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Help with Xanax to Valium crossover and tapering


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Hey guys,

 

I have an ND that has agreed to switch me over to valium from Xanax for a taper. I have the appointment on Thursday so i need to come up with a plan to tell her, i dont think she knows how it works so id like to have some suggestions.

 

I take .5 at night now and have been for 2 months. Yeah not too long, but im ultra sensitive to this crap and am having all kinds of horrible reactions and need off it now. So my plan is to tell her to switch me over to 10mg valium, i guess i would take that once at night like i do now for the xanax... and i should wait about 2-3 weeks on valium until i feel stable enough to start the taper. I did this before about 10 years ago so if i remember it was an easy transition for me. Once im ready to taper, then i get two prescriptions one for 5mg and one for 2mg. Then i can go down to 9mg and stay there for two weeks, if i feel stable i go down to 8 for two weeks, and on and on until im down to zero. If im having a hard time at one particular MG then just stay there until im ready to move again. I believe this is what i did last time. Does that sound about right?

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Hey guys,

 

I have an ND that has agreed to switch me over to valium from Xanax for a taper. I have the appointment on Thursday so i need to come up with a plan to tell her, i dont think she knows how it works so id like to have some suggestions.

 

I take .5 at night now and have been for 2 months. Yeah not too long, but im ultra sensitive to this crap and am having all kinds of horrible reactions and need off it now. So my plan is to tell her to switch me over to 10mg valium, i guess i would take that once at night like i do now for the xanax... and i should wait about 2-3 weeks on valium until i feel stable enough to start the taper. I did this before about 10 years ago so if i remember it was an easy transition for me. Once im ready to taper, then i get two prescriptions one for 5mg and one for 2mg. Then i can go down to 9mg and stay there for two weeks, if i feel stable i go down to 8 for two weeks, and on and on until im down to zero. If im having a hard time at one particular MG then just stay there until im ready to move again. I believe this is what i did last time. Does that sound about right?

 

Okay, I’m going to try to say this in what hopefully comes across as understanding and tactful; Please think really hard before crossing over to Valium. You are at what’s considered a low dose of Xanax. I was where you are, except my dose was extremely high and for over a decade. If I’m reading correctly, you have been taking 0.5 milligrams of Xanax for 2 months at night? Is that right? If you were to switch to Valium it’s not just “switching”, you have to spend weeks to crossover, while slowly adding Valium each week and reducing the Xanax. You are then, after weeks, only on Valium. Valium has its own issues, too, and is not for everyone. In my personal opinion only, so take it as that, I would slowly micro taper off Xanax directly. Again I say that because I crossed from Xanax to Valium, granted it took me longer than it would take you, and I hit a wall. I’m certainly not implying that my experience is going to be yours, and Valium does help some people, no argument there. I would just caution you to read some other’s experiences with Valium, do your own research, etc, before you commit to crossing to Valium. The Ashton manual was what I followed and what I’m pretty sure everyone does here, but what I didn’t know was that it’s not a set in stone list of guidelines, although some people do follow it to the t. I personally spent months just crossing over that could have been spent slowly tapering Xanax (I was in hindsight tapering at too high cuts) and avoided 6 months of h**l, to be back where I started.

 

I guess what I’m saying is unless there’s an emergency pushing you to crossover to Valium right now, please think about it first. If you are ultra sensitive to Xanax, and again I can’t say this will be the case, but there’s a good chance that you may find Valium intolerable. Just my 0.02 . Whatever you decide you will have support here. And I’m sure someone can give you some crossover advice should you be set on going to Valium. 

