Liquid Tapering with Clonazepam

[[Af...]]

Really, does this mean that everyone who is doing a liquid taper has to spend every other day preparing dosages? Will milk solutions last longer than water/alcohol?

Well getting on to my other question, does it matter how much water I use with the Everclear?

Is dry tapering easier than trying to work with liquids?

I'm just frustrated trying to get off of this poison.

Thank you badsocref

[Guest [ba...]]

I imagine some people have tried making more than two days worth of liquid med.  You might start a thread on that and see what kind of input you get.  The problem is that the method hasn't been tested with sufficient rigor for us to make big claims.

 

Don't use brand new (virgin) glass or plastic to make/store your solutions.  The drug is more likely to stick to a virgin surface.  Better to use containers you've used a few times.

 

You can use a pretty wide range of water volumes.  Seems a fair number of people use 100 ml (easy calculations), but you can use 10 or 50 or 200.

 

Dry tapering involves daily weighing and some people get frustrated with all of the weighing.  Liquid tapering involves daily (ish) mixing and it's got to be done properly/consistently.  Yeah, it's a bit of a hassle either way, but really shouldn't take much longer than brushing your teeth. 

 

Sorry for the daunting amount of info/choices.  Most of this stuff is personal preference.  If I had a strong preference for a method, I'd let you know.  I do feel strongly about listening to your body and varying the taper rate depending on how you're feeling.  Don't get so tied to a schedule that you end up bed-bound.  Slow down or hold if appropriate and do it before things get really nasty.

[[sl...]]

I'm taking .75 of .25 mg (1/2 of a .5 mg) Klonopin. This is .1875 mg. of Klonopin 1x per day. I want to stay on this until I can stabilize. If I divide my .5 tablet by .1875 I get 2.6. So if I put 2 tabs in alcohol and water I can get roughly 5 doses and it's good for 5 days and saves me some time making it. Does it matter how much water and alcohol I add to it or can I make it 200 ml. and take 40 ml. per day? I do know that I should crush the pills before adding to the liquid (water and Everclear)  Does this make sense or am I missing something?

 

Okay, a little different problem now, but yes, I think what you want to do is possible.

 

So because the alcohol to mg benzo stays the same (1-3ml 90% ethanol, such as Everclear, per 1mg benzo, maybe 2ml or 2.5ml at a minimum for klonopin), the preservative action of that ethanol will be relative to the volume of water you dilute it it. You can dissolve 1mg of klonopin in 2.5ml of 90% ethanol (5ml of vodka or similar, remember those are only 40% ethanol); remember to do this first, and let the ethanol saturate the crushed pills and do it's dissolving work while it's concentrated! After stirring a bit and waiting, then dilute the total volume to 10ml (you'll probably want a 10ml glass graduated cylinder, as 10ml is less than 1 Tbs), and you have a solution of 0.1mg/ml at about 25% ethanol. Transfer it to a small jar with a lid. That will keep for a while, especially in the fridge, easily 5 days.

 

Can I prove this will last 5 days? No; but my flower essences have kept for months with ~25% ethanol, and they're made with water that sat outside for several hours in the sun with flowers in it; and that's many months without any refrigeration. So, anecdotally, I'd say what I describe making above will last 5 days in the fridge, easy.

 

From this 0.1mg/ml solution you'd need a 1ml syringe with 100 gradations (1ml "oral syringes" are on Amazon, check that it has precise gradations by looking closely at the pictures or description). Cover and SHAKE your mixture before dosing! Then draw your dose as 1.87ml of solution which is equal to 0.187mg of K; this dose would be taken in two drawings, first drawing 1ml and swallowing, then draw again to get your 0.87ml and swallow that. (Someone is welcome to check and correct my math on this, but I'm doing my best!)

 

In summary, because you want preservation, you're needing a higher ethanol to water ratio. To do that while minimizing your ethanol consumption, you'll need to work more accurately and therefore with more precise equipment. A 10ml glass graduated cylinder, and a precise 1ml oral syringe with 100 gradations are what I'd recommend (a medicine bottle with a push-in syringe adapter would be icing on the cake, if you can get them). Lastly, the method described above is specifically a response to your request for 5 days of solution with good preservation.

 

Just as an addendum, my compounding pharmacist makes me an oil suspension; just MCT oil and pure clonazepam and it keeps for 60-90 days. I suspect this can be done fairly easily at home with tablets, maybe lasting 30+ days made in non-sterile conditions, and I describe the method that I would try here: http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=253375.msg3219349#msg3219349

 

The learning curve can be quite steep sometimes Affablie. Keep it simple, and do your 5 day supply if you can manage it. If not, yes unfortunately, you'll be mixing water and tablets daily; likely something like half a pill (0.25mg) and then toss the extra to get your 0.1875mg each day.

 

Keep trying and you'll get this worked out! We're here for you. 

[[Af...]]

slownsteady I'm working on your directions to make my 5 day supply. It sounds like a thorough explanation and I understand it now and I've been shopping on Amazon for parts. I have some questions which I'll add probably tomorrow. Thanks again for taking the time to help. This is all so new and it's hard with a foggy brain.

[[Af...]]

Thanks slownsteady. I'm working on your process and have some questions.

