Help me with a titration plan please.

I have been reading around the board and posted in the withdraw forum, but I don't fully understand how to taper down to micro doses.  I know people use milk and other methods, but how can you ensure that you get an accurate dose?

 

I was prescribed 0.5 mg klonopin twice a day for 1 mg total per day.  I have been on this for a little over a year, but have used it "as needed" at times.  The biggest problem I have had recently is that I tried to cut my dose back because I didn't feel I needed as much and started getting electric zaps, headaches, anxiety, and horrible muscle pain.

 

I really want to try a slow taper.  After experiencing these side effects, a very slow taper. 

 

I may have to resort to mixing my own smaller doses in milk if the doctor doesn't work with me.  They seem to be under the impression cutting 25% every few weeks is tolerable.  I don't think I can do that.

 

I am also back to taking my regular dose of 1 mg a day to try and stabilize my blood levels with the medication.  I'm hoping I can feel better by doing this.  Then I can start cutting down slower than I did before.

 

Thank you for any help or a plan.

I never used K, so I'd prefer to not give you any specific tapering advice. However, if you have a look at my signature below you will see the method I used for a daily liquid taper for valium. That will give you the basic steps of doing this kind of taper, and what equipment you will need (very little actually). 1mg K is equivalent to 20 mg Valium.

 

What you could also do is create a signature for yourself, giving your current dose of K etc. That will help people see at a glance what your situation is, and you won't have to keep explaining it in your posts. They will then be able to help you set up a taper plan.

I have been reading around the board and posted in the withdraw forum, but I don't fully understand how to taper down to micro doses.  I know people use milk and other methods, but how can you ensure that you get an accurate dose?

 

I was prescribed 0.5 mg klonopin twice a day for 1 mg total per day.  I have been on this for a little over a year, but have used it "as needed" at times.  The biggest problem I have had recently is that I tried to cut my dose back because I didn't feel I needed as much and started getting electric zaps, headaches, anxiety, and horrible muscle pain.

 

I really want to try a slow taper.  After experiencing these side effects, a very slow taper. 

 

I may have to resort to mixing my own smaller doses in milk if the doctor doesn't work with me.  They seem to be under the impression cutting 25% every few weeks is tolerable.  I don't think I can do that.

 

I am also back to taking my regular dose of 1 mg a day to try and stabilize my blood levels with the medication.  I'm hoping I can feel better by doing this.  Then I can start cutting down slower than I did before.

 

Thank you for any help or a plan.

 

There's a lot of people who just recently created threads wanting a titration plan for coming off of Klonopin (myself included).  It would seem that SG57 is the user who has a ton of experience with this.  If you read my thread or Daves Not Here's thread, you can see what SG57 suggested to us for now.

For .5mg K x2 what you might want to consider is keeping one pill dry and one liquified in milk.  You could, for example, put it in 50ml full fat whole milk to make a .01mg/ml concentration of liquid K-milk.  Then use a 1ml and 10ml syringe and two jam jars to dispense, cut, and dose.  That's all you need.  Cuts will be on the order of .001-.005mg per day and this can be done with the 1ml syringe.

 

Let us know if you have more questions.

If i'm understanding I just make the K milk, and subtract 1ml and drink the rest.

 

1 ml = .001 mg?  That doesn't sound too bad.

Yes, you are on track.  You can control how much 1ml is equal to by how much milk you use.  If you were to put .5mg into 50ml then...

 

1ml = .01mg/ml

 

If it were me and I was at 1mg K I'd begin with a .0015mg cut, which would be .15ml.  So you'd be removing a fraction of an ml each day.

Why would I be experiencing sweating, temperature, face flushing, and an overall hotness over my head?  I'm back up to my full dose for two days and have experienced these symptoms along with some mild anxiety this evening?  I did have a really bad headache most of the day, and those electric zaps, but they seem to have subsided.  My blood pressure is fine, but my heart rate is slightly elevated.

 

I don't understand why all of this came on this week.  I have pretty much taken this medication as needed for the entire time i've been on it.  I sure don't want to head to the hospital if this is normal while trying to stay steady with a benzo.  I don't want to be admitted anywhere as i've got some new opportunities coming up in about 2 weeks.  I simply cannot spend a month in the hospital.

 

I'm hoping this is just anxiety or something that will correct.  It comes and goes.  I apologize for posting so much, but this is sort of scary to deal with.

I had the worst pain in my hips and knees this morning when I woke up.  Bad headache.  Just felt bad.  After I took my meds I started feeling better all day.  Second dose I felt much better.  I am hoping that I am building the drug back up so I can begin a slower taper.  I should have known better than to just take this as needed.  Thank goodness things seem to be stabilizing. 

 

I have never felt pain like that in my life.

