Under .125 Klonopin Club

[[Kr...]]

Yeah, I think the first time I tapered it started out with insomnia and then the fatigue set in and I had to give up running.  I didn't know it was due to tapering at the time.  I totally understand not wanting to give up on exercise.  I was in the middle of training for a half marathon when I had to stop.  I went through a pretty long grieving period until I finally came to a place of acceptance that I needed to give it up for awhile.  I am hopeful that I will run again someday.  Yoga is so wonderful for calming the nervous system if you learn how to mindfully connect your breath with your movements.  The postures keep your body and mind strong.  Hang in there!

[[...]]

Thanks - I will let you know how the yoga goes.  I am starting to look forward to doing it tonight - gives me something to hope for.

[[Wo...]]

Hi Bob Welcome! I am so glad that you made it here what a huge accomplishment! I had really intense heart issues when I did the failed Ativan CT and went to the ER numerous times for EKGs all which were normal. This time around I am not having those sxs but I have so many others so just know we are in the same general boat. As for exercise. Yes the grieving process around that is really deep. I was a dancer for years and years and was part of several dance communities. It was everything to me. My sanity community good times exercise self expression and way to connect to my higher power. I also ran and did spin and other aerobic classes. All those things stopped. I developed a hip labral tear somewhere along this taper journey (it’s not a confirmed labral tear but I test positive for it) so along with the fatigue I now have this mechanical issue. I have a suspicion they are related I don’t know how but I was healthy as a horse before this mess started.

 

I am at .037 and having the worst sxs and I’ve been holding for weeks and weeks. I have no idea why I’m so exhausted have had bronchitis for weeks. I am now going on medical leave because I am no longer able to function at work with clients one on one.

 

Knowing that there are other athletes in this group is very helpful. To know that this is withdrawal is maddening but also comforting. What I feel I need to hear these days are the success stories of other athletes who’ve gotten through this and out the other side and resumed their high intensity lives.

 

Again, welcome Bob!

 

As for yoga I’m going to make a commitment to do some this evening as well.

 

 

 

[[...]]

Thank you for the response WW.

 

You wrote you have bronchitis.  Perhaps that is the reason you are having the worse sxs and had to hold taper for weeks.  I read in other posts when you are sick, you don't have the energy to fight withdrawal.  I also read one post where the person thought the antibiotic strongly increased withdrawal problems.

 

BTW - I assume sxs is short for withdrawal but what is it exactly?

 

YOU ARE SO RIGHT - knowing the problems are withdrawal is comforting.  THANK YOU for sharing you had heart issues too.  I have been concerned I might need bypass surgery or something.  I am only 56 years old and I have decades of eating healthy and exercise.  It is so discouraging to think my chest pains might be something real.  On Wednesday I get the Treadmill stress test.  With my fatigue, that will be an interesting test to run on me.

 

I am glad to hear you will be doing some yoga tonight too.  I have not picked out my routine yet.  Probably something from YouTube.

 

Bob

[[Kr...]]

Well I cut my dosage on Sunday and I've felt pretty awful since yesterday afternoon.  Tons of nerve symptoms...feel like there is a field of electricity around my body, my head pulses, my feet vibrate and tingle.  I didn't sleep much last night but I was able to get into some deep restorative meditation today.  I'm cutting .003mg every 2 weeks.  This is so tiny.  Not sure if I should try a longer hold.  I have a lot of activity coming up with my children and I need to be able to drive them around.  Sigh

 

Thinking of you all

[[...]]

Hi Kristin,

 

It is amazing how such a small cut in taper can cause so much trouble.  But it does seem like withdrawal.  You cut Sunday and here it is Tuesday.  I feel my tapers within 2 to 4 days. 

 

You mentioned you wish more sleep so you can help with your children activities. 

 

I take Chamomile Extract (like drinking Chamomile tea but you are not up at night to pee).  Here is a link https://smile.amazon.com/gp/product/B00014GAF4/ref=oh_aui_detailpage_o00_s00?ie=UTF8&psc=1

 

Hang in there.  You are almost to zero.

 

[[Gr...]]

Hi Everyone!!!  I'm still here.  Hanging in there. 

 

Kristin -  Thanks for thinking of me with my move!  I  totally know what you mean about being sick, year after year, only now, knowing why.  I have actually been feeling withdrawal symptoms for YEARS, and I just thought it was "my anxiety" cause that is what doctors told me.  I know really believe benzos caused all of it for years. 

