Withdrawal at 29 months microtapering.

[[os...]]

Far to many variables, but the path just might work. I know you've seen a lot after being on this board and I think the one thing you should recognize most is how inconsistent any of this is.

 

Have a horrible taper and ok at 0, have a great taper and horrible at 0, c/t and better in months, c/t and better in years, fast taper and ok, fast taper be messed up. Some windows throughout, no windows throughout. Slow, more linear healing, no linear healing and out of the blue healed. The list of experiences just keep going.

 

I can see you getting to 2.0 and being just fine from then on, I can also see your holds not working in time. Both are possible. I do think we try our best to do what we feel is right and what we can handle, but unfortunately we have no control over this drug. It does what it wants, when it wants. Sometimes it 'seems' to follow your rules and sometimes it doesn't. I think we try to guide is as best possible but ultimately we don't know what tomorrow will bring.

 

I agree with you Formula.

 

I go by a rule of thumb that if I do not stabilize after cuts, then I go back to where I was at before as pushing forward with me never worked, if anything it made everything x1000 worse, I would rather go back up a little and get stable than try and beat the drug at it's own game because that is how most people end up in such a mess... as frustrating as it is to go backward, sometimes the brain just isn't ready to make more reductions... as always, this is mostly about time.

 

If I manage to feel "OK" by 2 mgs (or at 2 mgs), I suspect this will get easier... I see this part of the taper as being the most tricky as I can feel healing now... I can feel my brain waking up and so the way I see it is that by 2 mgs, I will have largely gotten used to more reality and I think my brain and body will start to gradually relax more into this almost free drug state, despite the fact there will still be a way to go... and undoubtedly the last 2 mgs will have to be tapered very slowly also... but by that time, I think much of my brain will be back online... I don't buy for a second that the brain has not healed some after 4 years of tapering down to 2 mgs, as a dose of 2 mgs really is low and the brain must make up the difference.

 

I think the people that suffer the most as the lower mgs more than likely made bigger cuts earlier in the taper and by the time they reach the lower mgs, the incomplete healing has accumulated and the brain goes into a meltdown, which would explain why so many can no longer handle bigger cuts at 2 mg and below and have to start microtapering,.. it is not so much that the last mgs are any different but that the cuts earlier on possibly destabilized everything by the time the last few mgs were reached... that's my take on it anyway.

 

I also think it unlikely that anyone that tapers over a very long time cannot step off at close to zero, I really cannot see "jumping" from, say 0.10 mg of Valium as being that catastrophic to the body, I think this would only prove to be a real challenge if the individual was already feeling bad... and nobody should feel terrible at that dose if they have tapered according to their own body and healing rate...

 

This is all guess work on my part obviously but it does not make sense that jumping from a minuscule amount would cause problems for years... I think the first few weeks off may be uncomfortable with some slight shock to the brain but I would imagine it to be fleeting... I have known some step off after a lengthy taper and be OK... the ONLY ones that seem to have a truly hard time are the ones that rushed at some point during the taper.

 

There was a member here that saw a neurologist in Australia and it was his opinion that most could taper in 1.5 to 2 years but that some needed as long as 6 years to taper off and it was also his thought that if one does not stabilize, to go back, as frustrating as this may be, sometimes the brain is not ready to go down more... I recall he mentioned that if we are not starting to stabilize after 2 weeks, to go back and wait before reducing further... that all made perfect sense to me.

 

If this does NOT start to get better for me at 2 mgs, then I will re-evaluate this but I cannot possibly see what can be gained by rushing off at the end... yet it may come to that, my taper, even with extreme caution, might just become unbearable, I just don't know at this point, I may have a fixed idea in my head of how to quit the remainder of this drug but it is quite probable it won't go as I have planned in my mind but I hope to hold it together until 2 mg, that is my goal for now, anything below that seems way too far off to even worry about... and it's depressing looking that far ahead so I prefer to not go there... I just hope I can sense an ending to this by 2 mgs...

 

I recalll mtmimi said in her blog at 2 mgs the words "I know I am going to make it now"... that's where I want to be... to have that inner spark of confidence that this is doable... that is all I want right now.