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Thanks for the info and i get it. 10 years ago i went through this, lord knows why im here again. The big problem is i get extremely bad interdose withdrawls. Well its going on 3 months now ive been on it, but my days are now filled with extreme anxiety and rage fits, and crying fits during the day. I never had that before starting xanax 3 months ago. I get that the valium taper is not all roses i started on 20mg 10 years ago and it took me a year to taper. Every 2 weeks doing the cut, and about on 3rd day having symptoms for a few days until it went away. That whole experience gave me PTSD. I remember thinking" jesus i should have just stayed on xanax and tapered from there...i would have been done in 3 months tops instead of a year of pain" the problem is i forgot how for some reason i become a maniac when on xanax, its almost like im allergic to it. I need off of this stuff ASAP, and am willing to spend the next 5-6 months tapering off of valium just to get off it now. Thats how bad it is, its not just kinda bad....its crippling cant work, cant think, cant eat, cant survive bad. I dont know what it is about xanax, but it just kills me. Believe me ive done this before, if there was any way i could hang for the next 3 months on xanax to taper off i would.
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Thanks for the info and i get it. 10 years ago i went through this, lord knows why im here again. The big problem is i get extremely bad interdose withdrawls. Well its going on 3 months now ive been on it, but my days are now filled with extreme anxiety and rage fits, and crying fits during the day. I never had that before starting xanax 3 months ago. I get that the valium taper is not all roses i started on 20mg 10 years ago and it took me a year to taper. Every 2 weeks doing the cut, and about on 3rd day having symptoms for a few days until it went away. That whole experience gave me PTSD. I remember thinking" jesus i should have just stayed on xanax and tapered from there...i would have been done in 3 months tops instead of a year of pain" the problem is i forgot how for some reason i become a maniac when on xanax, its almost like im allergic to it. I need off of this stuff ASAP, and am willing to spend the next 5-6 months tapering off of valium just to get off it now. Thats how bad it is, its not just kinda bad....its crippling cant work, cant think, cant eat, cant survive bad. I dont know what it is about xanax, but it just kills me. Believe me ive done this before, if there was any way i could hang for the next 3 months on xanax to taper off i would.

 

I’m so sorry you’re going through so much suffering. Oh boy, do I completely understand. I had quite a bit of the same symptoms as you did when I was tapering Xanax so I really do get it. It’s awful.  You have to do what feels right for you and clearly you know your body and symptoms better than anyone else. I hope you aren’t beating yourself up mentally for “being here again”. Life happens, things happen, but please don’t feel like you somehow failed.  :therethere:

 

One question: Are you going to do a crossover to Valium or is your dr just going to switch you directly? I’m pretty sure the general consensus is that a crossover is recommended. I hope someone with more knowledge comes along who can help you out with this. Take care

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The crossover is recommended, but i am going to try just a direct one and see what happens. Thats what i did 10 years ago and it worked, just stayed on it for a few weeks before starting the taper. Im only at .5 xanax once a day so hoping it wont be too bad.
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Well this sucks. First night taking valium 10mg instead of .5 of xanax and i didnt sleep at all not one minute. I havent taken valium in along time, it made me very dizzy and just felt not good on it. I guess i am use to the xanax knocking me out every night. This did nothing, so i just laid there for hours then started to get anxiety from it all as i watched the hours slip by. Is this normal during a cross over? Makes me want to take the xanax again so at least i can sleep. This last 7 days actually have been pretty good on xanax, no interdose withdrawls. Im wondering if it just took me a while to get stable on it...i was all over the place taking it until i gave in 3 weeks ago Dr.s orders and started taking it every night same dose same time ect. She was trying to get me stable so i could then cut down.... maybe i jumped the gun here...sigh.  :-[
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Well this sucks. First night taking valium 10mg instead of .5 of xanax and i didnt sleep at all not one minute. I havent taken valium in along time, it made me very dizzy and just felt not good on it. I guess i am use to the xanax knocking me out every night. This did nothing, so i just laid there for hours then started to get anxiety from it all as i watched the hours slip by. Is this normal during a cross over? Makes me want to take the xanax again so at least i can sleep. This last 7 days actually have been pretty good on xanax, no interdose withdrawls. Im wondering if it just took me a while to get stable on it...i was all over the place taking it until i gave in 3 weeks ago Dr.s orders and started taking it every night same dose same time ect. She was trying to get me stable so i could then cut down.... maybe i jumped the gun here...sigh.  :-[

 