 

Heather- How are you doing?  I hate tinnitus, or the other one, hypercusis?  The one where everything is super loud.  I get both but luckily they come and go and it sin't all the time. 

 

Wonderwoman -  I really hope you are feeling better.  How long have you had bronchitis?  I used eucalyptus oil and vick's vapor rub a lot, last time I had a nasty cough and it helped a lot. 

 

Bob-  Weclome!!!

 

This week for me, I am visiting my parents and doing a bunch of things for my mother.  She is going to move in with us, after we get settled in our new place, wherever we move this summer.  The most challenging thing for me was the drive,  7 hours in the car.  Ugh.  And what is with the lights on pick up trucks?  They seem so bright and like different than the lights on other cars?  Does anyone else notice this? 

 

As I was packing for this trip,  I found my LAST EVER klonopin prescription for .25mg pills.  I didn't think I had any more of those, but I was able to split them into fourths, and so now I am holding at .0625mg this week, for my trip.  I find it so much easier to take solid pills when travelling. 

 

I am feeling...okay.  I am aware of my anger much more, and not expressing it as much.  I talked with my Dad about it, nonspecifically.  Just how I have a lot of anger and he is like, "Oh that's is probably from withdrawal."  It's nice to hear someone else say it for a change and say it outloud too. 

[[...]]

Thank you for welcoming me GreenCup.

I love the support from this site.

 

[[Kr...]]

Hey GreenCup, I'm glad you posted.  I can't imagine taking such a long trip in the car at this point.  Good for you.  Truck lights normally bother me but I haven't been on the highway at night for so long, so I can't determine if they are worse for me during withdrawal.  I'm positive they would be quite painful though, especially if your eyes were more sensitive than normal. That's nice your dad validated your withdrawal. 

 

Bob - Thanks for the support and the link to the chamomile extract.  I'm so wary of any supplements at this point because I have a ton of food sensitivities and had bad reactions to various multi-vitamins at the beginning of my taper, but I'm glad it works for you and I will definitely keep it in mind for when I am healed.  The reason I was on benzos in the first place was due to insomnia.

 

My nerve symptoms were much better today but hit me for awhile mid-afternoon, along with anxiety and irritability.  Does anyone else get more irritable in the evenings?  I don't know if it's due to inter-dose withdrawal (I take my pill in the morning), or if it's just unregulated stress hormones at that time, but I can become super agitated late afternoon through the evening.

[[...]]

Hey Kristin,

To your problems in the evenings - irritable - have you tried taking your taper dose in the evenings?  I do it in the evenings (8pm) because I like to get all the help I can to sleep.  Like you, I got stuck on Benzos due to sleep problems - well, anxiety induce insomnia.  So taking my doses at night helps some.

Bob

[[Kr...]]

Bob, I used to take it at night.  At one point during my taper, I split my dosage so I was taking it twice a day (morning and evening) because I was not functioning well in the daytime.  I've thought about moving it back a bit but I really need to take care of stuff earlier in the day, and taking it in the morning seems to help.  Thanks for the suggestion.  Maybe I will try pushing it back gradually and seeing if it makes a difference.

[[...]]

Good luck to you.  I pray you have more good windows than bad and enjoy them and someday, the withdrawal will be gone for good. 

[[Kr...]]

Thank you.  You too!

[[Wo...]]

Hi everybody,

 

It sounds like everyone is just doing the best they can right now.  I feel like we are in the same boat and are all so close to the finish line and hanging on to our responsibilities the best we can.

 

The bronchitis is slowly passing.  Or, maybe it's gone but I do have a little bit of a cough and some sinus issues and scratchy throat.  I am thinking that there's a histamine reaction going on with the withdrawal that has kicked up and I am super sensitive to dust and cat hair and food again.  I just bought an air purifier and vacuumed and washed everything I could, hoping that helps. 

 

I don't feel wonderful but I was able to get out today and do a few things like shopping and picking my son up from school.  I was so exhausted by the time I got home though and had a temporary moment of beating myself up (this is my high achiever brain that kicks in when I am "normal") and I had to remind myself, "wait you are in withdrawal and on medical leave because you are exhausted, calm down".  It was kind of strange I am not used to being this sedentary and it's just my first week on official medial leave.  I guess I'll adjust to this new normal. 

 

A few people told me today on some FB support groups that I should jump because I'm so low.  I don't think this is a good idea I wonder what y'all think?

 

When do you plan to jump/walk off?

 

Hope everyone sleeps well tonight!!!

