Help me plan my wife's Clonazepam taper

[[Ho...]]

Hi all, this week I've gone down into the rabbit hole of Benzo tapering.

 

My wife had been on Klonopin for about 6 months for insomnia. She has been slowly dry tapering with basic common knowledge available on the internet.

However we just had a really rough weekend and are learning we're going to have to be more cautious with this taper.

 

She had been on .5mg of Klonopin for a while and stable. She went to .375 for a few weeks and while she wasn't amazing (bits of insomnia)

it was manageable.

 

However she wanted to hurry up and get off the meds and was thinking we were just at the finish line. So she dropped down to .25mg for a few days and then to 0mg

this weekend. Lets just say that didn't go well.

 

We had all the textbook withdrawal symptoms. Insomnia, heart palpitations, tremors etc etc.

 

To get her to normalize a bit she's on .5mg for about 2 days now and we're gonna replan our taper again.

 

Our original plan is

.5mg 1-2weeks

.375 1-2weeks

.25 1-2 weeks

.12 1-2 weeks

0?

 

However following the 10% rule I'm seeing things like

.50mg

.45

.375

.3

.25

etc etc

 

Is that even possible with a dry taper? Also on this low of a dose is it necessary to go this slow and precise?

I will say my wife is a bit on the highly sensitive side in life in general.

 

Lastly are there any things she can take to ease this transition? I've read things like GABA supplements, Niacin, Vitamin C, Magnesium etc etc.

 

Thanks for the help!

[[Ro...]]

Hello,

    Sorry to hear that your wife's taper went too fast.  Your revised taper example still looks too fast.  10% is the upper limit of the suggested 5 - 10% taper rate.  And the math is based on the reduced dosage.  So, for example,  .45 mg would be reduced by 10%, giving about .40mg.  And then the next reduction would be based on .40 mg and so on.

 

I use a jeweler's scale that I got from Ebay and a nail file to reduce the pill.  Others use sand paper or liquid titration for the reductions.

[[Pa...]]

Along with the recommended 5-10% reductions we stress a symptom based taper that will hopefully allow us to be functional, recording symptoms and their severity can aid in determining future reductions.

 

I know she's in a hurry to be off the drug but using the drug to minimize symptoms as she reduces is the purpose of a taper and while she does this her brain is working to get back the function the drug disrupted.  Once she's off the drug she'll be in the recovery phase and this can last quite awhile and be quite painful so going slow and allowing as much healing as possible while tapering before jumping will hopefully allow her to gently step off the drug and her recovery phase will be uneventful.

[[je...]]

I agree with everything that's been said and just want to add that 0.5mg is not a low dose. Clonazepam is extremely potent meaning you need just a little bit to get an effect.  Just to give you a better idea, 0.5mg Clonazepam is equal to 10mg of Valium. 

[Guest [Ro...]]

Chiming in to echo Jelly baby that this is not a small dose!  This drug is extremely powerful and your wife will probably not be able to even express to you what all is happening as she tapers.  And being pregnant she will be very scared too. You look normal outside and feel like you're going to die on the inside. It's really rough for most of us.