Daily Micro-Tapering Support Group

[[an...]]

Hi Guys

It's great to see this daily micro-tapering support thread going. I've not been following the threads anymore and get on BB mostly to PM with a few people, but I just noticed this thread today. I  had difficulty with the cut and hold method when I got under 2mg of Valium and had great success when I switched to a daily micro-taper. Although it took a long time, my taper was relatively uneventful and on hitting 0, I was pretty close to healed. IMO, from a scientific point of view this method is the most physiologic.

Good luck with everyone's taper and remember that one day it will all be better.

Bart

 

Hi Bart,

 

Congratulations on being benzo free. Thank you for coming back and sharing this. Like you, I did a very slow daily titration back in 2007, and I was healed before I finished the taper.  I am confident I will have the same experience during this taper.  The key is slow.  Have a great day!!

Anne

[[Kg...]]

Sharkey so sorry to hear about your grandfather but glad to see that you jumped. Congratulations on that milestone.  You have helped so many people by starting this thread I hope you will stick around on BB. 

 

Bart so glad to see you are doing well - I was following you when you jumped. 

[[mf...]]

I cut down to 1.07 and got some w/d (which I thought I had stabilized from - they were related to other meds I take that impact how much K is absorbed). I'm wondering when all this passes how do I progress with my taper? Do I start with 1.07 if more than a few weeks has passed or do I calculate new numbers? Also if I end up doing some holds of a few days, how do I calculate as I go?

 

With cut and hold I would just hold as I needed and then when I was ready I would make the next cut calculated off the number I was at. This is a bit more like a running tally unless I use the same method as cut and hold and calculate when I hit that new low dose.

[[sh...]]

I cut down to 1.07 and got some w/d (which I thought I had stabilized from - they were related to other meds I take that impact how much K is absorbed). I'm wondering when all this passes how do I progress with my taper? Do I start with 1.07 if more than a few weeks has passed or do I calculate new numbers? Also if I end up doing some holds of a few days, how do I calculate as I go?

 

With cut and hold I would just hold as I needed and then when I was ready I would make the next cut calculated off the number I was at. This is a bit more like a running tally unless I use the same method as cut and hold and calculate when I hit that new low dose.

 

You can just continue tapering after the hold.  With micro-tapering, once you find a cut rate I is easy.  Cut the same amount everyday.  When you need to, hold for a few days then just start back up.  Just write down your cut everyday so you don't loose track.

 

sharkey

[[sh...]]

Thanks everyone for your thoughts and wishes, means more than you know!!

 

Stay strong!

sharkey

[[...]]

Sharkey, Sorry to hear about your grandfather and glad to hear you are free.  The 4th of July will certainly be memorable for you from now on I'm sure.

[[...]]

I cut down to 1.07 and got some w/d (which I thought I had stabilized from - they were related to other meds I take that impact how much K is absorbed). I'm wondering when all this passes how do I progress with my taper? Do I start with 1.07 if more than a few weeks has passed or do I calculate new numbers? Also if I end up doing some holds of a few days, how do I calculate as I go?

 

With cut and hold I would just hold as I needed and then when I was ready I would make the next cut calculated off the number I was at. This is a bit more like a running tally unless I use the same method as cut and hold and calculate when I hit that new low dose.

 

Like Sharkey said, most just keep rolling with a cut until it gets used up.  They go by feel.

 

But the way you are doing it will work well too.  It you were to calculate your new numbers every few weeks just as before (always using the current dose to calculate) that will be a pretty good approximation of how cuts get used up.

[[en...]]

Hey MT's!

 

It has been a bitter sweet Independence Day for me.  I am BENZO FREE Today!!!!  No mixing solutions or syringes.  No prescribed medication what so ever! 

 

I have been MIA because my grandfather passed away on Thursday.  He was 88 years old and lived a good life but was very sad for my family.  So I spent my Independence Day and my first day med free at the funeral home.  The bright side is I got to spend this day with so many family members that I would not have seen otherwise.  I'm keeping my head up and staying strong!  I'm not sure why Infinite Intelligence threw me this curve ball but I hope that is proves to you guys that we can quit this stuff under any circumstances.  I hope to write my benzo free celebration post in the next few days.

