Tapering

Hello, having hard time with taper, doing taper of.5x am .5 x pm… ( As I stated I had to updose and start over) because of severe symptoms.. I did get response but now can’t find it.. I barely know how to post & can’t find replies or threads ?? Please tell me how its so confusing to me at this time. I am shaving morning & night dose with file…  I scrape the am .5 dose about 10 times very lightly & pm dose the same… I sleep a little better.. day time withdrawal is bad.. I can’t really tell the actual doses only know hiow many times I scrape & & I write it down . Started this a few days ago as I stated before.. need to know if I’m doing this correctly.. should I only shave am dose till gone or keep shaving both am/pm ? & how long before shaving any dose again..? I need to be off X ..

I highly recommend you not reduce your dose for at least a month, it could take that long for you to stabilize and begin again.  I want you to understand something, getting rid of the drug is just the first step, after that comes recovery and it can take months.  If you get in too much of a hurry and taper off quickly, you're most likely setting yourself up for a painful recovery.  If you hold until you get stable, then do a slow taper chances are you can use the drug to soften your withdrawal symptoms because once you're off the drug, you won't have it to help minimize your symptoms, you'll be at their mercy. 

 

Please listen to those who have come before you and take this slow because we can't rush this process, a quick withdrawal pretty much insures a painful recovery. 

Fighter65,

 

As Pamster said please don't reduce now. You first need to stabilize. It's best to stay at 1mg for at least 1 month.

 

When I split your thread,  I sent you a PM with the link to that thread. If you go to your messages in the main menu you'll find the link there and you can always go there, click on read messages and just click on the link I sent.

 

Alternatively, you can click on

Profile

Under your username it will have the option "Show Posts" . If you click on that it will show all your previous posts. If you click on any of those it will take you to the specific thread.

Hi again, in regard to your message about me stabilizing... so you mean stop shaving but still take the 1mg daily for about a month..  do I  still take it .5mg am & .5mg pm  or take it all at once am

Shaving is a good way to reduce your doses.  I would recommend getting a jeweler's scale from Amazon or another site to weigh your doses.  Shaving ten times doesn't really tell us how much your tapering.

 

The suggested rule of thumb is to reduce your current daily dosage by 5 - 10% every 10 - 14 days.  Any symptoms should guide your pace and reduction.  Some members find that they have to go slower than the rule-of-thumb rate.

 

So, for example, you want to reduce by 5%.  You would then multiply the weight of your pills by .95 to arrive at the weight to which you will shave your pills.  You can shave one pill or both pills.  The choice is yours.  I shave my pills and decided to shave both of them but to have the PM dose larger in case it helped with sleep.

 

I hope this helps give you a start.  If you have any questions, please ask.

Hi again, in regard to your message about me stabilizing... so you mean stop shaving but still take the 1mg daily for about a month..  do I  still take it .5mg am & .5mg pm  or take it all at once am

 

Yes, our feeling is it would be wise to not reduce your dose at all for about a month or long enough for you to feel a little better.  You could use this time to educate yourself about what has happened to you so you won't be so afraid.  It will also allow you to gather supplies like a jewelers scale and to prepare yourself emotionally as well as help your family understand.  This is a long process that takes a huge commitment and it takes time to wrap our heads around it.

Hi again, in regard to your message about me stabilizing... so you mean stop shaving but still take the 1mg daily for about a month..  do I  still take it .5mg am & .5mg pm  or take it all at once am

 

Yes you will stop shaving and you will still take 0.5mg  am and 0.5mg pm. The best is to just keep things as they are for at least  one month. You are having severe withdrawal from what you've been through so your body just needs a break now to recover a bit before you start cutting again.

Thanks , I will try that approach & hope withdrawal gets more tolerable & that my new Dr is onboard since she knows I am trying to get off.. hope she will write another script.. last time I did a liquid X from compounding pharmacy since I couldn’t cut small enough.. I was doing .25mg am & 0.125 mg pm then was supposed to go down to .0625mg.. all this to be done in 2-3 months !! That was not my idea.? That taper was accurate of course but too fast I believe …? I had severe withdrawal from liquid X & fast taper. So I stopped & went back to pill form… so I had to up dose a couple times  just to survive.. then I tried to cold turkey that only lasted about almost 2 days… way to horrific!! Now sadly I have had to start over.. now here I go again… How do people get off this ,  know a small few have CTed & I applaud them that have succeeded.. I’m not that strong & have no help… please I hope I will be successful in with my taper guys !! Thanks for being there to help guide me.. I know I will be asking more advice asvI struggle along.. Thanks ♥️

I'm so sorry you were tapered way too fast. I don't necessarily think it was the liquid Xanax. I suspect it was the big reductions.  I know how you feel, it happened to me as well. The good news is I went back up, I held my dose and I felt much better. Since then I've been able to reduce and not have severe withdrawal symptoms. I hope we can help you with the same outcome. 

I know its discouraging to have to start over again but you're not alone, this happens way too often because not enough medical professionals know how to taper their patients off of these drugs.

 

I'm glad you have experience with liquid Xanax, you may want to go back to that once you begin your taper again, but this time you'll be going much slower.  Of course, if you'd like to use scales you can but the commercial liquid is the most accurate.

 

We'll be here for you, and I can see you're very motivated so I have no doubt you're going to be successful.