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Symptoms following Liquid taper


[Ji...]

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Hi everybody,

 

Lastly I happened to be going through a number of posts where buddies were distressed for one specific reason. It touches a limited number of buddies and it seems by changing from tablets to solution, usually milk, they have felt withdrawal symptoms. As I cannot confirm that those symptoms came from using milk as solvent, it is not excluded that the same problem could have occurred with other liquids used as solvent/suspension too (alcohol, glycol propylene, Ora-Plus, etc...). What made me feel uneasy is that a number of them seemed to feel from the very beginning the same withdrawal effect as when benzo has been abruptly interrupted. Others felt their liquid dose was just not enough compared to when the same dose was taken with tablets. As any taper, Direct or Liquid, is there to alleviate sufferings, it seems to me important to have an answer to that issue and possibly have guidelines to offer to patients a reliable taper approach they can trust.

 

I here established a short list of questions with the hope that buddies can spend some of their precious time to answer. Their contribution will perhaps permit an insight into the mechanism and help newcomers to tackle their taper with reasonable confidence.

 

1. Did you use tablets or drops or pharmacy compound solution to prepare your solution? (Tablets / Drops / Pharmacy)

2. Did you experience symptoms changing from (benzo) tablets to solution? (Yes/No)

3. What solvent did you use? (Water, alcohol, juice, milk, ...). If milk, what type?

4. How would you rate the average intensity of these symptoms on a scale of 10 (0: same as with tablets - 10: very strong like with cold turkey)

5. What did you do to address the problem? (Abandon liquid, increase liquid dose, hold, additional medications...)

6. Based on your experience, would you recommend liquid taper to buddies who wish to taper? (Yes/No)

 

Here is my contribution based on my experience:

1. Drops

2. No

3. Water (to dilute benzo drops)

4. 0

5. Liquid till the end

6. Yes

 

Many thanks.

 

:hug:

 

Here's my experience and I'm almost 50% tapered

 

1) Tablets

2) No

3) Everclear (Vodka)

4) 0

5) Liquid until I'm done with the taper

6) Absolutely!!!

What are drops?

If your ever feeling up to it could you explain your method pleas or point me in u tube direction?

Not sure if pharm liquid will work or if I’ll be able to afford.

Thank you

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This is the million dollar question. I have studied it to death. These are just my feelings /theory. One, when you take a liquid medication it hits you harder, faster, and effects leave faster. This could explain why people experience interdose withdrawal when starting liquid. This could have something to do with the first pass issue, I'm not sure. Also a huge topic that is not seen often on this forum is : ADVERSE EFFECTS. I believe that a lot of us could be mistaking tolerance for adverse effects. After I cold turkeyed my klonopin in August, the ulcers in my eyes went away almost immediately. I looked up adverse effects for benzos and saw ulcers in eyes listed somewhere. So I believe, while I was on tolerance of course because I had cut my dose before I CT, I was having ADVERSE EFFECTS to the klonopin. I think all this has a link, but what I don't know...

 

I believe this has ALOT of merit as well as mr. eggplant,s comments

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Two thoughts:

 

1. Water is not actually a solvent for benzodiazepines. Even Librium, which is supposedly water soluble, seems to need gallons of it to dissolve only a small amount of Librium. (I say seems because different reputable sources give levels of solubility for Librium.) Water can be used to dilute a pharmacy liquid that is already dissolved, though.

2. It would be interesting to also know if people converted their entire dose to liquid all at once or only part of each dose, taking part as tablets/capsules when they started. I converted only one capsule per dose when I started and took the rest as whole capsules.

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I tried taking one tablet and using the pharmacy liquid to make the smaller portion of cut in an attempt to head off sx..didn't work
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1. Did you use tablets or drops or pharmacy compound solution to prepare your solution? (Tablets / Drops / Pharmacy)

 

Manufactured Rx liquid that I diluted 9:1 to a concentration of .1mg per ml

 

2. Did you experience symptoms changing from (benzo) tablets to solution? (Yes/No)

None

 

3. What solvent did you use? (Water, alcohol, juice, milk, ...). If milk, what type?

 

Again, Rx liquid + tap water

 

4. How would you rate the average intensity of these symptoms on a scale of 10 (0: same as with tablets - 10: very strong like with cold turkey)

 

Except for a temporary flare-up at 3.25mg, I had almost no sxs with a DLMT.

 

5. What did you do to address the problem? (Abandon liquid, increase liquid dose, hold, additional medications...)

When I was symptomatic at 3.25, I 1) held for 10 days, them 2) updosed back to 3.5, and held for another week.

 

6. Based on your experience, would you recommend liquid taper to buddies who wish to taper? (Yes/No)

 

Yes, recommended without any reservations!

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1. Did you use tablets or drops or pharmacy compound solution to prepare your solution? (Tablets / Drops / Pharmacy)

 

Manufactured Rx liquid that I diluted 9:1 to a concentration of .1mg per ml

 

2. Did you experience symptoms changing from (benzo) tablets to solution? (Yes/No)

None

 

3. What solvent did you use? (Water, alcohol, juice, milk, ...). If milk, what type?

 

Again, Rx liquid + tap water

 

4. How would you rate the average intensity of these symptoms on a scale of 10 (0: same as with tablets - 10: very strong like with cold turkey)

 

Except for a temporary flare-up at 3.25mg, I had almost no sxs with a DLMT.