 

Happy 4th of July Everyone!

 

Stay strong!

sharkey

 

My condolences to you and your family.

[[Ra...]]

Hey Moo my friend!  Good to see you here too!  I could maybe try the liquid Xanax (I believe it's made by Roxanne), but I'm a bit nervous to do that because I've always taken pills.  I don't know how my body would react and I can't really afford to screw up.  When I fly, I don't usually have an option as to when I fly, it's dictated by my clients and when they want to see me.  If I didn't have to worry about flying, I would probably do a daily liquid taper in a red hot minute!

 

I'm not sure what everyone here uses to dissolve Xanax tablets, anyone have a comment on that?

 

Hugs,

 

Bunny

 

Hey Rabbit! Welcome here. I'm pretty new at all this stuff and have miles to go. Anyway, I use 1-2ml of vodka to dissolve my Klonopin/Clonazepam and then create my solution. I didn't have a bit of problem changing to liquid after well over two decades of being on a huge dose of K. That's saying a lot because I am THE most sensitive person on the planet when it comes to meds, side effects, etc.  I have to travel around a lot too and it's usually without much notice as far as time goes. For small solutions such as yours, I'd think that mixing them ahead of time and using really small bottles would help. I like the 15ml clear bottles because you can make your small solution, put it in the bottle, add water to dilute a bit, and then be all ready to go. Bottoms up when it's time for your dose. Here are the bottles: http://www.amazon.com/CLEAR-Boston-Round-Glass-Bottle/dp/B00I3OYKZQ/ref=sr_1_7?ie=UTF8&qid=1436061867&sr=8-7&keywords=clear+boston+round+glass+bottle

 

Thank you Ultra for that link.  Do you fly?  Anyone have experience with this?  Just answered my own question, just checked TSA regulations and anything under 100ml that fits in a 1 quart bag will go through screening no problem. YAY!

 

Also, just for general information to make sure I understand how this works, if I want approximately a 6% reduction over 14 days and I'm starting at .9375mg of Alprazolam (Xanax), the total reduction is .562mg at the end of the 15 days.  That's a daily reduction of .004mg.  So day 1, my dose is .9375, day 2 my dose is .9335, day 3 my dose is.9292, day 4 dose is.9255 and so on.  Is that math correct?  If so question. . .

 

How do I get those tiny dose reductions, can someone please help? 

 

I have .5mg pills and I dose twice per day.  I only want to use 50ml of water rather than 100ml.  I could dissolve my 2 .5mg pills in 2ml of vodka and add 48ml of water.  That would be .02mg per ml of solution, is that correct?  Here's where I get a little lost. 

 

How do I figure out how much to draw out each day?  Would that reduction be .2ml per day?  Day 2 would be .4ml reduction, day 3 would be .6ml reduction and so on?  Then at the end of 15 days, I have to recalculate numbers, right?  At the end of 15 days I would be at .8815mg.  A 6% reduction from there would be .5289mg.  Is my math correct?  YIKES I hate math!

 

Is there a spreadsheet somewhere that does this math for us?  I'm afraid if I had to do this every 2 weeks I'd be a wreck, it took everything I had to figure this and this is when I'm pretty calm.  If I were anxious, there is no way I could calculate this.

 

Thank you!  Hope everyone survived those pesky fireworks

[[Ra...]]

Sharkey, I'm so very sorry to hear about your grandfather.  Sometimes life throws these curveballs at seemingly just the absolute worst time.  Congrats to you that you stuck to your guns and completed your taper.    When you're a little recovered from the recent events, please let us know how you're feeling?

 

Thank you so much for starting this thread.  I think so many of us will benefit from this information and all of the kind folks who inhabit this thread.

 

Hugs and prayers to you and your family this weekend 

 

Bunny

[[...]]

Also, just for general information to make sure I understand how this works, if I want approximately a 6% reduction over 14 days and I'm starting at .9375mg of Alprazolam (Xanax), the total reduction is .562mg at the end of the 15 days.  That's a daily reduction of .004mg.  So day 1, my dose is .9375, day 2 my dose is .9335, day 3 my dose is.9292, day 4 dose is.9255 and so on.  Is that math correct?  If so question. . .