How are you feeling now? It sounds to me like you could have a good chance of slowly tapering directly from the Xanax. You might find as you get lower in your dose that taking it more than once a day helps some, but it sounds like if you have been feeling pretty good the last week prior to taking the Valium it is definitely possible that maintaining a set time for your dose helped you. The body craves consistency with benzos, especially when tapering. I’m sorry to hear that the Valium didn’t work like you were hoping for, but it wouldn’t hurt to keep trying to direct taper from the Xanax from reading your post. Wishing you well with whatever you decide.  :)

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Well this sucks. First night taking valium 10mg instead of .5 of xanax and i didnt sleep at all not one minute. I havent taken valium in along time, it made me very dizzy and just felt not good on it. I guess i am use to the xanax knocking me out every night. This did nothing, so i just laid there for hours then started to get anxiety from it all as i watched the hours slip by. Is this normal during a cross over? Makes me want to take the xanax again so at least i can sleep. This last 7 days actually have been pretty good on xanax, no interdose withdrawls. Im wondering if it just took me a while to get stable on it...i was all over the place taking it until i gave in 3 weeks ago Dr.s orders and started taking it every night same dose same time ect. She was trying to get me stable so i could then cut down.... maybe i jumped the gun here...sigh.  :-[

 

Hi spitfiremetalart,

 

I just read through this thread and also went back to your intro to refresh myself with your situation. There are a few issues that I feel I should bring to your attention and the first thing is in relation to your history/signature which we didn’t have when I did your intro.

 

1) I see that your doctor advised you to stretch your doses out to every other day as you tapered. This should not ever happen with any benzodiazepine taper, because all it succeeds in doing is putting your system through a continuous cycle of inter-dose withdrawals because your blood serum levels continually drop dramatically between doses, and this is especially so with Xanax, because it has such a short half life. It must’ve been horrid stretching the doses out like that. Continual cycles of inter-dose withdrawals also increase the risk of Kindling, which only makes future withdrawal attempts even more difficult.

 

Kindling - Benzodiazepine Information Coalition

https://www.benzoinfo.com/kindling/

 

2) To successfully taper, blood serum levels need to be kept very stabile, and I find it very difficult to believe you could be dosing Xanax only once per day and not go through at least some level of inter-dose withdrawals. I suspect this has possibly been an issue for quite a while. If you decide to taper from the Xanax, I expect you will need to dose multiple times per day to keep your blood serum levels stabile enough to avoid inter-dose withdrawals.

 

3) In regard to the valium, please understand that it wouldn’t have been the valium causing the anxiety when you switched directly from the Xanax to the valium. The Xanax has such an extremely short half life, and valium such a long half life, that the Xanax was leaving your system very quickly, whist the valium takes a very long time for blood serum levels to build up. What happened was you were going through withdrawals from the Xanax, which is why the anxiety came on, and the Valium simply couldn’t compensate because it takes so much longer to build up in your body. This is why it’s important to do a slow crossover from Xanax to Valium. Because you did a direct switch, you actually put yourself into withdrawals from the Xanax, and the blood serum levels of the Valium were nowhere near the level they needed to be to at to buffer the withdrawal symptoms from the Xanax. It’s also important to understand that although both are benzodiazepines, they are very different drugs and swapping one directly for another will not stop you from going through withdrawals from the one you stopped dosing, this is why a slow crossover is necessary and also comes with its own set of challenges.

 

It sounds like you’re now leaning towards a Xanax taper again , which is absolutely fine, but I just want to make sure you are not putting yourself through inter-dose withdrawals unnecessarily by only dosing the once per day. There’s nothing wrong with splitting your dose and dosing twice a day or more to keep your blood serum levels even throughout a 24hr period.

