Do I run a risk by speeding up my Taper?

I have been considering speeding up my taper. I am making cuts of 2% every 10 days. My next cut I will be down to 12.9mg of Valium. At this rate it will take over a year to complete my taper. I am afraid the Valium will become toxic to me or I will develop Tolerance if I go too slow. I had a problem at my 15mg dose of Valium and I changed my cuts from .9mg every 10 days to .3mg every 10 days. But this will prolong my Taper. My major problem is insomnia. I blame this on taking antihistamines doxylamine in Unisom and benadryl every night for many months, Now they no longer help for sleep and I am struggling to get more than a few hours of sleep

Have you discussed this with your doctor?

 

Try

No not yet. When I told him I thought I was tapering too fast and I was getting s/x he agreed to lower my cut amount to 2% of 15 mg. But now I wonder if I had asked for a much slower rate than I should have. I don't want bad s/x I just want to get off the Valium with minimal W/D s/x

Were your wd sx really bad prior to your slowing down your taper?  You may want to slightly increase your taper and see how you tolerate it.  Then you can discuss with your doc how you have been doing with the increase. 

 

I know the feeling of wanting it over with.  Just be smart about it.

 

Try

Hi Rob,  That makes no sense.  We are always in tolerance w/d in a taper.  Holding just keeps us in tolerance.  A year sounds fine.

 

Healing always takes the same amount of time. You can spend it tapering or jump and spend it suffering.  Those are the options but I doubt faster healing comes from faster tapering.  Receptor groups up regulate at a set biological speed, follow the healing wave but do not by pass it ever.

 

Do you notice a difference when you slow down? Is it enough of a difference to justify going slowly? Because if you don't notice a difference or if it's still pretty bad then maybe you should go back to the faster pace. If it helps then keep the slower pace.

 

I guess I have a biased point of view because of my own experience. Now I think it's like a band-aid and I would rip it off (not cold turkey-just prioritizing the off part). That's just me and my experience though.  I just felt more comfortable letting my brain recover naturally without me tinkering way out of my league.

 

One thing though.. make sure you are currently getting a consistent amount everyday. I would make sure my method (I don't know if you are using water titration or not?) is exact before I considered going slower.

 

Good luck though. That's just my bias and I know everybody here has there own.

 

edit: I just noticed you are using a compounded Valium solution. You might want to Google some articles on this topic. Apparently they are not regulated or overseen in the same way a regular pharmacy is and medication mixtures can be inaccurate.  I just realized I sound alarmist but seriously it's new york times hard statistics type of stuff.

Bird, It just seems so slow and I am getting impatient. I don't know if when I asked to slow down. Could I have slowed down too much? A 2% rate at 15mg V is pretty slow. The Dr asked if I was sure if I wanted to slow down that much but because of the s/x I was having at the time I said yes. I just am afraid of the Valium eventually having a paradoxical effect or it becoming Toxic.

Go to, When I slowed down the W/D s/x became less severe. I guess maybe my healing started to catch up with what may have been tapering too fast. I did start the Taper at 30mg of Valium and at 3% but as I continued tapering this percentage had increased then I started having worse s/x show up. That is why I had asked for a slower taper. Now the S/x are less. The worst is insomnia. If I could taper at a speed where the taper does not exceed my CNS rate of healing I would be OK. I just don't know what this is and healing is not linear anyway.

 

As i mentioned before I am worried about the Valium becoming paradoxical or toxic

 

Rob

Hi Rob,  That makes no sense.  We are always in tolerance w/d in a taper.  Holding just keeps us in tolerance.  A year sounds fine.

 

Healing always takes the same amount of time. You can spend it tapering or jump and spend it suffering.  Those are the options but I doubt faster healing comes from faster tapering.  Receptor groups up regulate at a set biological speed, follow the healing wave but do not by pass it ever.

 

I could not agree more! 

Do you notice a difference when you slow down? Is it enough of a difference to justify going slowly? Because if you don't notice a difference or if it's still pretty bad then maybe you should go back to the faster pace. If it helps then keep the slower pace.

 

I guess I have a biased point of view because of my own experience. Now I think it's like a band-aid and I would rip it off (not cold turkey-just prioritizing the off part). That's just me and my experience though.  I just felt more comfortable letting my brain recover naturally without me tinkering way out of my league.

 

One thing though.. make sure you are currently getting a consistent amount everyday. I would make sure my method (I don't know if you are using water titration or not?) is exact before I considered going slower.