 

How do I get those tiny dose reductions, can someone please help? 

 

I have .5mg pills and I dose twice per day.  I only want to use 50ml of water rather than 100ml.  I could dissolve my 2 .5mg pills in 2ml of vodka and add 48ml of water.  That would be .02mg per ml of solution, is that correct?  Here's where I get a little lost. 

 

How do I figure out how much to draw out each day?  Would that reduction be .2ml per day?  Day 2 would be .4ml reduction, day 3 would be .6ml reduction and so on?  Then at the end of 15 days, I have to recalculate numbers, right?  At the end of 15 days I would be at .8815mg.  A 6% reduction from there would be .5289mg.  Is my math correct?  YIKES I hate math!

 

Is there a spreadsheet somewhere that does this math for us?  I'm afraid if I had to do this every 2 weeks I'd be a wreck, it took everything I had to figure this and this is when I'm pretty calm.  If I were anxious, there is no way I could calculate this.

 

Thank you!  Hope everyone survived those pesky fireworks

 

I checked all your numbers and they are fine.  Good job.

 

A couple of comments to consider.  Instead of dissolving two .5mg X pills in 50ml I'd do one .5mg pill into 100ml (2ml vodka+98ml water).  The reason is solubility in water is very low so we want a lot of water make sure the X stays dissolved.  100ml water minimum should always be used with this method and the amount of dissolved drug should be minimized.

 

You don't need to get involved with percents with this method.  Once you have a cut that works you can just ride it until it is used up.  But I would not advise you beginning with a .004mg daily cut.  It might be fine, but it is a bit high so I would urge you to test out lower cuts and work your way up.  For your dose I usually suggest beginning at .0015mg.  That is a cautious number.

[[Ra...]]

Thanks for checking my numbers SG, the reason I wanted to use 50ml total is because of flying.

 

So I'm a little confused by this comment . ..

 

Instead of dissolving two .5mg X pills in 50ml I'd do one .5mg pill into 100ml (2ml vodka+98ml water). 

 

In order to get my full dose of .9375 are you saying I would need 196ml of water?  So I'd need to do this formula above twice? That would make flying with this concoction in my carry on a little cumbersome.  I'm a little concerned about that.

 

You don't need to get involved with percents with this method.  Once you have a cut that works you can just ride it until it is used up.

 

I'm not sure what this means?  When you say used up, what do you mean?  Sorry if I'm being dense here    How long would I use the .0015mg daily cut?  That works out to about a 2% cut over 14 days at my dose (.9375mg/day), is that right?

 

Thank you so much for your patient help!

 

 

 

[[en...]]

After reading some of these posts, I'm feeling rather dumb. I'm in the early stages of daily micro-tapering. Why do some use a large amount of water when diluting? I dissolve with 1 ml vodka and dilute with 13 ml water. I'm doing this over a 2 week span. I still take 1.25 mg in tablet form. It's the .125 mg I'm dissolving. I take mine at night. Sharlkey helped me with this. I'm hoping when I'm finished with this, then I'll do the next .125 mg and so on, until I get to around the .25 mg mark. I'm sure the lower I go the more I'll have to stretch it out.

 

Is there an amount I should switch completely to liquid? I was thinking I'd keep taking the tablets with the liquid titration and long as I have the tablets.

 

This is/was my plan. If I have to stretch the .125 mg to 3 weeks, I'd dissolve it with 1 ml of vodka and add 20 ml of water. If it takes 4 weeks, 1 ml of vodka and add 27 mg water. If longer, I'd adjust accordingly.

 

I started with removing 1 ml the first night. On day 13 I'll be removing 13 ml. If that makes sense. I'm not good with numbers so am trying to keep it as simple as possible.

 

I'm only on day 7, but have felt good. I assume in the next week or so I'll start having more withdrawal symptoms.

 

 

[[Ra...]]

OK, if I were to use prescription liquid Xanax = 1mg per ml, would could I use 99ml of water or even 49ml of water since the prescription liquid is already a solution?  It should mix with water fine, right?  Just trying to consider all my options.