 

 

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Thanks for all the info, yes her plan just does not make sense to me on any level. She told me she was a pharmacist for many years, then worked in a drug rehab center and now specializes in benzo withdrawls. I think its very important to trust your Dr., so i thought for a while well she must know whats shes doing. she does support me getting off these but sorry with benzos im just not willing to go with this plan. I am a sensible person and it makes zero sense to cut to .25 every other day for 30 days. So what are you left with at the end of that 30 days? You go through all that and in the end your mind is still use to taking that .5 every other day...when if you cut out 1/8 of your dose and held for 7 days ...at least by end of that 30 days youd be down to .25 Shes not really willing to share what the 2nd part of the taper plan is "until we get there" which is also a red flag to me. Anyways i have no choice but to figure it out myself.
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Hi spitfiremetalart

 

I just want you to know you can trust the information provided here on BB. You’re also not just trusting one person, because anything we post here is clearly open to scrutinisation. If one of us makes a mistake with the information we provide, then someone else will pick up on that mistake, as innocent as the mistake may be. This is one of the reasons why we don’t provide taper advice or information via the PM.

 

I’ve had doctors and hospital psych doctors with self professed 30 yrs experience in benzodiazepine withdrawal whom within minutes I immediately know they have absolutely no idea how to taper patients off benzodiazepine medications. I expect this is because they have been doing the wrong thing over and over for 30yrs, and god only knows how many patients have suffered because of that. I had one psych who didn’t even know the conversions between the different benzodiazepines and tried to put me on double the equivalent dose in a crossover. I called them on it and they just denied that I had any idea what I was talking about. I just had to dismiss her advise and follow my own knowledge. If I hadn’t have known, she would have caused me to taper for another year or two longer. I’m not bashing doctors, I’m just saying we have to be extremely careful when it comes to their knowledge of benzodiazepine withdrawal, which is why it’s so important we educate ourselves. 

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yeah, that was the issue when 10 years ago i was on valium. When i look back, i had only taken xanax for probably 2-3 months max...granted i was all over the board towards the end taking sometimes up to 3mG a day the Dr back then started me on 30MG of valium. Looking back that was way too much, i was dizzy all day and doing crazy things cause i was so high on it. And because of that it took me over a year to get off it because i had to step down off of 30mg. She should have given me more like 10-15MG. This last Dr. when i went in for valium tried to start me on 5MG valium even though id taken .5 for a few months so....yeah when i told her the crossover is 10MG she didnt like that. I think to become an EXPERT, they need to get an addiction going themselves and try to get off of it using all methods. lol. I mean the conversion tables are not that hard to find, do a google search for christs sakes its all over. How they come up with these numbers i have no idea.
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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi

I apologize about my lack of signature. Been at interdose withdrawls for a month now Just joined. Xanax to sleep for 2 years from  .5 now 2.0. Take it in .5 increments. Sleep a couple hours then wake and do another.5 throughout the night.

There is something real wrong with that. During the day I don’t dose but have reached what I believe to be interdose withdrawls. Daytime working but that’s getting iffy. Any adivise would be greatly appreciated.

 

Was watching You Tube  Medicated Normal an interview with Dr Micheal E Bohan. He does the Ashton method with patients

He states that he violates Ashton in this one regard and  crosses right over first thing from whatever to Valium and he says it takes about a week wherein the patient will need a lot of support. Spell that OUCH. so yeah your words make a lot of sense. That’s an inpatient stratagem imo.

 

My NP just scribed me a 6 week of Valium and said switch. No problem. Dunno what I am gonna do. He is a by the box guy it would seem.

 

Tried to get me on Zoloft too during this bad stretch. Said should just be a headache.

5 days I Felt like someone was trying to remove my brain, semi hallucination bad images oh and wide awake all night. That 2.0 Xanax wouldn’t touch it! Oh and not to mention the constipation, weird vision, no saliva

 

Any words would be greatly appreciated.

 

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I dont really have any suggestions, back when i switched over to valium my ND at the time just did it...there was no cross over which isnt suggested. I didnt know at the time that there even should be a crossover. I have a feeling now looking back the reason it "worked" was because she had me on such a high dose to crossover. Like 3X the amount i should have had. Easy crossover? yeah no problems for me but it then took me forever to get off that dose, if shed known what she was doing i could have tapered in much less time. I was at the time having interdose withdrawls and was all over the place because i was taking anywhere between .5-3MG a day mixed with alcohol. I was just running scared and in a panic all day from that. Hopefully someone else will have a better idea for you than me. i never went through the cross over period from xanax to valium.
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Hi spitfiremetalart

 

I just want you to know you can trust the information provided here on BB. You’re also not just trusting one person, because anything we post here is clearly open to scrutinisation. If one of us makes a mistake with the information we provide, then someone else will pick up on that mistake, as innocent as the mistake may be. This is one of the reasons why we don’t provide taper advice or information via the PM.

