in holds, that is fine.  FWIW, a pattern between these two is c/h...holding every other day.  This also makes pretty good use of the drug but has you holding every other day.  It's another option.  Again, the same rate.  They are all the same rate...2.5% a month.

 

I'm not strictly against C&H.  I think tapering is about shortages and glutamate damage, and, from what I see, it does not take much of a shortage to cause glutamate damage.  So I worry that C&H gets people into trouble when cut sizes get bigger.  I like to see cuts kept below a few percent.  I think asking the CNS to function with a shortage beyond a few percent is asking for trouble, in highly dependent people.  Less dependent people can get away with bigger cuts, although this does not mean this is best for them. And, as we know, the idea that bigger cuts somehow get you there faster is ridiculous.  So why do it?  The CNS heals so much a day, regardless of how the shortage was created.  At least that is what I think.

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SG--im sorry to keep asking but maybe this will help someone else. What is the "ramp path"?  Also, if the half life of Klonopin is 48 hours if you do every other day is this giving your brain enough time to acclimate to the change?  I know the change is small and I'll totally do every other day if that makes sense but I was thinking that my brain wouldn't know that I had made a change until day 3. Am I totally overthinking this?

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SG--im sorry to keep asking but maybe this will help someone else. What is the "ramp path"?  Also, if the half life of Klonopin is 48 hours if you do every other day is this giving your brain enough time to acclimate to the change?  I know the change is small and I'll totally do every other day if that makes sense but I was thinking that my brain wouldn't know that I had made a change until day 3. Am I totally overthinking this?

 

Think of the taper curve.  When we cut we go from the old dose to the new dose.  C&H goes down and over like a step.  The ramp path takes a different route - a direct line from the old dose to the new dose.  Daily cutting follows this line very closely.  We actually dose more drug on this path and this is what helps with symptoms.  Yet it is the same rate - there is no time penalty.

 

I try not to get caught up in half life and all that.  To me, I think the brain/CNS are always ready to make adjustments and if they are being stimulated to increase calmness, they will respond.  A benzo shortage is this stimulation.  It raises the excitement level and the brain/CNS respond by adding more calmness...GABA.  I think these adjustments occur all day long and we each have a limit as to how much we can do in 24 hours.  So, whether we cut daily or every other day or every third or fourth day, it is a matter of allowing enough time for the brain/CNS to process the amount that was cut and get itself back to its normal excitement level.

[Guest [ba...]]

You're over-thinking this in a way.  Yes, there will be a lag when you make a cut.  Your cuts will always be just a little ahead of the realized dose which will be ahead of adjustments your body makes.  That's just the way this works.  That's the reason we feel poorly.  Small cuts theoretically minimize the effect, but it does not eliminate it. 

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Thanks SG

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Lizagal,

 

I only cut a very, very small amount each day and still feel it. My body really needs the holds built in and it helps. My pattern right now is a 1% daily reduction for 5 days followed by a 2 day hold. This gives me a 10% reduction over 2 weeks.

 

As many of us as are out there, there are an equal number of solutions to our individual circumstances. The challenge is to find what works for YOU by trial and error.

 

Best,

Ed

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Thanks Edzo8!!

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Hello All - I am very new here to BB and I'm not even sure that I've hit the correct button to reply on the thread - This thread was forwarded to me by a fellow BB that I PM'd - She thought I might get some answers or input here.  After a failed CT from Klonipin and a failed 4 month taper from Klonipin (.5mg) I crossed over to Valium in January of this year (10 mg) - I had no difficulty going from 10 - 9 - 8 - 7 in 1/2 mg increments every 3 weeks but at 6 mg I have held for more than 3 months now - I have just about every horrific symptom I had after my 4 month taper only not as severe - The arthritis/pain in my fingers makes it almost impossible to type here - I have pain in my back and the most unbelievable mental fog - I'm reading your tapers and can not even understand the math or method - I'm blessed to have a lot of people helping me so my household is staying afloat but I'm terrified.  I have a 12 year old and an 8 year old who desperately need their mom - Anyway - I have been trying to get my thyroid in check (my T3 is very low despite medication) before I cut again and now me and my Dr have decided upon compounding.  So I currently am on 3mg AM and 3mg PM and as of this week, my compounded dose will be 2.9mg AM and 2.9 mg PM - I believe that is a 3% dose decrease - should I go ahead or hold longer and if I do go ahead should I continue back on the every 3 week dose reduction at 3%.  I feel like I have such a long way to go and I am absolutely useless to my family - and I'm TERRIFIED of the end - My last taper was so horrific - at 3 weeks post my last dose - the wheels fell off - I was seriously suicidal (although I didn't know what was going on - had no idea that it was withdrawal) Any options, suggestions I would love - especially from anyone who is post last dose and feeling ok???