 

 

[[Fo...]]

Only problem with all of this is tolerance. I reach tolerance and can't stabilize at all. If you hit some sort of tolerance, going up might help but possibly won't. They also have a paradoxical effect, as you know. It's just too much unknown, but I do think the steps you take are good for you and I feel they will work well. I can't taper in tolerance over the course of years.

[[os...]]

Only problem with all of this is tolerance. I reach tolerance and can't stabilize at all. If you hit some sort of tolerance, going up might help but possibly won't. They also have a paradoxical effect, as you know. It's just too much unknown, but I do think the steps you take are good for you and I feel they will work well. I can't taper in tolerance over the course of years.

 

There have been times I have started to feel bad during a hold (rarely but it has happened) and yet it has been more of a tolerance feel than active withdrawal from cuts... it's hard to explain how different they are as there is not much in it really... but sometimes, sometimes cutting can actually bring relief, this has happened to me twice before... so i generally know not to hang about on the same dose for too long.

 

My idea of quitting this "the easy way" might not happen at all... it could be that very few manage to taper to zero feeling OK, I only know that I am trying to quit the drug with as few intolerable symptoms as possible... sometimes I think I am succeeding, other times I feel bad and think I am just dragging this out... yet I only know that if I cut too much, I feel terrible and I avoid doing so for that reason.

 

One thing that is obvious to me from being here for the past 2 years is that jumping from anything above 0.5 mg seems to be a pretty bad idea...

 

I have some days where I feel pretty much OK and virtually symptom free but they are rare... other times, especially when feeling cuts, I often think there is no way I am ever going to get off this drug... sometimes I really wonder if I should make bigger cuts and get this over with but then I remind myself of the panic and terror and all the extreme symptoms and I then think I would rather be suffering a little than suffering a lot.

 

Either way, there is no easy way out of this... there may be a slightly more tolerable way but it's bloody hard maintaining that and the taper itself can become a source of anxiety... I sometimes read that we can "get on with our lives" with a slow taper... well, that is something I have never been able to do... and that is why, a year from now, if I am not doing much better, I will have to make a decision in what to do as by that time, I will have no more patience to work with this unless I can feel the benefits in a bigger way...

 

There is one thing to be said about being free... and that is that "true" healing is happening... it can only get better...

 

Personally, I think anyone could jump from 0.25 mg and be OK... albeit some insomnia and some pretty nasty anxiety for a spell maybe... but if it is possible to taper lower, then I am all for that also... it just depends on how one feels at that point... I do not see much point in dragging the last 0.5 mgs out, I would actually agree with Ashton on that (and she should know)... but I also see why some choose to taper to the last 0.01 mg or whatever... I think to step off is possible but I also think spending months to lose that last bit may be prolonging things... certainly jumping from 0.25 mg should not be that hard... then again, until I am there I cannot say what I would do... all I know is I would have to be feeling pretty good to carry on tapering... as if not, I think there comes a point where one just has to bite the bullet and get off this crap once and for all and just go through the acute phase... maybe for some this is unavoidable... it does worry me how some taper to a very low dose and just disappear.

 

If this fails it fails... I would go back on for life, there is no way in Hell I would even contemplate starting over again... sometimes I think if it's meant to be that I get free, then it will happen... I am amazed when I see people start over from a high dose again... I would rather shoot myself than taper all over again... I just could not do it, I would not even think of trying.

 

 

[[Fo...]]

Definitely not the easy way out, no way is easy.

 

I do know you are healing as you taper down though. I know 2 people personally that went through this and felt better further down. One of them is my brother and he jumped from .05 of Klonopin. Around .25 he started feeling better and only got better throughout. He had a few waves post jump (nothing as bad as the taper), but that was all and he is fully healed now.

[[mr...]]

Hi oscar,

It was meant to be for u to recover because u would not have stuck it out this long.

You will recover and we will all join u in celebration.

Hang in there!

[[ke...]]

Only problem with all of this is tolerance. I reach tolerance and can't stabilize at all. If you hit some sort of tolerance, going up might help but possibly won't. They also have a paradoxical effect, as you know. It's just too much unknown, but I do think the steps you take are good for you and I feel they will work well. I can't taper in tolerance over the course of years.