 

I’ve had doctors and hospital psych doctors with self professed 30 yrs experience in benzodiazepine withdrawal whom within minutes I immediately know they have absolutely no idea how to taper patients off benzodiazepine medications. I expect this is because they have been doing the wrong thing over and over for 30yrs, and god only knows how many patients have suffered because of that. I had one psych who didn’t even know the conversions between the different benzodiazepines and tried to put me on double the equivalent dose in a crossover. I called them on it and they just denied that I had any idea what I was talking about. I just had to dismiss her advise and follow my own knowledge. If I hadn’t have known, she would have caused me to taper for another year or two longer. I’m not bashing doctors, I’m just saying we have to be extremely careful when it comes to their knowledge of benzodiazepine withdrawal, which is why it’s so important we educate ourselves.

 

I know, it gets ridiculous. I tried "her plan" again beginning of this week. Turned into a disaster. Sorry but cutting from .5 to .25 every other night is literally the worst way FOR ME to get off of xanax. Maybe it works for her other clients i have no idea. What i know is for myself when i take the .25 i dont fall asleep. ALL NIGHT. Which then affects my mood and worry and anxiety for the next night. So even if i take .5 next night i might not sleep because of night before and anxiety that is there now. Its literally like the worst case scenario for way my mind works.  I finally just asked her for .25 pills so i can cut them up into 8 pieces. Take one piece away and hold until i feel ok for a few weeks. I dont care how long that takes. Then i take 2/8 out, then 3/8 ect ect. each time holding until i feel ok, i dont care how long it takes! That makes it a 12% cut at a time. Yes i know its higher than the 10% max cut but a hell of alot better than her 50% cut. I honestly dont understand that method, i would think you dont want to seesaw someone up and down like that. For a whole month straight! lolololol well maybe for someone out there.

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Hi spitfiremetalart

 

I just want you to know you can trust the information provided here on BB. You’re also not just trusting one person, because anything we post here is clearly open to scrutinisation. If one of us makes a mistake with the information we provide, then someone else will pick up on that mistake, as innocent as the mistake may be. This is one of the reasons why we don’t provide taper advice or information via the PM.

 

I’ve had doctors and hospital psych doctors with self professed 30 yrs experience in benzodiazepine withdrawal whom within minutes I immediately know they have absolutely no idea how to taper patients off benzodiazepine medications. I expect this is because they have been doing the wrong thing over and over for 30yrs, and god only knows how many patients have suffered because of that. I had one psych who didn’t even know the conversions between the different benzodiazepines and tried to put me on double the equivalent dose in a crossover. I called them on it and they just denied that I had any idea what I was talking about. I just had to dismiss her advise and follow my own knowledge. If I hadn’t have known, she would have caused me to taper for another year or two longer. I’m not bashing doctors, I’m just saying we have to be extremely careful when it comes to their knowledge of benzodiazepine withdrawal, which is why it’s so important we educate ourselves.

 

I know, it gets ridiculous. I tried "her plan" again beginning of this week. Turned into a disaster. Sorry but cutting from .5 to .25 every other night is literally the worst way FOR ME to get off of xanax. Maybe it works for her other clients i have no idea. What i know is for myself when i take the .25 i dont fall asleep. ALL NIGHT. Which then affects my mood and worry and anxiety for the next night. So even if i take .5 next night i might not sleep because of night before and anxiety that is there now. Its literally like the worst case scenario for way my mind works.  I finally just asked her for .25 pills so i can cut them up into 8 pieces. Take one piece away and hold until i feel ok for a few weeks. I dont care how long that takes. Then i take 2/8 out, then 3/8 ect ect. each time holding until i feel ok, i dont care how long it takes! That makes it a 12% cut at a time. Yes i know its higher than the 10% max cut but a hell of alot better than her 50% cut. I honestly dont understand that method, i would think you dont want to seesaw someone up and down like that. For a whole month straight! lolololol well maybe for someone out there.