It sounds like the dose made symptoms go away?  How many times a day do you dose?

Yes after taking my regular dose I started feeling better within an hour or so.  Today I woke up and had zero pain, no headache, most all of the horrible symptoms were gone.

 

I dose twice a day.  0.5 mg when I wake up, and another 0.5 mg in the evening around 7 pm usually. 

 

Over time I would skip the morning dose for weeks at a time and just take my evening dose.  I may have only taken a dose before a stressful situation, or at bedtime, and some days I took none.  That seemed to have caught up with me.  Now i'm taking it religiously at the same times every day, and feel better.  The goal is to get as level as possible and then start the liquid titration over a long period of time so hopefully my body can heal in between cuts.

 

I think I just tapered way too fast out of ignorance.

I talked to the Doctor briefly today.  He seems to want to switch me over to Lorazepam or he mentioned another longer acting benzo.  I meet with him tomorrow to discuss everything.  Even with a steady dose of Clonzeapam I am starting to experience the withdrawl symptoms again.  Ugh. 

 

Is there anything specific I should ask the Doctor or should I stay away from a crossover plan?  I sent them a copy of the Ashton Manual to take a look at.

Lorazepam?  Really?  That strikes me as a particularly bad choice as it is quite short acting and NOT a good taper drug.  Your daily doses will likely need to be increased.  I don't recommend it.

 

Most people who are on K can taper K, but if they cross it is almost always to Valium.

I was thinking Lorazepam was Valium.  I messed that up.  I will surely ask him about the Valium.  I had talked to him and mentioned Lorazepam and think he just went with what I was saying at the time.  Man, I hope he knows what I meant.  He said to go on a longer acting benzo not a shorter.  This is all my mistake sorry.

I see lorazepam is Ativan.  Yeah that is not going to happen. 

So the Doc wants me to replace the klonopin .5 with 10 mg of valium twice a day.  Instead of taking the 1 mg of K I will be taking 20 mg of valium daily.  Once I get use to and crossover to valium we will start making cuts in dose within a month.

 

They gave me the option to go inpatient and get off the klonopin within 6 days, which doesn't seem rational to me after a year of use or working on a outpatient crossover plan.  They said 1 mg Klonopin is not a very high dose so I should have no problem coming off of it and would have a better chance at success doing it outpatient with longer acting valium.

 

I'm not really sure what to think.  Does this sound like a good plan?

I don't know how else to put it: they are wrong and getting off within six days is inhumane, cruel, and negligent.  1mg K is not a small dose at all.  Kind of average.

 

You are crossing to the right amount as 1mg K is 20mg V according to Ashton.

I agree with you SG, it seemed like it would be hell on earth.  Basically you go in to the hospital, and get Ativan as needed in small doses while you Cold Turkey off the K.  I'm assuming the Ativan was to prevent seizures and the like.  Thank God I came here first and read up a little on rapid detox.

Baseline, i would stay with Klonopin unless the muscle pain gets out of hand.  I've had severe pain fir months and traced it about the time I developed tolerance.  Watch that close as Ive had it throughout the whole ordeal.  I ran 7 miles/daylast Spring ... Can barely walk now?

I switched to Valium 10 mg twice a day, yesterday.  I replaced my normal doses of K with the V and yesterday was actually really great.  Today I have felt some hot flashes, and sweating.  Muscles seem to be really tense and sluggish.  I may have caught a cold or some sort of flu last week.  I have been coughing a ton and feel very nauseous but I am fairly convinced it is a cold or some bug.  Maybe it is from the K.

 

I should be taking an equivalent dose of V now so I am really hoping that this will be a smooth transition.  I see the Doc again at the end of the month and I think we are going to make the first cut.  I'll keep reading up on things here and always welcome any input from any of you.  Thank you for the support.

I also switched over from 1mg K to Valium. Found it to be MUCH better. Could tolerate any drops in K - but was able to cut 1mg per 2.5 weeks down to 5-6 until I got slammed and needed to go with a micro taper.  Good luck

 

Just read the Lorazepam is a short acting benzo and so do I need a different plan to taper off it than the liquid titration plan?

Thanks

Scotty

 

14 years of Lorazepam for sleeping, started at .25mg and am now at 1mg every night for the last 5 or 6 years

Hello everyone.  I wanted to come back and look over my post from roughly this same time last year.  It is amazing how much has changed.  I am still taking the Valium I was prescribed, but have managed to cut myself down to 10 mg a day.  It has simply been a battle.  I am still feeling symptoms.  I ended up leaving a few good jobs, and still fighting off depression and anxiety while I continue to cut back.

 

The good news is that it can be done.  I am just hoping that I can get off of this last 10 mg fast.  I hate taking it.