1. I don't have experience with syringes and I have some trouble finding them. The 1 ml one that I found has a luer tip, non-sterile, and says it's for feeding pets, etc. Also I wonder about the liquid in the tips. When I draw 1 ml doesn't the liquid in the tip  make it more than 1 ml? 

 

2. Everclear at 90% is okay to use? Is Ethanol safe to drink?

Thanks

[[sl...]]

Hey Affablie,

I'm glad you're still at this. You'll get it! Myself and others are happy to answer questions.

 

Edited for more clarity about syringe antics...

1. Yes, some medicine sits in the syringe tip, but it doesn't get dispensed therefore it doesn't effect the measurements you're seeing at the plunger line.

 

When I draw my dose, the bottle is upside down (push-in syringe adapter is magic!) so I purge any air bubbles that result from the tip up into the bottle, and when I'm done dosing, I retract the syringe plunger just a bit to pull that medicine out of the tip and into the cylinder so I can put the cap on the syringe. I store the syringe with the medicine in the fridge; I don't wash it, because I never let it touch the inside of my mouth. The medicine in the tip just gets recycled into the bottle next time I dose.

 

I'm sorry I've never dosed a water-based liquid by oral syringe, nor without a bottle push-in syringe adapter, but I think that you do want to get that air bubble out of the tip before drawing your dose so that your dose measurement will be accurate. When I water titrated I used glass pipettes and a manual pipette controller (also magic!). Maybe someone else can chime in with syringe advice for you? You'll definitely figure it out though; don't panic. And after you use the syringe you can try to cap and refrigerate the little tip dose like I do, or wash the syringe and take the loss; I don't know what it is that you'd lose, maybe 0.1ml.

 

Are you in the US? My pharmacist has been sending me ones that look exactly like these...

[nobbc]https://www.amazon.com/dp/B01628CDEE[/nobbc]

 

2. Yes, Everclear is perfect for an ethanol-based solvent. No, it's not safe to "drink", but unless you have a personal reason for intolerance like liver issues, it is as safe to use in medicine making as any other solvent I know of. Consider all the herbal tinctures for sale; many are preserved (and in fact extracted) with high percentages of ethanol, yet they remain effective remedies.

 

Edit: Deactivated commercial link.

[[Af...]]

Since getting a consistent dosage has gotten a little more complicated than I had hope, maybe I should try a dry dosage. I don't know how hard that is yet.

[[sl...]]

Just my experience, but dry tapering is pretty easy if you do it the way Bob7 does it. He has a whole website on it... https://benzodrytapermath.com/

 

I don't recommend buying a cheap milligram scale ($20-$100) and then just weighing and filing down your pills alone. People do it. People post videos and show it can be done, in a breeze-less room, after three calibration attempts and eight different pill measurements; they just sort of guess what might be the weight and hope the error gets lost in the noise. This method drove me nuts!

 

Bob7 has you crush a known number of pills and mix it with a micro crystalline cellulose filler. You're then weighing a  much less potent powder which is much more accurate on these cheap scales; I haven't tried his method but hopefully the third decimal place becomes something of a rounding error, instead of an exact requirement.

 

Another buddy, forget their name at the moment, said they crushed up a known number of pills into a known number of tablespoons of powdered sugar. Then they just took tablespoon and/or teaspoon measurements to titrate their dose from this dilution of powder. No scale required, just some simple math. You could do this same method with micro crystalline cellulose instead of sugar, I believe.

 

Lastly, there's the $500 analytical balance that measures to 0.0001g, or 0.1mg; THAT is what I would want to use if I was filing my pills down. It's probably a waste of money, but that is the only way I could get my anxiety-riddled brain to accept a dry pill weight down the 1mg.

 

So if you do go dry, definitely try the filler approach. Bob7 is pretty genius and his website is really easy to follow from what I've read. The only thing I don't like about his method is that he saves time by preparing all his capsules ahead of time; there doesn't seem to be an easy way to hold a certain dose spontaneously like you can do with a liquid or daily dry weight taper. Maybe he has a method for holding at a certain dose with his capsules, I just don't know it.

 

Also, maybe start a new thread if you want dry tapering advice; I don't know if Bob7 will come by this thread since he's more of a dry tapering wizard.

 

Hope this helps! 

[[Af...]]

Bob07's way seems too difficult for my brain right now. I was thinking of doing what drove you crazy and weigh the pills just to get a consistent weight everyday. Are the scales too hard to work with? It's hard for me to believe that .001 mg. can be so critical to the weight of the pill that I take.

[Guest [ba...]]

Scales aren't bad to work with, but you have to put up with a little bit of inconsistency (else shell out $1k for a research-quality balance).  The GEM-20's that I often recommend do an admirable job for $25.  But if you weight the same object 10 times, you will see a small bit of variance.  It's usually just 1 or 2 milligrams.  That really bothers many people, but in reality it's probably a smaller error than what is in your prescription medications.

 

Use the balance correctly and it will do the best job.  Secure, level surface.  No wind currents.  Calibrating it multiple times won't help.  We rarely calibrated the GEM-20 that we used at the testing lab, and it worked just fine.  We'd put the standard weight on the balance.  It would register with a few milligrams of the expected value.  That's good enough.

 

Adding more inert mass to the pill increases the accuracy of your weights, but it isn't necessary.

[[Af...]]

Thank you badsocref