 

Thank you all for reading

 

Oh I should add that the plan was to taper the 3% reduction and then hold for 3 weeks - Any opinions?

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I'm really in bad shape and I have no idea what to do. Ever since going from four yo three doses three weeks ago I feel worse by the day. The first two days I felt better. Then I started getting frantic episodes, then worse DR, then photophobia. I tried to walk more and do more because the sedation and fog seemed worse but over the weekend that made me do shaky and confused and more frantic. This is after a six month hold where I was managing fine at the end--I realize though I did improve in the hold compared to what I'm feeling now. I feel really sick with now stomach stuff, nerve pain, bad sleep with increased night sweats (which is detoxing me more) and I feel crazy again.

 

I've become a terrified mess again and don't know what to do. This all started with reducing my doses and trying to do more physically in those three weeks to "prove to myself" I was getting better because I didn't like how it felt with increased sedation and fog and thought I could "fix it". Some people tell me when they reduced their doses it felt like a cut for 2-3 weeks. This is day 20 and I'm getting worse by the day. I don't know what's happening.

 

PLEASE HELP. i don't know if I need to keep holding, updose or start moving on my taper. The klonopin people say I'm poisoned and need to start tapering, others say updose, others say just lay on the couch for a week and see if I feel better. I haven't felt like I was dying in a long time.

 

Does anyone have an explanation for this?  I totally feel like I need to Updose SND that's what I did last summer and felt like crap for two weeks and then better afternoons after that but it wasn't a picnic so that's a crapshoot. I feel completely hopeless, homebound and now bed bound.

[[jr...]]

I'm really in bad shape and I have no idea what to do. Ever since going from four yo three doses three weeks ago I feel worse by the day. The first two days I felt better. Then I started getting frantic episodes, then worse DR, then photophobia. I tried to walk more and do more because the sedation and fog seemed worse but over the weekend that made me do shaky and confused and more frantic. This is after a six month hold where I was managing fine at the end--I realize though I did improve in the hold compared to what I'm feeling now. I feel really sick with now stomach stuff, nerve pain, bad sleep with increased night sweats (which is detoxing me more) and I feel crazy again.

 

I've become a terrified mess again and don't know what to do. This all started with reducing my doses and trying to do more physically in those three weeks to "prove to myself" I was getting better because I didn't like how it felt with increased sedation and fog and thought I could "fix it". Some people tell me when they reduced their doses it felt like a cut for 2-3 weeks. This is day 20 and I'm getting worse by the day. I don't know what's happening.

 

PLEASE HELP. i don't know if I need to keep holding, updose or start moving on my taper. The klonopin people say I'm poisoned and need to start tapering, others say updose, others say just lay on the couch for a week and see if I feel better. I haven't felt like I was dying in a long time.

 

Does anyone have an explanation for this?  I totally feel like I need to Updose SND that's what I did last summer and felt like crap for two weeks and then better afternoons after that but it wasn't a picnic so that's a crapshoot. I feel completely hopeless, homebound and now bed bound.

 

what is your current dosage?how many times per day? when I started a LT< I had to increase from 4 to 5 doses per day. I also did a slight updose at the same time.

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I'm really in bad shape and I have no idea what to do. Ever since going from four yo three doses three weeks ago I feel worse by the day. The first two days I felt better. Then I started getting frantic episodes, then worse DR, then photophobia. I tried to walk more and do more because the sedation and fog seemed worse but over the weekend that made me do shaky and confused and more frantic. This is after a six month hold where I was managing fine at the end--I realize though I did improve in the hold compared to what I'm feeling now. I feel really sick with now stomach stuff, nerve pain, bad sleep with increased night sweats (which is detoxing me more) and I feel crazy again.

 

I've become a terrified mess again and don't know what to do. This all started with reducing my doses and trying to do more physically in those three weeks to "prove to myself" I was getting better because I didn't like how it felt with increased sedation and fog and thought I could "fix it". Some people tell me when they reduced their doses it felt like a cut for 2-3 weeks. This is day 20 and I'm getting worse by the day. I don't know what's happening.

 

PLEASE HELP. i don't know if I need to keep holding, updose or start moving on my taper. The klonopin people say I'm poisoned and need to start tapering, others say updose, others say just lay on the couch for a week and see if I feel better. I haven't felt like I was dying in a long time.

 

Does anyone have an explanation for this?  I totally feel like I need to Updose SND that's what I did last summer and felt like crap for two weeks and then better afternoons after that but it wasn't a picnic so that's a crapshoot. I feel completely hopeless, homebound and now bed bound.

