Is 10 mg Valium too high to start a water/milk titration plan?

[[Me...]]

I am just starting to feel a little bettter with the 10 mg Valium. My doc has prescribed enough to last 2 more weeks and then I see him again. 

 

I started feeling the last 1 mg cut within 2 days and then after a week or so, it was gettting bad and now at about the end of 3 weeks, I am very tired but some sanity is returning. I think in a week or so, if I stay sane for one week, I'd be willing to start titatrating on 23 of March.

 

If I don't titrate, I'd wouldn't do a 10% again, maybe only 5%, but will this protract my schedule. What is faster (make a cut and wait for the outcome, or daily small reductions?)

 

The best I can do for you is to make up the soln in a baby bottle (100 mls) and then draw off using a variety of droppers/syringes (i.e. 0.1 ml increments) and discarding. I can't find a graduated cylinder in this town.

 

Right now I have a small supply of 5mg and 2 mg tablets and a morter and pestle and I am competent with dilution practice (I was a chemical technologist) and I also used this method to get off Paxil.

 

If you just gave me the amounts (i.e 9.99 mg V on March 23, 9.98 march 24 etc) I can work up the calculations better than if you gave me the amounts as my supply is rather limited.

 

Are the reductions are daily?  If I become intolerably symptomatic, how long to hold?

 

 

[[Be...]]

Hi, Memories.

 

I didn't use titration or taper off Valium so what I am posting is just from what I've read here over the years.  Other than the hassle factor of titrating, the only downside I see to starting at a relatively high dose is wasting more pills.  You can taper just as fast using titration but, as you know, you would be making incremental reductions daily rather than the same cumulative amount all at one time.  From what I've read, the body usually tolerates those small reductions better so fewer or less intense w/d symptoms.  If your doctor will keep giving you refills, titration is certainly an option.

 

If you do want some help figuring out how much to discard, you'd need to decide on a titration rate; ie, what proportion of your current dose do you want to reduce over what period of time.  Many people start at 1%/day and then adjust up or down from there.  You will need to keep track of how much you discard daily; no one is going to be able to give you a chart of amounts to remove by date.  It should be fairly easy to set up a chart starting at 100 ml and then just record either how much you pitch or how much  you consume on a daily basis.

 

Hope this helps.

[[Me...]]

I'm going to switch to the titration method.  I am going to get a supply of 2 mg only.  Then with one tab, I will do my reductions, until I am drinking nothing, then I will reduce the other tabs by 1.

 

So I will start off with 4 tabs of 2 mg (8mg) and then crush the 2 mg, suspend in 200 ml of water and discard more and more every day.  (That will be .01 mg/ml)  When I get to the smaller amounts, I will syringe off the amount I need and then when I am down to no solution left, I will drop a pill ( go to 3 tabs) and then repeat again.  I guessing the most tolerable level would be to start with 10% over the month and see if doing smaller increments I will have less symptoms. (0.04 mg/day)

 

I am going to stabilize over every weekend and monitor for symptoms and if everything is tolerable I will continue doing the reductions every day instead of the dry cuts.  That last 10% was terrible coming down to 10 mg but I am starting to feel better again. and am collecting the tools I need to do the dilutions. 

 

I am surprised that the art of this method is called titration method.  Not to confuse people, but actually, this method is actually a suspension dilution method and as you add the chemical (or in this case, take away), that is the titration.  So if you keep taking away until you start having a symptom and then stop, that would be titration.  If you note the amount you stopped at, then this would be the titration point of your tolerance to the drug.

 

So the point of using small increments instead of large dry cuts, is that you get more accurate cuts evened out over the course of the withdrawal.  I will use suspension dilution and titrate by using my withdrawal symptoms! (In chemistry, you would see a change in color or change in PH or solids coming out of dilution (precipitation) or other indicator, so in our body, my indicator is confusion and depersonalization)

 

I am writing up my plan as soon as I post to share with my doc!

 

[[Be...]]

Sounds like a very conservative plan, Memories.  You seem quite knowledgeable so probably know that this will take quite along time to get off the 10 mg.  I can understand why you would want to proceed very cautiously having just gone through a bad patch.  If at some point you begin to feel more confident about your taper, I hope you will consider speeding up a little.  I have some concern about you developing tolerance which can happen when you are on a benzo a long time.  Baring that, you should do great with this schedule.  Good luck with your doctor.

[[Me...]]

I worked out the plan on my computer.  I see it is too slow, so I did speed it up a bit, but using excel I was able to make 1% cut of the previous dose and I am going to ask my doctor about getting some 1 mg/ml oral solution and take that to do the small increments (i.e take 5 mg + 2 - 2mg plus .9 ml of the drops... they would be more accurate than my own suspension.  I''d reduce by 0.1 every day or two or three.  Until I see the doc, I will try my own suspension for now just to see if the small cuts are tolerable now that I am nearly over that big WD from the last 1 mg cut.

 

My big question is when do people start to increase from the 1% schedule to do the final taper?  I see that in about four months, the 1% daily reductions starts to have 4 days for each .1 ml until I hit 2 mg.  This would put me into August so not bad for timing to be at 2 mg, if I can maintain that schedule and don't require to holds at any point.

 

What do people usually do at that point?. 

A) Continue to cut 1% from the previous dose (this would extend my WD to December or into the new year.)

 

B)  Continue with 4 cuts until its all gone (i.e. 2 mg over 8 days) 

1.75

1.50

1.25

1.00

.75

.50

.25

0

 

 

C) Ramp up the dose by 0.1 increments, so over about 20 days?

2.0

1.9

1.8

1.7

1.6

1.5

1.4

1.3

1.2

1.1

1.7

1.6

1.5

1.4

1.3

1.2

1.1

1.0

0.9

0.8

0.7

0.6

0.5

0.4

0.3

0.2

0.1

0

 

What is found to be the most tolerated?  I have had tolerance withdrawal, so I am eager to get over with it asap.