 

I agree with this. I was in tolerance and I tried everything to trick the beast. Nothing worked so I decided to attack it.

 

And I don't think there is anything magical about the 2 mg level.

[[os...]]

Definitely not the easy way out, no way is easy.

 

I do know you are healing as you taper down though. I know 2 people personally that went through this and felt better further down. One of them is my brother and he jumped from .05 of Klonopin. Around .25 he started feeling better and only got better throughout. He had a few waves post jump (nothing as bad as the taper), but that was all and he is fully healed now.

 

Well Formula, I sure feel I am healing, albeit very slowly... when I am stable now, I feel pretty much 85% there... I mean, there is no more benzo fog as such, well, I would say 90% of it has lifted and I think that more clarity at this stage would be bordering on true windows (I often feel pretty much there anyway so I have every reason to think it will get better and better).

 

It does really irk me BIG TIME when some come on here and say that healing does not even START until off the drug... what a load of baloney... if I was not even feeling the start of healing, why the hell would I want to taper for so long? It's just ridiculous.

 

I think, if anyone gets unstable towards the end, then yes, I can understand how some may think that healing did not even begin until off but that is not reality, the reality is that we DO heal some on the way down, yet quite how much depends on how the individual tapered in the first place and more importantly, what shape they were in at the tail end of the taper... or at any given time.

 

To imply that no healing takes place during a slow taper (sufficiently slow) is rubbish.

 

I was bedridden in month 5 of this taper, had zero energy to even bath and dress and I was in a withdrawal haze for the best part of a year if not longer... these things along with many other symptoms have either dramatically improved or left already, that's not bad going after 22 years on the drug and I can certainly tell I am now waking up more and more... I listen to my body every day and have done for 29 months and after half my life time on this drug, if anyone should know whether healing happens during a taper it is me. 

 

Anyone that says healing does not even begin until being drug free must have tapered too fast... I see it all the time... healing does happen but to what degree is down to the individual who tapers... as a general rule, if one cannot get stable, then go back and come down again after a longer hold... sometimes we have to do a little dance to get down further but I DO know that I generally feel more and more myself as I get lower, yes, maybe with a few bumps and waves along the way and maybe sometimes I have to do that little dance in order to move forward, yet it pays off...

 

I absolutely agree that complete healing cannot happen until off the drug, that's so obvious everyone must know this, yet to imply that healing does not even START until off the drug clearly either CT' ed or did a pretty bad taper... if I were not healing after 22 years on this drug, I would know about it by now.

 

Bottom line, anyone that is not largely healed by zero should probably have tapered longer... I have always maintained that for some (not everybody) that even a 2 year taper is not sufficient... I see some taper 40 mg  Valium inside 2 years and they are suffering once off... it's evident to me that the taper was not gentle enough, if we feel crap constantly whilst tapering, especially below 5 mgs, we are tapering too fast to enable the healing to keep up, it's that simple... like it or not, this can take years for some people and I always say, in order for some long term users to step off this drug in relatively good shape, a 3 year taper is necessary... at the minimum.

 

Think of it this way; if someone tapers from 40 mgs of Valium over 2 years and then thinks they have 2 years to heal, would it not have made more sense to taper for 4 years to begin with??? Who makes up these rules that a 1 or 2 year taper is enough? Yet we still don't learn... we still think we tapered slow... when in fact, 2 years might only see to half the healing... we cannot force the brain to adapt any faster, if we heal slowly there is nothing we can do but either taper slower or expect a long post taper recovery... it is that simple.

 

In other words, the likes Matt Samet took what? 3.5 - 4 years to largely heal? Well, I go by that... it seems most hard cases heal by 4 years... therefore a 2 year taper just isn't going to do the job... a 2 year deficit in healing is bound to be felt at zero and I ain't gonna be that guy... I am not going to be the one that winds up thinking I have Lyme or Cushing's or some other disease, it's largely all nonsense, it's benzo withdrawal and for some of us it can take years to recover, any notion of a 2 year taper being slow enough is evidently wrong for some people, it just does not complete the majority of the healing so we end up thinking we must have some disease instead... and if that is the result of getting off this drug, I'd rather get back on it tomorrow but instead, I see the necessity to take far, far longer and to truly heal on the way down, if I tried to do this in 2 years I would be off and suffering like crazy right now and would more than likely hav reinstated by now. NO THANK YOU.