 

Hi spitfiremetalart

 

Just wanted to give you heads up in regard to those 10% reductions - When we calculate the reductions at between 5-10%, we actually recalculate each next reduction from the remaining daily dose so the percentage never increases with each reduction. You can imagine, if you started your taper and intended to decrease at 10% based on your starting dose, by the time you get down to your second last reduction the percentage would have reached 50%. In the beginning, your brain is only experiencing a 10% reduction in dose, but if you keep reducing that same piece (weight) of tablet, then the percentage climbs with each reduction, and the brain finds it increasingly more difficult to cope and potentially, all hell breaks loose…

 

So if you follow this intended method and things become increasingly difficult with each reduction, this will be the reason why, and you will have to reassess your reduction percentages.  :thumbsup:

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Hi spitfiremetalart

 

I just want you to know you can trust the information provided here on BB. You’re also not just trusting one person, because anything we post here is clearly open to scrutinisation. If one of us makes a mistake with the information we provide, then someone else will pick up on that mistake, as innocent as the mistake may be. This is one of the reasons why we don’t provide taper advice or information via the PM.

 

I’ve had doctors and hospital psych doctors with self professed 30 yrs experience in benzodiazepine withdrawal whom within minutes I immediately know they have absolutely no idea how to taper patients off benzodiazepine medications. I expect this is because they have been doing the wrong thing over and over for 30yrs, and god only knows how many patients have suffered because of that. I had one psych who didn’t even know the conversions between the different benzodiazepines and tried to put me on double the equivalent dose in a crossover. I called them on it and they just denied that I had any idea what I was talking about. I just had to dismiss her advise and follow my own knowledge. If I hadn’t have known, she would have caused me to taper for another year or two longer. I’m not bashing doctors, I’m just saying we have to be extremely careful when it comes to their knowledge of benzodiazepine withdrawal, which is why it’s so important we educate ourselves.

 

I know, it gets ridiculous. I tried "her plan" again beginning of this week. Turned into a disaster. Sorry but cutting from .5 to .25 every other night is literally the worst way FOR ME to get off of xanax. Maybe it works for her other clients i have no idea. What i know is for myself when i take the .25 i dont fall asleep. ALL NIGHT. Which then affects my mood and worry and anxiety for the next night. So even if i take .5 next night i might not sleep because of night before and anxiety that is there now. Its literally like the worst case scenario for way my mind works.  I finally just asked her for .25 pills so i can cut them up into 8 pieces. Take one piece away and hold until i feel ok for a few weeks. I dont care how long that takes. Then i take 2/8 out, then 3/8 ect ect. each time holding until i feel ok, i dont care how long it takes! That makes it a 12% cut at a time. Yes i know its higher than the 10% max cut but a hell of alot better than her 50% cut. I honestly dont understand that method, i would think you dont want to seesaw someone up and down like that. For a whole month straight! lolololol well maybe for someone out there.

 

Hi spitfiremetalart

 

Just wanted to give you heads up in regard to those 10% reductions - When we calculate the reductions at between 5-10%, we actually recalculate each next reduction from the remaining daily dose so the percentage never increases with each reduction. You can imagine, if you started your taper and intended to decrease at 10% based on your starting dose, by the time you get down to your second last reduction the percentage would have reached 50%. In the beginning, your brain is only experiencing a 10% reduction in dose, but if you keep reducing that same piece (weight) of tablet, then the percentage climbs with each reduction, and the brain finds it increasingly more difficult to cope and potentially, all hell breaks loose…

 

So if you follow this intended method and things become increasingly difficult with each reduction, this will be the reason why, and you will have to reassess your reduction percentages.  :thumbsup:

 

Ill keep that in mind. Is that the same for valium? Like 10 years ago when i reduced valium i did it 1MG every 2 weeks. i was on 15 MG, and sometimes held for longer than 2 weeks depending on what was happening....but it seemed to work for me. Hopefully i can pull this off. If not and towards the end im freaking out, at least ill know why and can reasses and possible start crushing up pills and weighing. Thanks for the heads up.

