Titration schedule request

[[b1...]]

Hi, I hope no one seems it's silly to request a titration schedule for the last 0.25mg of my Ativan.  I did fine dry cutting up until now but I tried to cut the last 0.125mg from my am dose yesterday and had a pretty rough day, so I've decided to slow this down and titrate the remaining amount.

 

I don't really want to buy a lot of supplies because this shouldn't take me too long to complete.  I do have the small pediatric syringes that are measured in ml's...will this be ok?  Can I crush the pill with a spoon and mix it in a glass?  I can use the small syringes to fill the glass to the amount of liquid I need.

 

Here is my info:

 

0.5mg Ativan pills

0.125mg am / 0.125mg pm

 

I guess I will go with 1ml reductions a day...I can always speed up or slow down as I've read here.  Starting day can be anytime in the next few days, it really doesn't matter.

 

If you need any more information please let me know.  I am soooooo grateful for all the help I've received here!!!

 

Beth

 

[[Co...]]

Hi Beth,

 

I really don't think you need a full-blown titration schedule. Simply, crush up your daily dose, and mix it with full-fat homogenised milk, in a straight-sided glass, and dispose of a proportion of the volume of milk. You might use a ruler to measure to reduce the volume by a fifth, or maybe a tenth. Just fill the glass to convenient height (5 inches or 10cm, for examples), and make you redcution. Don't get too too hung up by making exacting measurements though. You are just looking for some reasonable level of consistency.

[[b1...]]

Hi Colin, thank you for getting back to me.  I'm pretty sure I understand what you're saying.  So let's say I want to do this in 10 days...I fill the glass to, let's say, 10cm.  On the first day I would fill to 10cm, stir in the crush ed 1/4 pill, take out 1cm of the milk and drink the remaining 9.  Then the next day, fill to 10cm and add the crushed 1/4 pill, take out 2cm and drink the remaining 8cm, etc.  Yes???

 

Beth

[[Co...]]

Hi, yes, except you would probably allow more than one day between each reduction. It just depends upon how long you think reasonable to taper the remainder of your dose. You can, of course, suspend further cuts at any stage, just as you might with pill-splitting.

[[b1...]]

Thanks Colin, you've been so helpful!!

 

Beth

[[b1...]]

Ok, sorry to be a pest, but I have one more question.  Since I currently dose 0.25mg/day (0.125mg x 2/day) can I use a whole 0.5mg pill and then use the milk solution over 2 days?  I think this may be easier than trying to cut the pill in half each day, as I always butcher the teeny tiny thing and it ends up in crumbs a lot of the time LOL. 

 

For example, if I use 100ml of milk, put in a 0.5mg crushed pill, I guess I could just consider each dose to be 25ml (1/4 pill per dose) and then if I decide to go down 1ml per dose I can just take out 24ml into a syringe and drink that? And then the next day take out 23ml and drink that (or whatever pace I decide to go at)?  I hope this makes sense...it makes sense in my head!  Essentially what I think I'm doing is "shaving" a little off the pill each day drinking a little less each day?

 

Beth

[[Be...]]

Ok, sorry to be a pest, but I have one more question.  Since I currently dose 0.25mg/day (0.125mg x 2/day) can I use a whole 0.5mg pill and then use the milk solution over 2 days?  I think this may be easier than trying to cut the pill in half each day, as I always butcher the teeny tiny thing and it ends up in crumbs a lot of the time LOL. 

 

For example, if I use 100ml of milk, put in a 0.5mg crushed pill, I guess I could just consider each dose to be 25ml (1/4 pill per dose) and then if I decide to go down 1ml per dose I can just take out 24ml into a syringe and drink that? And then the next day take out 23ml and drink that (or whatever pace I decide to go at)?  I hope this makes sense...it makes sense in my head!  Essentially what I think I'm doing is "shaving" a little off the pill each day drinking a little less each day?

 

Beth

Makes perfect sense, Beth.  No benzo-fog here.  You have it correct and explain it well.  Even makes sense in my head. 

[[b1...]]

Awesome!  I think I'll start it tomorrow with a full 25ml for a test run and then start reducing on Monday.

 

Wishing everyone a wide open window weekend!

 

Beth

[[b1...]]

Has anyone successfully titrated using rice milk?

 

Beth

[[Be...]]

I don't know, Beth. Rice Milk has a very low fat content (2g vs 8 for whole milk) with soy milk fat content falling between the two.  From what I've read, rice milk is mostly carbs.  I'm sure others will have other info and opinions.

 

How are you today?

[[Co...]]

Milk works much better than water because of the fat content, so I would assume that rice milk would not work as well as homogenised full-fat milk, but probably still would have some benefits over water. How much benefit is hard to say.

[[b1...]]

