Need help!

[[Me...]]

I haven't posted for a long time and there's a reason.  Someone emailed me and suggested I go to another smaller forum run by someone she thought could help me get off my two benzos with virtually no withdrawal symptoms  She said this person knew more about benzos than anyone she ever came across.  So, of course, not looking forward to pain, and experiencing discomfort during my first 2 cuts, I jumped at the chance.  I will not name the person or the forum.

 

After many posts between this woman and me, trying to understand the method (the "expert" talks in very scientific terms; although she does seem to be quite brilliant), my inability to understand the method and lack of patience in their answering my posts (they are quite slow, and with my depression and anxiety I was impatient a couple of times), just as we were about to get close to begining the taper, they dropped me from the forum because of my confusion.

 

I was devastated.  Because I finally understood it and I was going to be withdrawal-symptom free.  What they did was have me combine my 7.5 mgs. of Klonopin with the equivalent of my 60 mgs of Restoril which is 1.5 Klonopin which equals 9 mgs. of Klonopin.  I got the o.k. from my pdoc to prescribe me 9 mgs. of Klonopin.  She was so happy because she said not too many docs would prescribe such a toxic amount, but I was already on a toxic amount.  As you know, I can't crossover to Valium because it is too high and they use Klonopin because they say it works just as well and doesn't have the depression causing issue.

 

Now, to top it off, my doctor was put in the hospital 2 days ago and yesterday his secretary informed me that he will not be returning to his practice.  Talk about depression upon depression.

 

Their method is very similar to titration.  You make a solution dissolving your pill or pills in whole milk, take out a very tiny amount for the day and divide it into 3 or 4 doses for the day.   You do not crush the pill.  Their method would take me about 7 years to come off my two meds because of how tiny their dose withdrawals are, which seems ridiculous to me, so I am willing to take bigger cuts and put up with some withdrawal symptoms.  What I don't want to do is have to come off one med at a time.

 

There is one thing they left me not knowing how to do.  That is, how do I gradually switch my Restoril into the 1.5 Klonopin?  They said it had to be done gradually and in water  (they are capsules) so it must be very gradual so that it does not alarm my body.  Is there anybody here who might know how I would do this safely?

 

I know this has been long.  I can't dry cut because they say Klonopin just should not be dry cut unless you want to suffer.

 

I know your forum uses certain methods here.  This one is closest to titration, just doesn't use a 100 ml. cylinder.  They said it would take 12 oz. of milk each day.

 

Can anyone here help me?  I'm desparate.

 

Thank you for reading such a long post.

[[Pa...]]

Hi Mebarb,

 

I'm sorry you weren't able to get all of the information you needed to do this, but we'll do our best to help you with this last little bit.  It sounds like they want you to titrate your Restoril down while adding Klonopin?  I don't really understand why this would be necessary since Klonopin's half life is longer, it would seem that your body would adapt to this fairly easy, but not knowing their process, it's hard to say.  Let's keep talking about this, hopefully you can help me to understand and we can come up with what you need.

 

I was wondering, will it be difficult to find another Dr to prescribe 9 mg of Klonopin for you? 

[[Me...]]

Pam,

 

I don't understand why I can't just switch from the Restoril to the Klonipin either.  They found the equivalency of the 60 mg of Restoril to the Klonipin to be 1.5 mgs., but they said it needed to be done gradually so as not to alarm my body.  Why would it alarm my body if it's the equivalent??  I went to a new psychiatrist today who happened to have a cancellation (and also who carries my insurance!) and she didn't know how to switch them over.  That really surprised me!  She said she has a friend who is a neurpharmacologist and she will call him and find out for me (obviously, since I made a second appointment with her) and she gave me a prescription for the 9 mgs of Klonopin.  But that's of no use until I know how to incorporate the Restoril.

 

The sad part of this whole thing is that whoever I find who will give me the 9 mgs of K, I will have to stay with for a very, very long time to keep getting it, whether I like him/her or not!

 

I thought my pharmacist who is usually pretty sharp would know, but she didn't.

 

Maybe someone on the forum will still have a thought about it.  What's sad about this is besides the fact that my last psych. put me on such high doses of benzos and left me on them, he was brilliant with medication, and he would have known the answer in a second.  Well, too bad.

[[Pa...]]

Hopefully someone will have more input, but if you don't get it, you might have to wing it and just go with what you think will work for you.  As you know, Professor Ashton crossed her patients by .5 mg increments lasting one or two weeks each time.  Of course crossing over to Valium requires this kind of time frame because it's so slow to build up in the blood.  I must admit, I'm baffled by the method that has been suggested to you, but I'm thrilled they figured out a way for you to only taper one med.  I know we tried with the Valium, but as you said, there was just too much. 

 

It's good to know you'll have a good supply of Klonopin.  I wanted to remind you that these drugs do NOT dissolve in liquid, so I'm not sure how effective putting your pill in milk will be?  If you crush it and shake it really well before you drink it, you're guaranteed to get a good amount of particles in your dose.  But then, their method may have figured a way around that, I don't know. 

[[Me...]]

I "ate crow" and went back on that forum and just asked how to do that crossover.  She said she had actually never crossed Restoril (she used the name Temazepam) over to Klonopin - after all the talking she did.  But here's what she said to do, and I want to see if it makes sense to you.

 

"So you can take away 30.0 mg Temazepam and replace it with 0.75mg Klonopin.  Wait for a week or two.  Then do it again.  This is not finely tuned, but it is better than just switching in an instant.  If you feel it, you'll adjust in a matter of two to three weeks.

 

"PS-0.5mg Klonopin=20.0mg Temazepam.  A good mental exercise would be to use this to check the numbers above.

 

"There are idiots, and also there are smart people who make mistakes.  Check your own numbers to be safe."

 

Now, this is me, Barb, talking.  I don't know if I should take the chance.  If a genius like her doesn't know for sure, how could I?  Maybe I should just go off each med separately as if I never went on that forum to begin with.  And, that's another month or possibly more that I could be tapering.

 

What are your feelings?

 

[[Pa...]]

Too funny, I just suggested this same process on your other thread.    I say dump the Restoril, and start tapering your Klonopin, you'll feel much better once you make a decision and have a plan!  Oh and by the way, you don't hold the record for high doses, we have lots of folks who have been or are now on large doses.  We just had a member join who is on 20 to 25 mgs of Xanax, which is the same in equivalency to Klonopin.