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Hi spitfiremetalart

 

I just want you to know you can trust the information provided here on BB. You’re also not just trusting one person, because anything we post here is clearly open to scrutinisation. If one of us makes a mistake with the information we provide, then someone else will pick up on that mistake, as innocent as the mistake may be. This is one of the reasons why we don’t provide taper advice or information via the PM.

 

I’ve had doctors and hospital psych doctors with self professed 30 yrs experience in benzodiazepine withdrawal whom within minutes I immediately know they have absolutely no idea how to taper patients off benzodiazepine medications. I expect this is because they have been doing the wrong thing over and over for 30yrs, and god only knows how many patients have suffered because of that. I had one psych who didn’t even know the conversions between the different benzodiazepines and tried to put me on double the equivalent dose in a crossover. I called them on it and they just denied that I had any idea what I was talking about. I just had to dismiss her advise and follow my own knowledge. If I hadn’t have known, she would have caused me to taper for another year or two longer. I’m not bashing doctors, I’m just saying we have to be extremely careful when it comes to their knowledge of benzodiazepine withdrawal, which is why it’s so important we educate ourselves.

 

I know, it gets ridiculous. I tried "her plan" again beginning of this week. Turned into a disaster. Sorry but cutting from .5 to .25 every other night is literally the worst way FOR ME to get off of xanax. Maybe it works for her other clients i have no idea. What i know is for myself when i take the .25 i dont fall asleep. ALL NIGHT. Which then affects my mood and worry and anxiety for the next night. So even if i take .5 next night i might not sleep because of night before and anxiety that is there now. Its literally like the worst case scenario for way my mind works.  I finally just asked her for .25 pills so i can cut them up into 8 pieces. Take one piece away and hold until i feel ok for a few weeks. I dont care how long that takes. Then i take 2/8 out, then 3/8 ect ect. each time holding until i feel ok, i dont care how long it takes! That makes it a 12% cut at a time. Yes i know its higher than the 10% max cut but a hell of alot better than her 50% cut. I honestly dont understand that method, i would think you dont want to seesaw someone up and down like that. For a whole month straight! lolololol well maybe for someone out there.

 

Hi spitfiremetalart

 

Just wanted to give you heads up in regard to those 10% reductions - When we calculate the reductions at between 5-10%, we actually recalculate each next reduction from the remaining daily dose so the percentage never increases with each reduction. You can imagine, if you started your taper and intended to decrease at 10% based on your starting dose, by the time you get down to your second last reduction the percentage would have reached 50%. In the beginning, your brain is only experiencing a 10% reduction in dose, but if you keep reducing that same piece (weight) of tablet, then the percentage climbs with each reduction, and the brain finds it increasingly more difficult to cope and potentially, all hell breaks loose…

 

So if you follow this intended method and things become increasingly difficult with each reduction, this will be the reason why, and you will have to reassess your reduction percentages.  :thumbsup:

 

Ill keep that in mind. Is that the same for valium? Like 10 years ago when i reduced valium i did it 1MG every 2 weeks. i was on 15 MG, and sometimes held for longer than 2 weeks depending on what was happening....but it seemed to work for me. Hopefully i can pull this off. If not and towards the end im freaking out, at least ill know why and can reasses and possible start crushing up pills and weighing. Thanks for the heads up.

 

Hi SFMA

 

Yeah, it is the same with Valium.

 

When you previously tapered from the medication, you were probably one of the luckier ones who had a relatively uneventful taper, but each time you go through this, it tends to make the next taper and withdrawal more intense. You may still be able to get away with that same taper rate (I certainly hope so) but if you notice your symptoms increasing and becoming much more intense, then you will be doing yourself a favour by adjusting more in line with the suggested guidelines of 5-10% reductions.  :thumbsup:

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I understand completely about continuing to take the poison. I usually feel worse after I take it.  I pray that God sheds light on a way out of this for you, me and everyone who is affected by this crap.
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