[[...]]

Hi WW,

 

About your bronchitis taking time to pass.  This year had a strange virus.  You get sick as typical with a cold or flu symptoms and get 'mostly' better but then the cough hangs on for 2 or 3 months.  I know a half dozen people, including my wife, who are still coughing after 2+ months.  We are from St. Louis MO so not sure if this bug reached your part of the world but I heard it was nationwide.  If you got this bug, you just have to be patient.  I trust you did an antibiotic.  I know people who did two types of antibiotics which helped BUT they still coughed for 4 weeks.

 

You asked for an opinion about jumping.  However, I cannot tell how many mg you are on.  In your signature, you wrote

3/20 .033 (.012 grams)

Must me something I am missing because 0.012 grams is 12mg which is very high.

Are you at 0.033 mg?

 

If you had asked me 3 weeks ago, I would have said jump at 0.033 mg. 

 

However, I just looked at my data and realize the lower I get the more time I need for the withdrawal to go away.  For example, I was holding around 0.5mg for years.  Then I did 0.375mg and it took 10 days to feel stable (withdrawal to go mostly away).  Then I did 0.25mg and it took a month to be stable if you count the time I split my dose between morning and night.  Then 0.19mg took 5 weeks.  Then 0.125mg and I am not even close to being stable at 5+ weeks.

 

So I see a pattern.  Every time I cut, the time it takes for me to stabilize (no more withdrawal) increases.  This last cut has had some of the worse and longest lasting w/d problems.

 

So I guess don't cut until the withdrawal is almost gone?

 

 

 

 

[[Wo...]]

Hi Bob I am so glad you caught the discrepancy between the mg and grams. I use a gram scale and when I measure my dose it’s .013 grams (that’s what it reads on the gram setting on the scale). My mg dose is .037 according to the math I’ve been doing all along. My psychiatrist was the one who first sat with me and did the math and worked out the mg to gram equivalent for the scale. So. That’s all I know. My pill is tiny like a tiny tiny little bit of a corner of a corner. I know it’s got to be around .037 as far as grams I am confused.

 

If you are mathy maybe you can figure that out?!

 

I did not take an antibiotic and hope to never take one again until I’m fully healed. An antibiotic is what got me into this mess in the first place. I was over a month off Ativan as needed and put on an antibiotic and all hell broke loose. It’s a long story but I was reinstated in the hospital. So I am healing this cough all on my own. I’m slowly getting better but still have a productive cough. Good to know it’s not just me. I’m in Northern Cali.

[[...]]

WW,

 

Well as for the math goes, it’s probably some kind a factor of 10 so your .013 is probably

either .13 mg or .013 mg.

 

But it really doesn’t matter-as long as you keep coming down you will eventually reach zero.

 

 

I started off today really bad -  depression which is rare for me- but then I PMed with somebody on BB and followed some suggestions and I’m actually having a pretty good afternoon.    I am at the YMCA right now working out /  nothing too  energetic  but trying to get some sort of work out. The guy from BB told me to stop dwelling on negative thoughts and try some 5-HTP. I don’t know which one did it but I am better. Think I’ll go out and see a movie this evening.

[[Wo...]]

Hi everyone,

 

Sorry you had a bad day (yesterday?) Bob but glad you pulled through! I had an awful day today which was pretty much the worst in the 7 weeks I've been in and out of waves.  It did pass a couple of hours ago and I'm in a small window now, phew!

 

Bob, I was mulling over the gram to mg issue and I realized that the gram is the weight of the pill the mg is the amount in the pill.  Does that make sense? When we started with the gram scale we first weighed a .5 pill then did the math from that.  That's got to be the answer here.

 

How is everyone else doing?

 

I want to do a DLMT can anyone here help me with the math?

 

Thanks!

[[...]]

WW,

 

You figured out the mystery!  Yes, that has to be it.  Silly me - thinking my 0.5mg of Klonopin tablet actually weighs 0.5mg.  Certainly there are fillers in the tablet - it probably weighs over 100 mg.

 

Good catch - thank you for sharing.

 

Yes, my day improved a bit.  I think having Easter at my house and the scheduled echo test next week to check my heart (due to chest pains) is making my anxiety bad right now.  After a few days of high anxiety, I think the body becomes depressed.  So I prayed hard and got the idea to simplify the meal plan for Easter to reduce my responsibilities and my chest pains are coming down.  Basically, instead of doing a bunch of BBQ and smoking meat which takes all day, I am dumping shrimp in pot and letting my family do the sides.