 

I have never, once, been fooled into thinking this is going to be all rainbows and s**t by leaping off this drug or even pushing myself to zero... because i know it does not work that way... even those that did manage to step off from a careful taper often take 8 months minimum to finish healing entirely, obviously there has to be a post taper healing take place... but it is MY belief that if anyone is in bad shape getting off at zero and for many months thereafter, at some point, their taper was too fast, we all tend to think that 2 years should be plenty when in fact, it's often only half the job done... a 4 year taper may seem ridiculous to many, yet is it when a 2 year taper still leaves a 2 year post taper healing period?

 

It seems to me that far too many think they tapered slow... define slow... some think that a 7 month taper was slow... it's not... anything under a year for a large percentage of us is still way too fast... 2 years is definitely a lot better for the long term user but from what I see here as far as long term or high dose users go, even 2 years is way, way too fast... if 2 year tapers cut it, there would be a lot more success stories on here... but there are not, instead I think some long term or high dose users get free and have to white knuckle it for a year or three longer and they wonder why their taper did not heal them... it's obvious to my mind that a slower taper to enable more healing is often what's missing...

 

Bottom line: incomplete healing (to a large degree) is the result of tapering too fast for the individuals predetermined healing time frame... some of us need 6 years... as unbelievable as that may sound, it's often the case, instead we see many suffering and thinking they have all sorts of diseases post taper... and I would bet that it is ALL quite simply benzo withdrawal.

 

It's about time people woke up to the fact that jumping off or tapering these drugs too fast causes illness... it does not have to be that way... I hate, loathe and detest the time this is taking me... but I would rather suffer a little in increments and heal properly on the way down and be pretty much there by zero than face 2 years plus feeling that the proverbial s**t hit the fan anyway.

 

I will take as long as I need to get off this crap and when I do get there, I will be whole again to the degree where I will be able to say I am 90% better post taper within weeks, not months or years... for me, this has to be slow because I know my body and refuse to push it further than I can handle... sure, it is beyond frustrating that it is taking me so long but I am not seeing enough healing post tapers within acceptable time frames and the only conclusion is that this takes longer than most of us care to admit to... even I am in denial about it but I am waking up to the fact that it's how it is for me... and the only way out is in a manner that allows more and more healing to take place and this, as we ALL know, can take a very, very long time.

 

 

 

 

[[os...]]

Only problem with all of this is tolerance. I reach tolerance and can't stabilize at all. If you hit some sort of tolerance, going up might help but possibly won't. They also have a paradoxical effect, as you know. It's just too much unknown, but I do think the steps you take are good for you and I feel they will work well. I can't taper in tolerance over the course of years.

 

I agree with this. I was in tolerance and I tried everything to trick the beast. Nothing worked so I decided to attack it.

 

And I don't think there is anything magical about the 2 mg level.

 

Well, you did not taper to 2 mg over 4 years... maybe it will be very magical for me... like I say, anyone who hurts at the lower doses consistently tapered too fast.

 

It's not rocket science, this stuff is fixable but it takes many of us a long time to get there... even CT cases start feeling better after the first year... it all happens but tapering or CT, it can take a long time to fully recover... not everyone but for some, from start to finish this can last for 4 or 5 years I believe... sometimes even a little longer for us slow healers.

 

I'd still rather taper for 2 more years than jump off and still have that time left to recover but we are all different, the main thing is we ultimately get off (or stay off) the drug until we are healed... methods are not important, sticking at it is what makes us well again... and whilst this is not linear, we do get better as time goes by... and I have no doubt in my mind that everyone heals given enough time.

 

 

 

 

[[OM...]]