 

Good luck though. That's just my bias and I know everybody here has there own.

 

edit: I just noticed you are using a compounded Valium solution. You might want to Google some articles on this topic. Apparently they are not regulated or overseen in the same way a regular pharmacy is and medication mixtures can be inaccurate.  I just realized I sound alarmist but seriously it's new york times hard statistics type of stuff.

Rob and myself use the same Pharmacist, what do you mean it may not be regulated the same as others, sorry this just kinda freaked me out 

Do you notice a difference when you slow down? Is it enough of a difference to justify going slowly? Because if you don't notice a difference or if it's still pretty bad then maybe you should go back to the faster pace. If it helps then keep the slower pace.

 

I guess I have a biased point of view because of my own experience. Now I think it's like a band-aid and I would rip it off (not cold turkey-just prioritizing the off part). That's just me and my experience though.  I just felt more comfortable letting my brain recover naturally without me tinkering way out of my league.

 

One thing though.. make sure you are currently getting a consistent amount everyday. I would make sure my method (I don't know if you are using water titration or not?) is exact before I considered going slower.

 

Good luck though. That's just my bias and I know everybody here has there own.

 

edit: I just noticed you are using a compounded Valium solution. You might want to Google some articles on this topic. Apparently they are not regulated or overseen in the same way a regular pharmacy is and medication mixtures can be inaccurate.  I just realized I sound alarmist but seriously it's new york times hard statistics type of stuff.

Rob and myself use the same Pharmacist, what do you mean it may not be regulated the same as others, sorry this just kinda freaked me out 

 

Here is an article I linked to once before that I've now lazily copy and pasted.

 

ttp://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/23/health/before-meningitis-outbreak-group-advised-how-to-avoid-fda.html?hpw

 

...."After a pharmacist in Kansas City, Mo., pleaded guilty to watering down chemotherapy drugs, the Missouri Board of Pharmacy began in 2006 randomly sampling compounded drugs. In 2008, one in four samples failed a potency test. The failure rate dropped to 15 percent in 2010, the most recent year available."

 

.. just now in my recent google search I saw that there was a bill that was proposed in 2013 created after the meningitis outbreak in 2012 to expand oversight of compounding pharmacies. I'm not sure how that has affected accuracy rates.

Thats just Horrible!!! I have to say I trust my Pharmacist ~ if he was doing something wrong I think I'd have horrible s/x

 

Going down from 34 to 29.92 in a few months With not many issues

 

Just had to have it changed to a lower % and its much better.

 

Thanks for the response

 

 

Go to, When I slowed down the W/D s/x became less severe. I guess maybe my healing started to catch up with what may have been tapering too fast. I did start the Taper at 30mg of Valium and at 3% but as I continued tapering this percentage had increased then I started having worse s/x show up. That is why I had asked for a slower taper. Now the S/x are less. The worst is insomnia. If I could taper at a speed where the taper does not exceed my CNS rate of healing I would be OK. I just don't know what this is and healing is not linear anyway.

 

As i mentioned before I am worried about the Valium becoming paradoxical or toxic

 

Rob

 

Hi Rob,

I continue to have the same concern. I want off of this stuff as soon as possible but still kicking myself for having tapered too fast in the beginning. I m thinking perhaps I wouldn t be in this horrible state of mind if I had taken it slow...very confused as to what to do.

In my experience I found it was not that difficult to cut morw and taper faster when I was at a high dose of Valium. But as I dropped I started getting more severe s/x. I knew I had to slow down but it was not easy to determine at what my new cut amount and taper rate should be. I went for a more conservative taper rate knowing that as I came down again in dosage symptoms again may become too severe. I just don't want to end up with really bad symptoms which I would drag with me over the rest of the taper and I don't want to have to updose either. Updosing is going backwards and prolonging the taper. But it may be the only option if symptoms were unmanageable,

 

I don't know if anyone has an answer to what my taper rate should be. It seems the advice most often given is listen to your body and s/x

Bird, It just seems so slow and I am getting impatient. I don't know if when I asked to slow down. Could I have slowed down too much? A 2% rate at 15mg V is pretty slow. The Dr asked if I was sure if I wanted to slow down that much but because of the s/x I was having at the time I said yes. I just am afraid of the Valium eventually having a paradoxical effect or it becoming Toxic.

 

Hi Rob, That's what I call a "WHAT IF"  Most of the time it never happens.  When the overage of glutamate will not heal it's just time to slow or hold until big improvements start and it can take 3 or 4 months.

 

Hugs