 

5. What did you do to address the problem? (Abandon liquid, increase liquid dose, hold, additional medications...)

When I was symptomatic at 3.25, I 1) held for 10 days, them 2) updosed back to 3.5, and held for another week.

 

6. Based on your experience, would you recommend liquid taper to buddies who wish to taper? (Yes/No)

 

Yes, recommended without any reservations!

 

I am so glad u posted that..... I had questions about your taper and u just answered them, but as I start liquid titrating the valium, xanax almost gone, I may have more :D

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  • 1 month later...

Hmmm... the sample size is limited, but it seems people do have difficulties switching from tablets to liquid preparations.

 

This is good to know. I plan on starting my taper soon (still in the planning stages). I plann on switching to a home-made liquid preparation, after I buy supplies. I was going to make a big batch of 500 mL using 10 tablets. But now i think I will start with daily preparations to see how I handle it.

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Hmmm... the sample size is limited, but it seems people do have difficulties switching from tablets to liquid preparations.

 

This is good to know. I plan on starting my taper soon (still in the planning stages). I plann on switching to a home-made liquid preparation, after I buy supplies. I was going to make a big batch of 500 mL using 10 tablets. But now i think I will start with daily preparations to see how I handle it.

 

The old Benzo Detox Recovery (BDR) board was a pretty large sample size.  There were hundreds, maybe thousands, of members all doing liquid tapers.  They were on various benzos, and did different liquid procedures, but they all were tapering off benzos using liqud. No one ever posted any problems or issues switching to liquid.

 

It seems to be a BB problem.  ::)

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Hi everybody,

 

Lastly I happened to be going through a number of posts where buddies were distressed for one specific reason. It touches a limited number of buddies and it seems by changing from tablets to solution, usually milk, they have felt withdrawal symptoms. As I cannot confirm that those symptoms came from using milk as solvent, it is not excluded that the same problem could have occurred with other liquids used as solvent/suspension too (alcohol, glycol propylene, Ora-Plus, etc...). What made me feel uneasy is that a number of them seemed to feel from the very beginning the same withdrawal effect as when benzo has been abruptly interrupted. Others felt their liquid dose was just not enough compared to when the same dose was taken with tablets. As any taper, Direct or Liquid, is there to alleviate sufferings, it seems to me important to have an answer to that issue and possibly have guidelines to offer to patients a reliable taper approach they can trust.

 

I here established a short list of questions with the hope that buddies can spend some of their precious time to answer. Their contribution will perhaps permit an insight into the mechanism and help newcomers to tackle their taper with reasonable confidence.

 

1. Did you use tablets or drops or pharmacy compound solution to prepare your solution? (Tablets / Drops / Pharmacy)

2. Did you experience symptoms changing from (benzo) tablets to solution? (Yes/No)

3. What solvent did you use? (Water, alcohol, juice, milk, ...). If milk, what type?

4. How would you rate the average intensity of these symptoms on a scale of 10 (0: same as with tablets - 10: very strong like with cold turkey)

5. What did you do to address the problem? (Abandon liquid, increase liquid dose, hold, additional medications...)

6. Based on your experience, would you recommend liquid taper to buddies who wish to taper? (Yes/No)

 

Here is my contribution based on my experience:

1. Drops

2. No

3. Water (to dilute benzo drops)

4. 0

5. Liquid till the end

6. Yes

 

Many thanks.

 

:hug:

 

1. Tablets

2. No

3. Alcohol

4. 0

5. Keep on truckin’ with alcohol/water solution

6. ABSOLUTELY!!

 

*In addition, I switched from dosing twice a day to three times to keep an even 8 hours between doses and have not experienced interdose withdrawals since doing this.  Even with Klonopin at twice a day, I was getting IWD’s.  Hope this helps someone!

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1) Rx liquid Diazepam (PG based solution)

2) No!

3) Water to dilute the 1mg=1ml solution to .1mg=1ml

4) 0 (much easier than C&H with tablets)

5) When I got down to 3.5mg, I did a hold and a small updose, then lowered my taper rate

6) Absolutely (and I recommend it here almost every day)

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[f3...]

Just started liquid taper of 0.375 mg of Clonazepan  4 days ago, mixed with pills. Dose #1 0.125 pill - #2 0.125 liquid- #3 0.125 pill.

Solution: 120 ml . Used :12 x 1 mg pills (Same pills i was taking).

Pharmacist gave me two bottles 60 ml each because I sometimes travel). ASA won't let you check in more than 100 ml bottles, even with low qty in them !  Taking a dose from each bottle every other day (even/odd days). Lasts for 2 months. Plastic bottles.

