Propylene Glycol safe to use for Liquid taper for Mirtazapine??

[[Le...]]

Hey guys,

 

So I am benzo free since July 1st 2019. I am at a point now where I feel ready to taper off the Mirtazapine. I tried before just dry cutting and the withdrawal was too intense kept going multiple days in a row without sleep. I should also mention that I also quit using medical Cannabis 3 months ago after using it for sleep during my benzo taper. It wasn't easy to quit either at any rate I'm now at a place where I feel ready to taper off the Mirtazapine again this time liquid tapering.

 

I had heard that using alcohol as a solvent may not be the best idea for liquid tapering as alcohol is GABAergic and could harm recovery and had read for this reason Propylene Glycol maybe a better alternative as there is supposedly no alcohol content in Propylene Glycol however what's confusing is when you google Propylene Glycol and look it up on Wikipedia it says " ..  Containing two alcohol groups, it is classed as a diol. It is miscible with a broad range of solvents, including water, acetone, and chloroform."

 

So is Propylene Glycol an alcohol or not just like the type we can't touch while in recovery?? Is it even safe e

to use on a liquid taper? I'm confused I thought that if anything has alcohol content it had to be listed on the bottle itself and on Amazon itself it says " This is not alcohol" but Wikipedia says otherwise??

 

I'm confused and just wanna make sure I'm not gonna have a bad reaction using it to taper off the Mirtazapine while also in benzo recovery. I ordered a litre bottle to start my taper off Mirtazapine and now I'm worried it may not be safe to use as a solvent as it's just basically like using drinking alcohol??

[Guest [ba...]]

Don't overthink this...

 

So little alcohol is used in titration that it's not a consideration (for GABA).  If you're not a recovering alcoholic, I would suggest using alcohol over prop glycol.  It's easier to work with.

 

You'll just use a few ml of alcohol when you make your dilutions.  That's like a tenth of a one ounce shot. 

 

Anything over 80 proof will work.

 

Use prop glycol if you wish, but do it for the right reason.  Hydroxyl groups are very common - you'll find them in all sugars, all starches and even water has one. 

[[Le...]]

What do you mean by Hydroxyl group?? Are you saying sugar itself is a form of alcohol??

 

Also what makes using Propylene Glycol harder?

[Guest [ba...]]

Hydroxyl groups (OH) are what makes alcohols alcohols.  Ethanol is C2H5OH, methanol is CH3OH, propanol is C3H7OH, etcetera.

 

No, sugar is not an alcohol, but it contains a lot of hydroxyl groups.  A lot of compounds contains hydroxyl groups, but are not alcohols.  You seemed to be trying to lump PG in with ethanol based on PG having hydroxyl groups (like ethanol has).

 

PG is kind of viscous which makes it a little harder to use as a solvent.  It'll work, but you'll need to be a little more patient to get the contents of the pill solubilized.  Otherwise, PG works fine.