 

I hope you are feeling better.

 

Bob

[[Kr...]]

Hey Wonderwoman - I don't have a plan right now as to when I will walk off.  I'm really just going day by day at this point. Your dosage does seem low enough to jump but I can't recommend that as I don't know all the intricacies involved in your decision making.  I did read on here that once the dosage gets so low, it's no longer "therapeutic" or stabilizing.  Someone even suggested it might not offer any relief at all and is possibly prolonging healing as it creates an almost toxic tolerance.  I've considered this and thought of jumping many times but something intuitively tells me to hold on longer, that I'm not at that point yet. I don't know what DLMT stands for (Dxxxx liquid micro taper??).  If that's what it is, I don't think I can help with the math.  You are right that the gram weight is the actual weight of the pill. I'm at .025g right now which is equivalent to .073mg of medication.  My husband explained all the math involved when I first started dry-cutting and now I am an expert calculator, haha.

 

Bob - You are wise to notice how stress is affecting your symptoms.  I applaud you for cutting back your Easter duties and am glad you are getting some symptom relief after making that decision.  I've felt the stress of Easter a bit myself.  I wish I would have ordered candy and stuff for my girls' Easter baskets on Amazon because I didn't feel well enough yesterday to go out and get it during the day.  My husband ended up driving me at night to get their stuff along with the groceries I needed for side dishes.  I wish I would have taken care of it sooner but it kind of snuck up on me.  We are not hosting this year so I don't have to worry about cleaning the house and preparing a big meal.  I hosted a Christmas and I think that gathering combined with all the December activity threw me into a wave for all of January and part of Feb.  So yes, stress is big.  Reduce it any way you can.

 

I've had a lot more activity the past few days than usual and it will continue throughout today and tomorrow. I don't see it letting up until Monday.  I'm hoping I don't completely crash.  Feeling okay today energy wise...

[[...]]

Hi Kristin,

 

Thanks for the great posts and confirmation about reducing my responsibilities.  I let myself feel guilty about doing less so your support helps.  Honestly, the last two weeks has been so bad with the chest pains and waiting for test results on my heart, I think I would have reinstated if it wasn't for you and others giving me encouragement. 

 

What is on my mind now is, will my current withdrawal symptoms ever get low enough to do my next taper cut?  This lasts taper cut has lasted for 5 weeks.  Actually, 3 weeks into it I was feeling recovered but then the last two weeks got terrible.  Isn't that weird?

 

So you have kiddos for Easter.  That is wonderful.  My children are age 20 (boy) and 22 (girl).  But they still let my wife and I spoil them with Easter egg hunts.  However, it isn't the same as when they were little ones.  I miss it.  You enjoy every moment!

 

Bob

[[Gr...]]

Hi everyone,

 

Sorry you had a bad day (yesterday?) Bob but glad you pulled through! I had an awful day today which was pretty much the worst in the 7 weeks I've been in and out of waves.  It did pass a couple of hours ago and I'm in a small window now, phew!

 

Bob, I was mulling over the gram to mg issue and I realized that the gram is the weight of the pill the mg is the amount in the pill.  Does that make sense? When we started with the gram scale we first weighed a .5 pill then did the math from that.  That's got to be the answer here.

 

How is everyone else doing?

 

I want to do a DLMT can anyone here help me with the math?

 

Thanks!

 

Alright, I'm trying to wrap my head around the math in this.  So you are taking .013 grams- measuring it by weight, which is equivalent to .037mg of klonopin? 

 

If you dissolve a .25mg tablet in 100ml of milk, then each ml is .0025mg.  So 14ml would be .035mg.  That's pretty close, not exact.  15ml would .0375mg and 13ml would be .0325mg. 

[[He...]]

For liquid tapering, have you tried Jim Hawk's application for tapering?  It's a great tool and one that I will definitely use when I start my taper again.

[[...]]

You math is perfect.  How do you like doing the milk dilution method?

[[Kr...]]

Bob, are you having the heart testing this week? Thinking about you. I think you will just have to decide if you're symptoms are manageable enough to be able to reduce again. I kind of have a baseline I use to decide if I will cut or not. I have to be able to drive and I have to have had at least three functional days in the week prior to cutting. Maybe you could figure out some kind of baseline that works for you to help you make your decision.

 

Wonderwoman -  Sorry we're not able to help you out on your own thread. Hope you get some relief soon from your symptoms.