 

I would not think this kind of reaction would result from simply going from four to three doses.  The fact of the matter is you still take the same amount of benzo each day and three doses is really not all that different from four.

 

What about pill brand or lot changes?  What about different foods and meds?  What about processed foods and MSG?

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SG--none of those things  changed. Same med, same 1.20 mg dose, I eat no processed foods--only organic paleo and clean water. What has changed is I started doing more exercise (from 15 min of walking to doing that three times a day), it's gotten hot here again and my night sweats and sleeping are worse and I tried to drive three times in the last three weeks with major fog and sedation (felt like I had to escape but I haven't been able to drive because I'm so "drunk" in two years.). Also I hurt my back on Thursdsy and have been laying on the floor five minutes a day stretching and strengthening. I started crashing from this three days ago so have been trying to do very little the last two. Woke up this morning with horrible toxic/frantic/lost/"I'm sick and insane" overwhelming. Two friends came to sit on the couch and talk last night and usually I turn down the lights at 8:00 and begin to rest but they were here until 9:00. I suppose I'm that sensitive to change because every time I do "too much" which is really nothing, I feel horrendous. So no one else here has felt like they took a cut when they reduced their number of doses a day?

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jR--why did you updose?  I know I have that option but if I went back to 1.25 mg from 1.20 where I started A YEAR AGO, I don't know that it would help. It "worked" to pull me out of the worst at the time but with it took over two weeks and I don't know with all I've been through if it would help. I would love it to be as straightforward as that but others have told me they updosed or dose corrected and it only helped for a few weeks and then they felt worse.

[[Kg...]]

Lizagal: I see that you are trying to get some answers to what is going on so you can get out of the awful place you are in right now. 

 

In some ways though your post is answering your own question:  What are you doing differently:

 

1. you hurt your back - anything that causes us to not feel well impacts our taper and how we feel

2. you changed your exercise routine -

3.  now it is hot out again and you are having night sweats and not sleeping

4. you are stressing yourself by driving when you don't feel well (and probably shouldn't be driving at all)

5. your friends interfered with your night time routine

 

So though it sounds minor it probably isn't given our extremely sensitive state during a taper.  Take a deep breath and when you feel a bit better my suggestion is to think back to the last time you felt well or at least functional and go back to that dose and that time doing what ever it was you were doing then.  You and only you know your body and what you can handle or not.

 

A progress log or daily journal helps by the way since you can then go back and see what worked, what didn't and also as the time goes on recognize that you are healing when it starts to happen. 

 

And now what you need instead of advice is this::  :mybuddy:  

 

 

 

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KGirl--I know that the increased activity has made things worse and I'm doing all of them out of fear. I've kept a journal for two years and the last time I felt close to normal was on Ativan and I know there's no going back. Beside that, when I went from 1 mg to 1.25 mg last fall it didn't make me feel more stable for two weeks and only in the afternoons and I only stayed there a week before I started my 1% a month microtaper. Looking back on all my notes, my stable is very different from others CUZ I've never felt "functional" except those few afternoons. With changing the dosing I'm afraid an updose might make my side effects worse--though for some weird reason when I updosed last fall I had LESS fog and sedation. I don't get it.

 

I thought you said you updosed and it didn't help you much. I know someone else who updosed or dose corrected and then held and at six weeks the updose effect wore off. Is it just a matter of physiology?  Builder told me when I was doing a long hold that it wouldn't improve things, only a dose correction would. So confused but resting the next couple days to figure out what to do. Thanks for helping me see what should be obvious--just scared the updose will backfire and I'll be worse off. I keep making the wrong decisions. Thank you so much!!!

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Lizagal: You are right as to what worked for me. I could not use the liquid- I have no idea why.  Holds never helped me, up dosing did not work for me. If I was awful and terrible the only thing that made me feel better was continuing to cut.  I was also never fully s/x free the entire way down  and only in retrospect did I realize that I was getting better as I got lower on the dose.  As you said others in the KK Klub have experienced the same thing - they are feeling better as the dose gets lower.  This was me and other people here but as I have told you - you need to find what works for you. Listen to your own body - no one here can tell you what to do - we can only say what worked for us. 

 

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Thanks. Still trying to believe that I can taper and get better because that hasn't been my experience--though I was only able to get down to .90 before someone convinced me to jump up to 1.25. Going at 5% a month was just as hard as going at 1% a month. I pray I can be like you and get better the lower I go without becoming psychotic which keeps popping up along with new sxs in and out. So fun. Thanks Kgirl!

[[jr...]]

jR--why did you updose?  I know I have that option but if I went back to 1.25 mg from 1.20 where I started A YEAR AGO, I don't know that it would help. It "worked" to pull me out of the worst at the time but with it took over two weeks and I don't know with all I've been through if it would help. I would love it to be as straightforward as that but others have told me they updosed or dose corrected and it only helped for a few weeks and then they felt worse.