 

Thank you 

[[an...]]

Rabbit,

 

Let's say you make up 200 mL of liquid using the 2 pills. This would be 0.005 mg/mL. You would need to remove 12.5 mL from the 200 mL for your 0.9375 mg daily dose. If you divide the remaining 187.5 mL into 2 doses, you would have almost 94 mL per dose which would be under the 100 mL limit.

 

On the first day of your taper, if you remove your 12.5 mL plus an additional 0.5 mL this would be a 0.0025 mg/day which would result in a 3.7 % cut for two weeks. If you prefer to cut more, you could remove 1 mL/day -- this would be a 7% cut in two weeks.

 

As you get lower in dosage, you will need to adjust the amount cut. I keep my cuts between 7 and 10% every two weeks.

 

Anne

[[...]]

Thanks for checking my numbers SG, the reason I wanted to use 50ml total is because of flying.

 

So I'm a little confused by this comment . ..

 

Instead of dissolving two .5mg X pills in 50ml I'd do one .5mg pill into 100ml (2ml vodka+98ml water). 

 

In order to get my full dose of .9375 are you saying I would need 196ml of water?  So I'd need to do this formula above twice? That would make flying with this concoction in my carry on a little cumbersome.  I'm a little concerned about that.

 

You don't need to get involved with percents with this method.  Once you have a cut that works you can just ride it until it is used up.

 

I'm not sure what this means?  When you say used up, what do you mean?  Sorry if I'm being dense here    How long would I use the .0015mg daily cut?  That works out to about a 2% cut over 14 days at my dose (.9375mg/day), is that right?

 

Thank you so much for your patient help!

 

Rabbit,

 

On the dosing, sorry I wasn't clear.  I meant just liquify one pill at a time.  So the rest of the dose would be taken dry.  You dose 2x so just split the other pill in half.  (I'm surprised you only need two doses for X BTW).

 

By "used up" I just mean that's what happens.  As we get lower the cut size needs to get slowly smaller.  So if you are tapering you would ride a certain cut until you sensed that is was too big, then choose something smaller.

 

For the .0015mg cut I'd test that for at least two weeks.  If all is well you could move up to maybe .002mg and re-test.  You want to methodically search for your max cut that does not bring on symptom increase.

[[Ra...]]

Ah, OK, thank you SG, I get it now.  Well for now I only dose twice per day.  I take 75mg of Seroquel IR at night and have been taking that since Dec 2013.  That was what seemed to stabilize me. 

 

Right now mornings are pretty tough although they have been the whole time.  My job is extremely stressful and it may be that just waking up and knowing I have to go to work brings on the bad feelings as when I wake up I feel OK, but shortly thereafter I start feeling anxious/depressed.  Then once I shower and start to drive to work it gets better.  I dose at 11:00am and 7:00pm. 

 

I've wondered if I have interdose w/d in the morning, but it does seem once I shower and get going I feel better.  I'm not inclined to complicate it further with more frequent dosing unless it becomes obvious that I have I/d w/d.  I would assume if that were the case, I would feel crappy right up until the time I take my 11:00am dose, right?

 

So if I dissolved 1  .5mg pill in 2mls vodka, added 98mls of water, to reduce by .0015mg per day, that would be a reduction of .3ml per day.  Oh my word, that just took me about 30 minutes to figure out, OUCH!!!  Is that right?

 

Thank you again for being patient with me 

[[...]]

Ah, OK, thank you SG, I get it now.  Well for now I only dose twice per day.  I take 75mg of Seroquel IR at night and have been taking that since Dec 2013.  That was what seemed to stabilize me. 

 

Right now mornings are pretty tough although they have been the whole time.  My job is extremely stressful and it may be that just waking up and knowing I have to go to work brings on the bad feelings as when I wake up I feel OK, but shortly thereafter I start feeling anxious/depressed.  Then once I shower and start to drive to work it gets better.  I dose at 11:00am and 7:00pm. 

 

I've wondered if I have interdose w/d in the morning, but it does seem once I shower and get going I feel better.  I'm not inclined to complicate it further with more frequent dosing unless it becomes obvious that I have I/d w/d.  I would assume if that were the case, I would feel crappy right up until the time I take my 11:00am dose, right?