 

1. Pharmacy compound solution, Ora sweet.

2. Minor

3. See 1.

4. 2/3

5. Stay on liquid - Exercise more - Diet - yoga - meditation - cold showers.

6. yes, definitely . There is no other way to do it if you do a long taper from a low dose.

 

Miguel

 

:smitten:

 

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Micedana, how long did your mild symptoms last after switching?

 

Just started liquid taper of 0.375 mg of Clonazepan  4 days ago, mixed with pills. Dose #1 0.125 pill - #2 0.125 liquid- #3 0.125 pill.

Solution: 120 ml . Used :12 x 1 mg pills (Same pills i was taking).

Pharmacist gave me two bottles 60 ml each because I sometimes travel). ASA won't let you check in more than 100 ml bottles, even with low qty in them !  Taking a dose from each bottle every other day (even/odd days). Lasts for 2 months. Plastic bottles.

 

1. Pharmacy compound solution, Ora sweet.

2. Minor

3. See 1.

4. 2/3

5. Stay on liquid - Exercise more - Diet - yoga - meditation - cold showers.

6. yes, definitely . There is no other way to do it if you do a long taper from a low dose.

 

Miguel

 

:smitten:

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[f3...]

Hi HorizonZD,  :smitten:

 

Actually I'm experience an increase in symptoms. I would say 5/6 now. I started in a too high cut dose taper 0.040 every 10 days. I should have been more conservative and start slow and then change accordingly. Compared to what my Dr. suggested to cut 0.125 every 14 days what I'm doing seems to be slow 0.125 every 37 days. But seems like is not working right.

In my humble opinion there  are three things to consider when switching to liquid and have symptoms.  One is that you change pills to liquid. It shouldn't mater, everything turns liquid in your stomach but...

Second: I learn that there is a drop on the liquid dose of 5/10% so that is an increase in the cut already. Third: Anxiety. You are more anxious about what can happen and that may increase your symptoms. If I had to start again I would switch to liquid but I would keep the liquid dose fix for a week or so. That would disregard the solid to liquid issue. Then start a more slow taper. Hope this helps you.

Heal and prosper!!!  :thumbsup:

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  One is that you change pills to liquid. It shouldn't mater, everything turns liquid in your stomach...  True

 

Second: I learn that there is a drop on the liquid dose of 5/10% so that is an increase in the cut already. False

Third: Anxiety. You are more anxious about what can happen and that may increase your symptoms.  True

 

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Miguel,

 

thanks for your input and your kind words.  My doctor had advised cutting too fast as well, a quarter dose cut every week for a month, I am glad I did not follow his instructions.  As you mentioned, as much as I want off of this stuff, I am planning on holding for a week or so just to make sure I am doing everything right and to squelch any anxiety I may have about the new method.  I was thinking I would probably go with something around an .005 or .006 taper to start with.  Builder showed me an easy way to calculate doses that is here on this board under the title "Glass or Plastic storage bottles" in case you are interested.   

 

Thanks again and I hope everything works for you with your liquid taper.

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[f3...]

HorizonZD,

My experience is not much with liquid but this may help you. I did my liquid solution thru a compound pharmacy. They gave me two plastic bottles with 60 ml solution each. They are using ora sweet. It was a good idea from the pharmacist. If you travel or you don't know where you put one of the bottles you have a spare one. The solution should last 2 months. Concentration was 0.1 mg/ml they use 12 pills of 1 mg in a total volume of liquid of 120 ml (x 2 bottles 60 ml each).

I felt a little better today. As I said it depends where your head is every day. If I'm busy doing stuff I have a much better day. My symptoms are more psychological than anything else. Anxiety is my big issue. Tight chess and back pain when sitting are the only physical ones. Some depression/anxiety and feel like be out of it is what I suffer the most. I Don't enjoy things that I use to. I had some of this in the past but what this devil drugs did was exacerbate and amplify everything. And the worst thing is that if you tell you friends or doctor they don't believe that the meds can cause that.  Of course Doctor will try to prescribe more stuff and then the tail chasing starts again!  :idiot:

Hope this helps you!  :thumbsup:

Regards,

Miguel

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  • 2 weeks later...

I have only been on liquid about 2 weeks now but here is my take:

 

1. Tablets

2. No

3. Vodka>water

4. 0

5. Liquid is going good so far.

6. Yes.

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I just started about 8 days ago, dropping 0.01 mg per day, but here's my experience so far...

 

1. Did you use tablets or drops or pharmacy compound solution to prepare your solution? (Tablets / Drops / Pharmacy)  Tablets

 

2. Did you experience symptoms changing from (benzo) tablets to solution? (Yes/No) No

 

3. What solvent did you use? (Water, alcohol, juice, milk, ...). If milk, what type? Alcohol to dissolve, water to bring to volume

 

4. How would you rate the average intensity of these symptoms on a scale of 10 (0: same as with tablets - 10: very strong like with cold turkey) 0

 

5. What did you do to address the problem? (Abandon liquid, increase liquid dose, hold, additional medications...) No issue so far

 

6. Based on your experience, would you recommend liquid taper to buddies who wish to taper? (Yes/No) So far, yes

 

 

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