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Hitting a wall at 0.046mg K. What to do next?


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Have been doing a daily microtaper using a 0.125mg tablet of clonazepam with 60ml milk (removing 1ml a day).  Before this I was dry cutting from approximately .4mg. Things have been going "ok" and I have been generally functional (have had pretty much all w/d symptoms though to some degree). 

 

I'm now down to .046mg (removing 38ml) and I have been getting nausea, just feeling "sick", and panicky feelings (attacks).  I have to remain functional so I can work and provide for my family.  Any suggestions on what I should do with my taper?  Was removing 1ml a day too quick?  Should I updose or hold, then slow down?  Thanks so much for your input.

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Congrats on getting this far.  .125mg in 60ml is .0021mg/ml so each ml cut is .0021mg.  If symptoms are increasing you need to address that and updosing, holding, and slowing down are all ways to do that.  I tend to think of updosing as more for intolerable situations, but others are quicker to use it.  A thing to be aware of is it does not always work.  If things are tolerable you might hold and let things settle down.  Then, when you are ready to begin again, I'd use a smaller cut, as this one may be used up.
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Alright, so yesterday I had another rough day, like just felt like laying on the couch (though still went to work, client conference calls, meetings, etc). I decided to upside yesterday to removing 35ml (as opposed to removing 38). I slept awful last night, but surprising feel much better today. It's only 9am though, so we'll have to see how the rest of the day goes. Anyway, if today is not awful, I'm wondering

 

1) How long I should "hold" for until continuing the taper

2) So how long do you think I should hold for?

3) Could I possibly feel better just from one day of updosing by .00625? ((3/60)*.125). Or maybe just coincidence?  Probably no way to tell?

4) If I was previously removing 1ml a day (.002) and got a wall, should i reduce to .5ml a day once I begin again?

 

I already have not been confident through out this whole process and am constant fear I will not be able to make it to work (from anxiety I've never had before). But this wall I hit last week has really got me worried bc I can't function with feeling just awful (like a flu), which tends to trigger the panic feelings. I'm very much in the camp now, that I will take this last .052mg (roughly 1mg V equivalent) as slow as possible to help my chances in avoiding a vollapse in my life I've worked so hard to put together. I guess my biggest fear is stepping off at a very low amount (feeling somewhat ok) and getting slammed down the road. Ugggh, this stuff is the worst. Just want my cool and collected mind back (which I had as of a months ago).

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Go by how you feel.  Symptoms tend to wax and wane so it might be good to wait a few days to see if this better feeling is sustained.  There is no rush.  The idea is to feel well so that when you reach zero it will be over.  When you feel ready to cut again .0015mg or .001mg might be good to try.
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Thanks SG. That would be awesome to go through no acute after the slow daily micro taper. You clearly have helped so many people. How often do you see micro taperera find "success" by the end of their taper?  I've read so many success stories and just don't see many people that use a strong based mtaper method. Have you found that there many people that do "feel good" once they reach zero and just never write under the "Success Stories" section?  Thanks.
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Honestly, I don't think it is as much about microtaper as it is about the overall drop rate and having patience.  I think it takes more patience than most people have, but if you are willing to, you can do the same thing with cut and hold, although I'd be careful not to cut too much at one time.  I'd say, over the past few years, I'm aware of 10-15 people who finished basically done, and, while most were microtapers, not all of them were.  There were a few C&H in there too.  If you're not supremely patient there is going to be post-taper penalty time.  If you keep symptoms away during the taper they are not going to suddenly appear when you are done.  It will be over.
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This is great. I now agree it's the rate that matters, not so much the method. But it's so hard to find that rate! So what do you do if your sx's increase and you hold a while and they don't get much better?  Is it ever too late to updose?  And if you updose, do you have to updose by a certain % for it to help?  How do you find that right rate of tapering? Is it just trial and error at first?

Thank you.

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This is great. I now agree it's the rate that matters, not so much the method. But it's so hard to find that rate! So what do you do if your sx's increase and you hold a while and they don't get much better?  Is it ever too late to updose?  And if you updose, do you have to updose by a certain % for it to help?  How do you find that right rate of tapering? Is it just trial and error at first?

Thank you.

 

I'd do what it takes to get rid of symptoms.  Don't allow them to increase.  If that means a months-long hold then that is what is required.  The way I suggest finding a taper rate is to begin slowly and establish a rate that works, then build from there...yes, trial and error, but in a deliberate planned way.

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SG, I admire you, I love you,  :smitten: I am very grateful to you, "you saved my life", but this time I do not agree, holding for months at 0.046 mg K after Root taking K for only six weeks?