 

The reason I updosed was to compensate for the change to liquid. For some unknown reason, sxs increase when switching to liquid so I compensated by doing a slight updose. I wish I had wise words to help you feel better but I dont. going to three doses should have no effect if the total dosage is the same. Just hang in there and maybe you will get a window or two in a few days.

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Thanks JR  I want to start tapering but feel stuck. I've been through withdrawal before doing Ashton method and have never felt better the lower I went--even when I was microtapering last summer and I don't feel "stable" since this change and pray in a few days the symptoms will lessen a bit and I will have the ability to start getting this out. I can deal with just about anything but the psychotic/frantic episodes that keep happening. I pray im like others who got better the lower they got on a slower taper. I know one other person who said reducing doses felt like a cut for three weeks. We are all so different.

[[jr...]]

Thanks JR  I want to start tapering but feel stuck. I've been through withdrawal before doing Ashton method and have never felt better the lower I went--even when I was microtapering last summer and I don't feel "stable" since this change and pray in a few days the symptoms will lessen a bit and I will have the ability to start getting this out. I can deal with just about anything but the psychotic/frantic episodes that keep happening. I pray im like others who got better the lower they got on a slower taper. I know one other person who said reducing doses felt like a cut for three weeks. We are all so different.

 

 

I know we are all different. I am at .05 total and still have sxs. I should really be off already but I am gonna take this all the way to zero.  Dumb ass doctors prescribe meds that you cant quit taking. Makes me mad enuff to bite a nail in two!

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Is anyone using oral disdolvable klonopin in milk (and yes I know it has aspartame which I never knew until much after I was on it)?  My question is, how do you know that the medication is distributed evenly in the milk? 

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Is anyone using oral disdolvable klonopin in milk (and yes I know it has aspartame which I never knew until much after I was on it)?  My question is, how do you know that the medication is distributed evenly in the milk?

Liza  You don't need to put your pill in milk as it becomes a 'solution'' once its in water not a 'suspension''  dis·solved, dis·solv·ing, dis·solves a.** To cause to pass into solution**: dissolve salt in water. b. **To reduce (solid matter) to liquid form;** melt

 

which is what  the milk and pills become a ''suspension', your pills are the same as having it in liquid form once it dissolves in water. And liquid form is 100 times easier than trying to make a pill into a suspension in milk or a solution by dissolving the drug in Alcohol propylene glycerol first.

 

All you need to do is let your pill dissolve in water and its in solution which means its equally distributed in the water unlike a suspension which you have to keep shaking before hand to make sure he pill spreads throughout the liquid as easily as possible  to get it to suspend long enough to pull a dose out. But you can give it a shake when its in solution if it puts your mind at rest I did when I put my Diazepam in to solution with Alcohol, ask  SG, Builder or anyone else you trust on this thread if you need more reassurance to  validate what I'm saying

 

 

Love Nova xxx :smitten:

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Is anyone using oral disdolvable klonopin in milk (and yes I know it has aspartame which I never knew until much after I was on it)?  My question is, how do you know that the medication is distributed evenly in the milk?

 

Anecdotally, we are confident that K and V dissolve in milk, as they are fat-soluble and it has worked over and over for people.  I've searched exhaustively for hard proof and quantified values of their solubility, but have been unable to find it.

[[no...]]

Is anyone using oral disdolvable klonopin in milk (and yes I know it has aspartame which I never knew until much after I was on it)?  My question is, how do you know that the medication is distributed evenly in the milk?

 

Anecdotally, we are confident that K and V dissolve in milk, as they are fat-soluble and it has worked over and over for people.  I've searched exhaustively for hard proof and quantified values of their solubility, but have been unable to find it.

Hi SG  Liza's are '''Disolvable''  Klopnopin not regular ones that's why I've said she don't need to put hers in milk just plain water as it then goes in to solution anyway rather than trying to make a suspension when there's absolutely no need to do so

 

 

Love Nova xxx  :smitten:

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Anecdotally, we are confident that K and V dissolve in milk, as they are fat-soluble and it has worked over and over for people.  I've searched exhaustively for hard proof and quantified values of their solubility, but have been unable to find it.

Hi SG  Liza's are '''Disolvable''  Klopnopin not regular ones that's why I've said she don't need to put hers in milk just plain water as it then goes in to solution anyway rather than trying to make a suspension when there's absolutely no need to do so

 

 

Love Nova xxx  :smitten:

 

Right, but that is the tab, isn't it?  K is K and it is barely soluble in water.  I think the tab will dissolve, but not the K.