I kinda figured that rice milk wouldn't work, no problem, I'll stick with whole milk.

 

Beeper, I think the titration is going well. I'm down to .16mg/day (84% done!) and I'm going at about .01 - .015mg/day reduction.  This is soooo much slower than I was going before, but hey, what the heck!  I'm not sure if I'm having any w/d s/x or not because I also have fluid in my inner ears (for 3 months now) and that causes a lot of balance and anxiety issues on it's own.  But, I had great news the other day...the ear/nose/throat dr. bumped up my appt. from the 26th to tomorrow!!!  So hopefully I can get treatment started on my ears and then get this all behind me

 

By the way, I think titration is much easier on the body than dry-cutting (in my opinion).

 

Have a good day!

Beth

[[Be...]]

Wow, 84% free already!  That is great.    I've become a titration believe, too, Beth.  I wish I had understood it better when I was tapering; I would have switch over that last month for sure. 

[[b1...]]

And it's really not nearly as hard as the instructions make it out to be.  It only takes about 3 or 4 minutes to make a "batch" that lasts me for 2 days and then it only takes seconds to draw the dose I need into the syringe and drink

 

Beth

[[Be...]]

And it's really not nearly as hard as the instructions make it out to be.  It only takes about 3 or 4 minutes to make a "batch" that lasts me for 2 days and then it only takes seconds to draw the dose I need into the syringe and drink

 

Beth

I would love it if you could post about your experience with titration when others are considering it.  I know I thought it sounded too complicated for my benzo brain.

[[Co...]]

And it's really not nearly as hard as the instructions make it out to be.  It only takes about 3 or 4 minutes to make a "batch" that lasts me for 2 days and then it only takes seconds to draw the dose I need into the syringe and drink

 

Beth

I would love it if you could post about your experience with titration when others are considering it.  I know I thought it sounded too complicated for my benzo brain.

 

If someone (anyone) would like to take a stab at rewriting it, I'd be greatful. It is devil to write though. Believe it or not, the current version is a vast improvement by Therase (for Moderator) upon my draft version. Though I'm sure it can be improved further.

 

Maybe if the instructions catered for least complicated situations, and it linked to ancillary documents to cover usual situations? I need to reread it myself. It has been a very long time since I've even looked at the document.

[[b1...]]

Oh, I didn't mean to imply the instructions are hard at all.  When I first read them I thought "oh my gosh, I can't do this" but then once you make a batch for the first time you look back and wonder why you thought it was so hard.  Since I'm not titrating exactly as the instructions explain I wouldn't be of much help to put my 2 cents in. I just used a 10ml syringe and filled it with water and put it in a clear class and repeated it 9 more times till I got 100ml, then I put a piece of masking tape at the 100ml line for future reference and dumped the water out (you only have to do this the very first time).  Then I just crush a 0.5mg pill, add a little milk, stir, add milk to the line and stir again.  Then use the same 10ml syringe to take out the amount I need and put the milk back in the fridge for the next 3 doses.  After my 4 doses, I just rinse the cup out and use it again the next time I make a batch as the tape is still on the glass.

 

I just wanted people to know that titration is really easy to do, and in my opinion, it's easier than trying to figure out if the pill you just cut it exactly 1/2 or 1/4, etc.  If anyone has a digital video camera they may consider taping it when they make a batch and maybe there can be a link on here for people to watch.  I find that sometimes watching something, as opposed to reading, can be easier.

 

Take care,

Beth

[[Be...]]

 

If someone (anyone) would like to take a stab at rewriting it, I'd be greatful. It is devil to write though. Believe it or not, the current version is a vast improvement by Therase (for Moderator) upon my draft version. Though I'm sure it can be improved further.

 

Maybe if the instructions catered for least complicated situations, and it linked to ancillary documents to cover usual situations? I need to reread it myself. It has been a very long time since I've even looked at the document.

I think it's more that we are often scared, confused and not thinking clearly, Colin.  I believe having people who've used titration would reassure newbies that it's easy to do would be more help than rewriting the instructions.  But that's just my opinion.

[Guest [ca...]]

I believe I saw someone on youtube with instructions on titrating

but he used baby food not milk

[Guest [ca...]]

Hi Beth,

so let me ask you this?

you didn't have to purchase anything to do this method right?

[[b1...]]

No I didn't purchase anything...I just used a regular glass and a 10ml syringe I had leftover from my kid's medicine.  And I use the back of a spoon to crush my pill.  Since I was only going to be titrating for a few weeks and it was such a small amount (0.125mg/dose) I didn't buy the equipment.  If I was titrating a larger amount, or for a longer time, I probably would have bought the right equipment.  Oh, and I'm titrating at my own speed as I didn't have a schedule made up.

 

Beth