I have been there, my wall was at 0.062 or so, I had a 5 digits precision scale and still was sure my dose was not very precise, so tiny piece of pill, I kept on going at my speed, 0.0028 mg K per day and by 0.058 mg, Sxs went back to tolerable.

SG, Please do not get mad at me, I say it again: I admire you  :smitten:

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SG, I admire you, I love you,  :smitten: I am very grateful to you, "you saved my life", but this time I do not agree, holding for months at 0.046 mg K after Root taking K for only six weeks?

I have been there, my wall was at 0.062 or so, I had a 5 digits precision scale and still was sure my dose was not very precise, so tiny piece of pill, I kept on going at my speed, 0.0028 mg K per day and by 0.058 mg, Sxs went back to tolerable.

SG, Please do not get mad at me, I say it again: I admire you  :smitten:

 

Hi Clona, That's fine.  It gives them another point of view.  We all have experience, and from that we form opinions.  My opinion is no more or less valid than anyone else's.  My answer was to libr, not Root, but I would tell Root the same thing.  I don't think time on the drug matters.  To me, symptoms are symptoms and I've come to believe it is best to always focus on getting rid of them no matter where we are in the taper since they represent a nervous system that is struggling to function normally.  That's my opinion, but that's all it is.  It might be wrong.  It's important to remain humble and realize we are all trying to make sense of something that can at times be puzzling.

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Clona- how long did you hold at your wall dose before continuing to taper? Was your wall tolerable? Why do you think sx's sometimes get better as ppl keep tapering past a very symptomatic point?

 

SG - when you say do whatever it takes to get rid of sx's, are you including updose? Maybe updose enough and then go with a slower taper rate than before? Months long hold w/ sx's sounds soooo unbearable!

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SG, I admire you, I love you,  :smitten: I am very grateful to you, "you saved my life", but this time I do not agree, holding for months at 0.046 mg K after Root taking K for only six weeks?

I have been there, my wall was at 0.062 or so, I had a 5 digits precision scale and still was sure my dose was not very precise, so tiny piece of pill, I kept on going at my speed, 0.0028 mg K per day and by 0.058 mg, Sxs went back to tolerable.

SG, Please do not get mad at me, I say it again: I admire you  :smitten:

 

Hi Clona, That's fine.  It gives them another point of view.  We all have experience, and from that we form opinions.  My opinion is no more or less valid than anyone else's.  My answer was to libr, not Root, but I would tell Root the same thing.  I don't think time on the drug matters.  To me, symptoms are symptoms and I've come to believe it is best to always focus on getting rid of them no matter where we are in the taper since they represent a nervous system that is struggling to function normally.  That's my opinion, but that's all it is.  It might be wrong.  It's important to remain humble and realize we are all trying to make sense of something that can at times be puzzling.

 

:thumbsup: :thumbsup: :smitten:

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Clona- how long did you hold at your wall dose before continuing to taper? Was your wall tolerable? Why do you think sx's sometimes get better as ppl keep tapering past a very symptomatic point?

 

SG - when you say do whatever it takes to get rid of sx's, are you including updose? Maybe updose enough and then go with a slower taper rate than before? Months long hold w/ sx's sounds soooo unbearable!

 

Sure, I think updosing is in the toolbox.  If symptoms are bad enough I'd give it a try, but the thing is updosing does not always work.  It gets kind of murky, but from what I have read there seems to be more than one kind of symptom and updosing can only affect one of them.  The other is a more long-term deal and more stubborn, and time seems to be the only answer to them.

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Clona- how long did you hold at your wall dose before continuing to taper? Was your wall tolerable? Why do you think sx's sometimes get better as ppl keep tapering past a very symptomatic point?

 

SG - when you say do whatever it takes to get rid of sx's, are you including updose? Maybe updose enough and then go with a slower taper rate than before? Months long hold w/ sx's sounds soooo unbearable!

 

Hi Libr,

I held for one day only  ;D, well, my wall was not properly tolerable, I was teaching and had to hang to the board when solving equations on it :-X, I was dizzy, a New sx for me at that dose, plus terrible cog fog. At about 0.055 dizziness was totally gone and cog fog decreased. My theory is that If we hold for very little time, it takes more energy to continue at our own speed, then we need to start slowly again. I started solid daily MT at a dose higher than 0.5 mg at a speed of 0.0014 mg per day. Then I started to increase very slowly from that Thanks to SG57 advices and support...until 0.0028 mg. If holding, then it is necessary to hold for long time as SG advices. I was very scared of Jumping so I wanted to do it in my Summer holidays last year. My sxs were much worse at 0.062 than when I jumped, when I actually started to have really good windows.

All the best.

