Ashton Method

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Hello All,

 

I am brand new to benzo buddies. I am currently using the Ashton manual to taper off of clonazepam that I was taking 1mg 3 times per day. I am on stage 6, and I feel like my depression has gotten worse. I am always tired, and my concentration and memory is poor. I still manage to work out quite a bit, and have a very knowledgeable doctor that is helping me with supplements and other advice to get through this. I have been tapering for approximately 12 weeks. I think it has been longer than that. Anyways, I was wondering if anyone has used the Ashton method and has been successful with it. Any advice, or positive stories would be greatly appreciated. As everyone knows, life has not been easy. I feel like I could always take a nap as well, which is super frustrating.

 

Thanks,

 

Progress 1991

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Most of us are following some form of the Ashton Method. We're all going at different paces and adapting to our symptoms but that's what Ashton advocates.

 

If you start to feel like symptoms are catching up with you, it isn't a bad idea to consider taking an extra week or two between reductions. It gets progressively harder to keep reducing consecutively on schedule. Each reduction takes a little bit out of you and you reduce again before your nervous system gets to settle. A very common story on these forums is for people to rigidly stick to a schedule (even though Ashton calls for adapting to symptoms) and reduce when they are already struggling to tolerate their symptoms. They land here because the symptoms they experience are more than they can handle. I've been there.

 

I think the Ashton Manual is a very good thing as it gives confused doctors/patients a good starting point. I would note, however, that it is important to heed the advice about individualising the taper. I could not have kept pace with the example schedules and it would have harmed me to try.