titration plan for 22.5 mgs of temazepam nightly

Hello,

I am looking for help with a taper plan/program for discontinuing 22.5 mgs of temazepam nightly. I have taken it for 6 years. Last September or 5 months ago I was c/ted on my clonazepam of 6 mgs per day for 6 years. I was on 30 mgs of temazepam but went down to 22.5 mgs. Tried to cut to 15 mgs of temazepam but only made it 7 days and had to go back to 22.5 mgs. I've held at 22.5 mgs for the last 3 weeks and 4 days. Please help me with a taper plan for the 22.5 mgs of temazepam, thank you...

I have capsules, one is 15 mgs and the other is 7.5 mgs...

My general advice is to cut small and go slow.  By small I mean at least small enough to recover in a few days and ideally small enough to recover within one day.  It would be a good idea to liquify the T, but I don't know much about that drug.

Colin told me to post that it is a short acting benzo, it would be like any other short acting bento, like xanax? I can liquify it, just need a plan to taper, how many milligrams of milk to medicine, that kind of thing, how much to cut per day, I want to go slow...

I would not use milk with T.  The best thing to do is to dissolve it.  I don't know how with T, but milk will not.  If you are going to suspend it I would use Ora Plus, which you can get.  A liquid strength of .2mg/ml would work.

 

As far as cutting, it is half the potency of V and your dose is 22.5mg so I would probably begin by removing .06mg per day.  This would be 8% for the first month and is a safe place to begin to get used to tapering and hopefully have immediate success.

 

Once you figure out what liquid to use you should be all set.

Here's what I would do. Take the 15mg capsule for now, and titrate the rest. Dissolve the 7.5mg in 7.5 mls of water (you should have a graduated cylinder). As I said before, I used water and it worked fine, just stir up the water (as it will be in suspension) before you pull the dose. Get a small 3ml syringe and pull out what ever you are cutting (remember each ml equals 1g), then drink the rest. Obviously when you get down to 15mg, you'll have to rework this, but it's not difficult. 

 

I had to split the dosages up to keep symptoms down, but if you are okay with having it all at one time, this will work fine. Or you could take the capsule at bedtime, and save the liquid portion for small doses during the day if necessary, or if needed in the middle of night. 

Thank you,,

Not sure I understand...I have 1ml syringes. If I make the solution...I would empty out the 7.5 mg capsule, then add 7 mls of water. Stir well, then take out some. This is where I'm confused, if I am taking out 1ml or 1 gr...how much actual medicine would I be cutting? In milligrams? because I want to cut 5% or 10% every 2 weeks, right? I would really appreciate if you could help me with this calculation as I am not good with math, especially now! Thank you very much

Treesandbirds, I haven't really followed what your recommended titration rate would be (is it 5% or 10%)? and the interval (2 weeks or 4 weeks)? If you have that info, I can make a chart for you. An easy place to start would be to pull out 1 ml (equals 1g of medicine) for the first period (2 or 4 weeks) this is only 4.4% and very safe, just to get you familiar with the process. Pull out the 1ml and drink the rest. (1mg divided by 22.5mg = .044, or 4.4%) If you want to be a bit more aggressive, you could pull out 2 mls, which would be an 8.8% reduction.

 

You could start by just emptying the capsule in 7.5 mls of water, and drinking the whole thing for a few days to see how that feels.  Along with taking the 15 mg. pill of course. I think you should just give it a try and see how it goes. Once you feel comfortable, we can fine tune the process.

TandB--I'm answering the PM here--not sure why in the world you would want to put the contents of the capsule on your tongue, rather than mixing with water? I'm not sure that you are understanding the concept of titration? Please try emptying the 7.5 mg. into the 7.5 mls of water and drinking the whole thing for a couple of nights, along with taking the 15 mg. capsule. Once you are fine with that, we can work up a titration taper. Sometimes it "feels" a bit different to take the meds in liquid rather than a capsule, so it's good to test the concept before beginning to take out the drops.

Ok, I will do that starting tonight. Will let you know how it goes. Thank you!

The reason I asked about just taking the powder was because I was concerned that the temazepam would mix well with the water. Some people here have said that it doesn't mix well with water. I have a scale that I can measure and weigh the dry powder from the capsule on. I just want to make sure I am doing this taper the right way. My confidence is a little shaken I guess! Lots of anxiety and second guessing myself, that is why I ask for help! Thank you for your responses everyone, it is greatly appreciated. Thank you!

Last night I dissolved the 7.5 mg capsule in 7.5 ml of water, then drank that...it worked fine! I just need help in making a daily reduction plan now so I can taper daily down to zero...

Okay, you are ready to start a taper! No need to weigh anything at all.

 

Here's a plan that is super simple, that I think will work really well for you to start off with. You'll take the 7.5mg capsule, and mix it into the 7.5 mls just like you did. Then take the 1mg. syringe and pull out 1 ml. (that is equivalent to 1mg of Temazepam, since we did a 1mg/ml dilution). Throw that 1 ml. of mix away. Now you'll have 6.5 mg in the mix, plus your 15 mg. capsule for a total of 21.5mg of medicine. This is a 4.4% reduction, very mild, to start out with. Be sure and stir up the solution before you pull the 1ml. out.

 

Do this same reduction once a day for a week--pull out 1 ml, throw it away and drink the rest. You can take the 15 mg. capsule at the same time, or split the doses to cut back on interdose withdrawal. I had a lot of that, but it may not bother you.

 

After a week, we can re-evaluate, it it's going fine, then go ahead an pull out 2 mls. If you need more time to stabilize, wait another few days to a week.

 

So if all goes well, you'll be pulling out another ml every week like this:

1st week -1ml

2nd week -2ml

3rd week -3ml  etc...

 

When you get to the bottom of the 7.5 mls, and have only a .5ml left, we'll re-calibrate and come up with a new titration that includes your 15 mg. capsule. Then we can calculate dosage drop based on your current, rather than starting dose, but no need to worry about that now.

 

No need to figure everything out right now, just try a 1 ml reduction for a week, then we'll figure out where to go from there.

Thank you very much!

TandB--how are things going with the taper?

Good, thank you! I'm plugging away...thank you