Clona

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Root,

 

Yes, you can feel better in a day after updosing a very small amount like you did. It happens to me. I hold for a day or two and then cut again at a slower rate  for a few days and usually move back up a little to my usual slow rate.

 

I do think you should stay at a low rate since you are so low, though.

 

Jenny

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Root- what did you decide and how are you feeling?

 

SG- I went too fast w/ my taper - cant decide whether to updose and come back down more slowly or hold?

If updosing, how do you decide how much to updose by?

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Root- what did you decide and how are you feeling?

 

SG- I went too fast w/ my taper - cant decide whether to updose and come back down more slowly or hold?

If updosing, how do you decide how much to updose by?

 

If you believe the glutamate hypothesis, which I do, then there would be a time limit on updosing.  Updosing would take care of the GABA symptoms, but would be ineffective against the glutamate symptoms, once they kick in.  This fits with anecdotal experience of what we see on the forum...updoses may not work after a time; reinstatement may not work after a time.  I don't know much about updosing.  I've found the best way to help is to help them talk it through.

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SG- What are glutamate sx's and how are they different from GABA sx's?

Do glutamate sx's improve with time? 

 

What is the time limit on updosing?  Is it the 2 wks I see on some posts or is that random?

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SG- What are glutamate sx's and how are they different from GABA sx's?

Do glutamate sx's improve with time? 

 

What is the time limit on updosing?  Is it the 2 wks I see on some posts or is that random?

 

This is tough reading, but if you can get through it and get the gist it lays out the glutamate hypothesis...

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=85498.0

 

Basically, and very roughly, what I get from it is we can be short of benzo to a certain point until there is just too much 'excitement' of the neuron, at which point a chain of events occur which result in bad and long-lasting symptoms on the glutamate side of things.  To me, the goal of tapering is to avoid this from happening and just have the GABA upregulation to deal with.  This is the main reason I get concerned with cut and hold beyond a few percent.  I worry bigger step cuts might leave us too short and do a little glutamate damage with each cut until enough GABA receptors are restored to quiet it back down.  You can do the same thing by tapering too fast with any method.  I'm pretty sure this is what happened to me.  I could be wrong, but that's my concern.

 

Everything improves with time.  We all will eventually heal, don't doubt that.  But the glutamate seems nasty and long-lasting, and they are in my case.  I received several years on penalty time and I think the reason is glutamate.

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Thanks for all the great feedback.  I decided to slightly updose (from 0.046mg to .052mg) and hold.  I've been holding at this for about 4 days and since then nausea/sickness has gone away.  As usual it's hard to say if this is just ebb & flow, or if it's bc of the slight updose.  Aside from the normal baseline symptoms I have had (anxiety, fatigue, lethargy) in the last few 5-6 days (before updose), I also noticed some extreme temperature changes where I can be very cold or very hot (sweating) or both.  Very odd.  Also starting 3 days ago, I got a new symptom that I haven't had this entire time and that's very sore muscles ALL over my body.  They have subsided some, but it's most prominent in my forearms and hands.  To the point where it was difficult to squeeze toothpaste out (I'm a 33 year old male).  I'd like to wait on the hold until these physical symptoms hopefully go away.
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SG - very interesting. How would you define and categorize GABA vs glutamate symptoms?

 

I think the thing about glutamate is they persist.

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Hello root, SG, all.

 

I'm so glad I found this post. 

 

I had the exact same thing happen as root -- suddenly worse symptoms, extreme nausea,dizzy, sick, anxious -- to the point of almost not being functional at times.

 

Perhaps I have hit a wall, which is extremely discouraging, because I have been fighting a very long hard battle down from 70 mg to 1.11 mg.  I have been holding here at 1.11, but have not gotten better. I Think I'm going to updose to 1.2 mg or maybe 1.17, I haven't decided which.

 

I am traveling tomorrow on a plane for the first time in six years, so I really need to get these symptoms under control. I'm pretty scared. Hopefully the updose will make my symptoms settle down. They're pretty unbearable right now.

 

I appreciate any insight or words of encouragement.

I don't usually get on benzo buddies very much, but I will try to keep checking back here. 

 

Root, I would love to know if the updose is working for you

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SG, I admire you, I love you,  :smitten: I am very grateful to you, "you saved my life", but this time I do not agree, holding for months at 0.046 mg K after Root taking K for only six weeks?

I have been there, my wall was at 0.062 or so, I had a 5 digits precision scale and still was sure my dose was not very precise, so tiny piece of pill, I kept on going at my speed, 0.0028 mg K per day and by 0.058 mg, Sxs went back to tolerable.

SG, Please do not get mad at me, I say it again: I admire you  :smitten:

 

When your sig says "no acute" does that mean it was rough but not the hell that many describe?

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