I am sometimes astounded

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by the very small amounts of benzos that some folks here are having problems dumping. Not just here but on other benzo sites as well, BTW, This is not a criticism. My dosage level is 6 mgs of klonopin after doing a switch over from 5mgs of xanax. It took me about a month and a half to switch over completely. Aren't there any heavy users here trying to get clean? Again I recognise that benzo addiction is a relative thing in regards to dosage levels.

 

I have just started recently to slowly and cautiously  titrate off the klonopin. Hell I don't even like the drug. But I have been taking benzos everyday for twenty years. Not at the higher doses I am at now of course, but I can't help but think that some of the challenges that await me are going to be the psychological addiction because of the length and  habitual nature of my usage.

 

On another benzo site there was a fellow who was taking 12-15 mgs of klonopin a day. This is what I mean by a heavy user.  Most of the post I read here (and similar sites) involve people using less than 3mgs many only using .25 mgs. The juxtaposition of such high dosages and such low doses like I say sometimes just sort of astounds me.

 

Also is there anyone here who knows for a "FACT" that klonopin and Xanax are fat soluble. ie easily mix with homogenized milk. Many years ago when xanax was new on the market a pharmacist said that it was an improvement upon valium because valium tended to build up in fatty tissue, where as Xanax didn't, and after metabolization was primarily discharged through the kidneys in the urine. It was believed, he said, that because of that fact it was anticipated that one  on  xanax was less likely to develope tolerance rapidly like to valium particularly if they didn't take the xanax  everyday.. Anyway I got the impression that xanax was not fat soluble. Therefor I wonder about klonopin and if it is stored in the fatty tissues. It seems that if it was fat soluble it would . Of course I could be mistaken.

 

 

 

Thanks for your time

 

John

[[pa...]]

Hi John,

 

i was on 25mg xanax per day and did a switch to valium and a slow taper. I'm clean now for more than 13 months and feel great!

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John, I think there are big individual differences in sensitivities to meds.  I started on klonopin in 1998 by taking 1/4th of a 0.5...sometimes 1/2 -- and it was strong enough to put me to sleep.  Over time, I started taking 0.5 every night -- which had a surprisingly strong effect on me.  To someone else, 0.5 probably would not have been enough. 

 

Some doctors can be dismissive of these low doses too.  Sometimes they just say "well just go off for a few days to see how you do - it's only 1.75" -- well... I wish it were that easy.  Someone once posted on here about seroquel which I once took for sleep.  Schizophrenics take it at 300mg - 400 mg and are wide awake.  I took 12.5 mg and was dead asleep for 12 hours and exhausted the whole next day. 

 

I don't think even neuroscientists understand why these individual differences exist.  There are theories, but who really knows.   12-15 mg of klonopin is also the dose for pediatric epilepsy...though I don't believe it is used for that any more.

[[Co...]]

Hi,

 

I was raking 4.5mg of Clonazepam as an anticonvulsant. A large dose, but there is the occasional person that takes several times that dose - truly massive doses!

 

When tapering off, reductions should be made in relation to the total dose. So, a reduction of 0.5mg from a daily dose of 5mg Clonazepam (10%) would be reasonable for most people; similarly, a reduction of 0.125mg from a dose of 1.25mg (again, 10%) would also be reasonable. So, we need to make the size of the reductions smaller as dose decreases. Though, at low doses, we can make cuts that no longer need to be reduced as our dose decreases. This is why people often report experiencing problems with cuts of, say, one-quarter of a 0.25mg tablet of Xanax, as this accounts for 25% of their total dose. In some respects, it easier to taper off a large dose than a small one - at least in the initial and middles stages. The problems usually arise because it become difficult (or near impossible) to cuts to a reasonable percentage of our total dose. However, using titration (making a liquid from our benzos) can usually resolve this problem.

[[Sa...]]

Hi John,

 

i was on 25mg xanax per day and did a switch to valium and a slow taper. I'm clean now for more than 13 months and feel great!

 

Pat,

 

That's great to hear!   I'm curious, did you titrate at the end?  I am currently at 1mg of Valium and an having a really tough time at the moment.

 

 

Sandy

 

 

 

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Thank you all for your comments.

 

Patrick thats an amazing accomplishment. You must have been in quite a toxic condition at such a high dose.

 

Nevertheless my question about klonopin actually being fat soluble has remained unanswered. From my storage jar I extracted with a 10ml syringe for the liquid part of my dose. I do both dry tablets and liguid from the liquid I make my cut. I was careful to swish the milk drug solution carefully I squirted the dose into a small little shot glass and drank it down. At the bottom of the glass was a small amount of white powdery substance. If the K is fat soluble I would imagine all the drug would be absorbed into the fat molecules in the homogenised milk, so this powdery substance causes me concern for am I actually geting the amount of drug I think I am cutting? Perhaps this powdery substance, as some have suggested, is just a filler for the K tablets  but it would sure be nice to know for sure.

 

John

[[Su...]]

John,

 

I'm a 20+ year user of more than 4 mg xanex.  Some days I used up to 9 mg, some days 6, never less than 4.  In 4 weeks crossed over from xanex to valium and then down to 25 mg of valium (not having an easy go of it though). 

 

Yes, I seem to remember getting off valium prior to xanex usage and it being relatively easy.  Seem to remember going off 5 mg at a time and not having had a bad time of it.  However, that could be because of the benzo fog I'm still in and have been in for a long time.

 

Being on a relatively large dosage, I sometimes couldn't understand that people could even have a problem on 1/4 of a mg of xanex twice or three times daily or a problem with only 10 mg of valium.  Thought that if I were down that low, I could just quit, but don't believe that now.  From now on, I intend to take no more than 10% cuts at a time.  Haven't even thought of using a liquid preparation yet (will do that when I can no longer cut the tablets enough).

[[Co...]]

Hi John,

 

I meant to address your question about Clonazepam being fat soluble, but somehow failed to answer you - I'm rather tired to day - I had a rough night.

 

Yes, I believe it is fat-soluble, but I think it is more that benzos have an affinity for fat, so will cling to the fat globduals in the homogenised milk. Jana (a former moderator of here) was the one that came up with using milk. She was good at finding stuff out - it's a shame she's no longer here.

 

It is important that the benzo tablets are ground up into a very fine powder. We have, in the past, suggested that people could use a cup and the back of a spoon to grind their pills, but maybe we should be stipulating that a pestle and mortar be used instead. We also recommend the use of full-fat homogenised milk, as this will better suspend the benzo powder. The residue, could just be filler of course, but I do understand your concern. I guess the proof will be in the eating - if you feel awful using this method, the benzo is not being evenly distributed within the milk prior to the disposal of the unwanted proportion of the benzo-milk liquid.

 

When preparing the liquid, add a little milk to the mortar, to rinse out the powder. This should be done twice to ensure all the powder is removed to the measuring cylinder.

[[Th...]]

John,

 

You could try asking some pharmacists your question about Xanax/Klon being fat-soluble. They should know the proper answer.

 

Therese

[[bo...]]

Hi

Everything I've read indicates it is fat soluable,For what its worth. It can be transfered through breast feeding.