New here and think I have a plan

So I’m on 0.5 mg clonazepam am and pm and take 0.188mg late afternoon. I was on 0.5 in the late afternoon at the beginning but cut that down about 9 months ago and then life happened and just stayed at that dose. I would like to start with deleting that dose first as I’m tired of taking meds all day.

I see the rule is 5-10% reduction a month but that we should really be going as slow as necessary for us. Is that right? 

So if my afternoon dose weighs 0.062 a 10% reduction would have it weighing 0.056. My plan is to decrease by 0.001 every week, so starting today would be 0.061 and so on.

Is this too slow?  Is this a reasonable plan? I’m ok with it taking as long as it takes so I can have the smoothest transition possible.

I had just been splitting the tablets by hand up until now so I know I never had an equal dose but figured close enough. I tried to cut a bit off a while ago and within a few days had increase in anxiety and by two weeks was a mess so just went back to the original dose I had been taking. I was doing this on my own as I had no idea there were places like this we could actually get some help. My psychiatrist just said decrease 1/4 pill every week. He obviously has never been on these drugs.

I also feel I should mention that I take full spectrum cbd oil prescribed by a doctor that specializes in getting people off narcotics, benzos etc and she feels I should up my cbd but I’m leary of just leaning on another drug.

Thanks for any insight and help.

Hi soapmaker

 

It's good you're reaching out for taper help. Yes, when you're tapering the 5-10% reduction is just to give you a starting point. You can go slower if your symptoms don't agree with this rate.

 

Regarding your plan. Your reduction is based on your total daily dose not just the single dose you want to cut. So  if you want to cut 10% it has to be off the 1.188mg. My brain fog is really strong today and I'm terrible with pill weight. I know dose weight really well. We just need to make sure you're cutting from the total daily weight otherwise it will be too slow. I hope this makes sense? And I hope someone else can help with the pill weight reductions.

 

Edit: typos

Ok,so 5% from my total daily dose. So my total daily dose in weight with a 5% reduction would be 0.374. I could weigh it out in the morning so I would have my doses for the day. Would you recommend taking that 5% from just one dose or spread out over the three doses?

Thanks for your help.

I'm going to see if I can get someone to help you with this because I'm really bad with dry cutting.

Ok, thanks.

Jelly asked me to stop by.

She is right, most people have success cutting 5 to10% of the total dose every 2 weeks or when your symptoms are tolerable, whichever is longer.

If you need help with the math, go ahead and try it and let me know what you did and I will check it.

Thanks Bob7.

So if my pill weighs 0.166 that would be am and pm so that would be 0.332 then plus the late afternoon dose of 0.062. The total would be 0.394. I would cut 5% from that total so should end up with a total weight of 0.374 for the day. Would you recommend taking the 5% from one dose or splitting it up between all doses? So each dose would be a little less.

Soapmaker,  have you weighed a couple of your pills just to see if they all weigh the same? Sometimes they can have slight variations and people will then take the average weight of 10 pills. At the higher doses it probably won't make such a big difference but when you get lower, it might. Bob7 will know a lot more about this.

 

Usually people would cut the 5% from a single dose. Then they would alternate the cuts between the doses unless you're trying to eliminate a specific dose.

Ok thanks. I will weigh the pills to get an average and give the 5% a go.

Thanks for the help.