 

Thank you again for being patient with me 

 

Yes, I'd think if you had interdose you would get relief by taking a dose and the hours leading up to the dose would be a problem.  You are going 16 hours between X doses.  That is a very long time for Xanax.  But I agree, if what you are currently doing is working don't change.

[[Ra...]]

So if I dissolved 1  .5mg pill in 2mls vodka, added 98mls of water, to reduce by .0015mg per day, that would be a reduction of .3ml per day.  Oh my word, that just took me about 30 minutes to figure out, OUCH!!!  Is that right?

 

Thank you again for being patient with me 

 

Sorry, I modified that post to include this calculation.  Is this right?

 

Thank you (((again)))) 

[[...]]

So if I dissolved 1  .5mg pill in 2mls vodka, added 98mls of water, to reduce by .0015mg per day, that would be a reduction of .3ml per day.  Oh my word, that just took me about 30 minutes to figure out, OUCH!!!  Is that right?

 

Thank you again for being patient with me 

 

Sorry, I modified that post to include this calculation.  Is this right?

 

Thank you (((again)))) 

 

Exactly. 

[[be...]]

Hi:

 

I have a question. Is there anyway you can do a dry, daily micro taper off 70 mg of Valium? I am doing fine with my K micro, but I don't know if this is possible with Valium. I also don't know if doing this will take me a decade. I want to drop by 5% every two weeks. Thank you.

Bets

[[bu...]]

After reading some of these posts, I'm feeling rather dumb. I'm in the early stages of daily micro-tapering. Why do some use a large amount of water when diluting? I dissolve with 1 ml vodka and dilute with 13 ml water. I'm doing this over a 2 week span. I still take 1.25 mg in tablet form. It's the .125 mg I'm dissolving. I take mine at night. Sharlkey helped me with this. I'm hoping when I'm finished with this, then I'll do the next .125 mg and so on, until I get to around the .25 mg mark. I'm sure the lower I go the more I'll have to stretch it out.

 

Is there an amount I should switch completely to liquid? I was thinking I'd keep taking the tablets with the liquid titration and long as I have the tablets.

 

This is/was my plan. If I have to stretch the .125 mg to 3 weeks, I'd dissolve it with 1 ml of vodka and add 20 ml of water. If it takes 4 weeks, 1 ml of vodka and add 27 mg water. If longer, I'd adjust accordingly.

 

I started with removing 1 ml the first night. On day 13 I'll be removing 13 ml. If that makes sense. I'm not good with numbers so am trying to keep it as simple as possible.

 

I'm only on day 7, but have felt good. I assume in the next week or so I'll start having more withdrawal symptoms.

  The more dilute your solution is, the more precise your dose measurements will be.

 

It's pretty obvious that its easier to measure .1ml than it is to measure .01, or .001.

[[Ra...]]

So if I dissolved 1  .5mg pill in 2mls vodka, added 98mls of water, to reduce by .0015mg per day, that would be a reduction of .3ml per day.  Oh my word, that just took me about 30 minutes to figure out, OUCH!!!  Is that right?

 

Thank you again for being patient with me 

 

Sorry, I modified that post to include this calculation.  Is this right?

 

Thank you (((again)))) 

 

Exactly. 

 

Thank you SG, I just ordered my supplies from Amazon.  I know plastic isn't ideal, but I got a plastic 100ml cylinder to travel with, I'm so afraid of a glass one breaking.  I did get 2 glass ones for home use (an extra in case one breaks, I would have a heart attack if that happened)  I really appreciate your help 

[[be...]]

Anybody?  :'(

Bets

[[Ra...]]

Anybody?  :'(

Bets

 

Bets, I believe Etown did a daily dry taper from valium.  You could check out his signature and see what the details were.  I know he was/is a big proponent of a symptoms based taper.  I take Xanax, so can't help you much here.  It might be slow because it's a holiday weekend.  I'm sure there are some other folks here who are dry tapering.  Hang in there, I'm sure someone will have a comment for you 

 

Bunny