This forum has a lot of backers for the faster taper. Personally, I think Ashton was too fast for most. But she pioneered the way and thank god for that. But everyone is different and the key is to pay attention to how you feel on the way down but if you go too fast (months rather than at least close to a year depending on your starting dose) you might fly down before getting hit with much of anything symptoms wise. I know when I cut K if I go into the cut stable and am cutting at my sweet spot with essentially no WD sx, then it takes 12-15 days for me to get that blip on the radar (small as it is) of WD from that cut. I've been cutting at three week intervals and at the end of my third week I get a faint symptom here or there. So for people who are doing two week cut and hold and using the 10% figure ashton gave us, they could be off very fast depending on their starting dose and near the end start feeling it (which I have seen ALL OVER this forum) but don't realize it's the WD catching up. I've seen people go through up to six months of tapering then get slammed into what appears to be acute. Looking at their sig, if they have one, tells the story. Then they think they just have to get off the drug faster, and I've seen some people stop from some higher than recommended doses.  It's a shame because now they are dealing with not really having a taper that gave them some good healing to cushion them as well as having jumped from a higher point. And they suffer needlessly. I feel so bad when I see that. But it's this belief that getting off faster is better. For some, they need to due to mitigating circumstances. But if you can taper at a pace where you are minimizing WD along the way (BART's taper is one I would hold up as the example here - he went by his symptoms and his taper allowed him a better quality of life, and now he is very near stepping off and will likely do quite well when he stops) then you will be better off for it.

 

Getting off them quicker is not always better. Some can but that's where it comes down to a matter of if the person was one of those that truly had problems with the drug. Some only have issues to a degree and can taper faster. Others have to taper slower. This is why tapering according to symptoms is best as it accounts for YOUR PERSONAL rate of healing which is unique to each person. If your symptoms are under the radar then maybe you can go a little faster. If it triggers more symptoms then slow down.

 

Tapering gets treated like a race when really that race mentality can cost you chunks of your life where you can't do the things you enjoy and you are suffering for a while. But if we can get away from the race mentality and treat it as a journey where they destination is important but the journey is MORE important and have the goal be to keep WD to a minimum so that you are not sacrificing quality of life so you can get off the drug sooner, then the taper itself won't be hell. It will just be a thing you did to get off the drug and when you are off you would have healed well during the taper and most likely given yourself the best chance toward the best recovery once off the drug.

 

I've yet to see a longer taper where someone stopped and things got horrible. I've seen some longer tapers have to go through acute WD, but not nearly as dramatic or long as compared to the faster tapers. But that's just what I've seen. Of course, I watch for that.

[[os...]]

 

 

Unfortunately there are not that many examples of long and slow tapers that exceeded 2 years to go by... all I know is where ever there is suffering to a large degree there always seems to be a reason... some lose patience and finish up too fast only to get hit, speed in this is usually the sole reason why people end up in distress.

 

I still feel withdrawal and when I do I hate it but the amount of "waves" I have had I can count on one hand only... the worst was when i tapered daily for 7.5 months at the start without even a single day of holding and I certainly won't be doing that again... the withdrawals I feel are awful sometimes but they pass... for the majority of the time I am more OK than not... yet now and then I will feel some symptoms but they do not last for long and I am pretty much stable again and it's just a case of repeating that over and over and one day it will be done... I figure liquid valium was made for a reason, the best way to get drug free for most is to do it very slowly, some can taper faster but more often than not it seems to cause problems that can be ongoing for a long time post taper... often to the point of needing to reinstate... personally, I would rather not risk it, it is once only for me and as arduous and utterly boring as tapering for so long is, I would rather get off this without losing my mind completely... if this was a case of this being over at zero I would be off by now... yet I kind of get that rarely is that the end of this... when I see people that have tapered for 2 years and still feel they have 2 more years to heal, it just goes to show that this can take a long time... I would rather be mildly ill at times for 4 years than be seriously ill for 2 years... I can feel healing happening but it sure is a long process... but I am sure it will be worth it eventually.

 

 

 

 

[[mr...]]

Hi oscar,

What dose are u at right now?

When did u do daily tapering?

 

[[la...]]

There are plenty of examples from people who did the BMT micro tapering. I have studied that place for months before starting my taper.