Help with tapering

Please kindly let me know if this tapering schedule question should be posted somewhere else. 😊😊

I have a very willing doctor to help me taper but unfortunately she isn't following the Ashton taper exactly. So I'm trying my best to figure out what to do with help from you.  So here's a question.  The original taper schedule for my Tapering off  .25 mg Xanax was .25mg X 14 days, then .1875 mg (which is 3/4 of .25) X 14 days

then .125 X 14 days then

.0625 (1/4 of the original).  I had to reinstate to .125 mg.  due to scary wd on .0625.  Now that I know you aren't supposed to taper more than 10% and should hold 3-4 weeks, I realized I tapered too fast. So how long should I stay at .125 mg.  I'm still having wd for 3 weeks now & major muscle & weight loss.  Shoujd I reinstate & start over!!!

Hi Universalhealing.

I'm going to move this to Taper Plans and send you the new link...then I'll reply on the thread.

Challis

I checked back to your original post when you joined and at that time you were also on .25mg of Klonopin.  Are you still on that?  That will make a difference in my reply.

If you'll add a 'signature' (drug/taper history) it'll help everyone respond more accurately, too.  Here's how: go to Profile, then Forum Profile, write your benzodiazepine history in the text box and click Save Changes.

Thanks!  I'll be back.

Challis99. I just read your message to me responding to a tapering question I had. I couldn't figure out how to reply to you directly from your message to me and I actually now have a new question since I posted the other one.  Below you will see the question that I want to post but I

Don't know how to post to the Tapering posts so I'm

Just sending it to you. Here it is with a little background:

Hi! I need some help and advice.  Here's a little history. I've been on .25 mg Klonopin  for about 2 years for sleep and .25 mg of Xanax for about a year.  Due to short term memory loss and retirement from a very stressful job, I decided to taper off with help of my psychiatrist.  She initially put me on a taper of first cutting the Xanax (by 1/4 tab every 2 weeks) while increasing the longer acting Klonopin to .50. I was afraid to go up that high so I increased it only to .375 mg a night.  Anyway, I was doing fine until I did the last Xanax cut which meant I was on .0625 and I developed intolerable wd symptoms so I updosed to .125 mg and have been there for 3-4 weeks.  A week ago I saw my psychiatrist and told her my situation so suggested I crossover to liquid Valium so I could make smaller cuts as well as have milder wd symptoms because V has a longer 1/2 life.  However, she said I should just stop the Klonopin and the Xanax and do a "cold crossover" to 5mg Valium 3 times a day.  I've read about a crossover taper to Valium in the Ashton Manual when on just one benzo, but never a direct "cold switch"  to Valium. Also there is nothing in the manual about crossing over to Valium from from two diff benzos.  I don't know what to do.  I'm not sure my doctor knows what she's doing. Ha!!  But she's trying and I gave her the Ashton Manual that she plans to read.  Thanks for your help n

You're in the right place, this is your original thread, it's just now under Taper Plans. 

So, after reading your answer, I'm going to move your thread again, this time to Substitution Taper Plans.  Some of our members who are knowledgable about crossing from one benzodiazepine to another.  I'm not, I have read about it but never done it.  I'd rather someone who was familiar with Klonopin step in and help with their own experiences with it.

Hi!

I did a crossover from klonopin to valium and tapered. It sounds like you have a doctor who wants to help and you are on a relatively low dose of benzos- so deep breath... you will be ok!

Please do add a signature as challis suggested, when you get a chance.

In general it is better to do a crossover in stages to give your body a chance to adjust. Although it seems intimidating to increase your klonopin dose, it is really just changing out the xanax for klonopin- to do it successfully you want to make sure you are giving yourself the right amount.

How are you feeling now at 0.375 mg klonopin and 0.125 xanax? I ask because although valium crossover is possible you might be better off going to just klonopin and tapering. I will post this now and go see if I can figure out xanax to klonopin equivalents, I've never done that math.

JKS

It looks like your doc had the right idea- xanax and klonopin are equivalent potency in ashton so switching out your 0.25 xanax for another 0.25 klonopin might have helped, but by reducing the overall dose you were effectively just tapering the shorter acting xanax. It can be done, but many people find it difficult.

I think if you are feeling good now, you could try crossing the rest of your xanax to klonopin (either all at once or 0.06 mg at a time with a week or so break in between). Then settle in at 0.5 mg K and try a klonopin taper, with the option of a valium crossover as a backup plan. Crossing to valium can be very helpful, but crossing over takes time and some people find valium too sedating.

Let us know what you decide.

JKS

I'm not sure how to reply to people's comments since there is only a reply button at the very bottom even though there may have been several different posts from different people.  do you understand why I'm saying? So I'm assuming I am replying to "Just Keep Swimming"??  Anyway, so currently I am still holding at .125 Xanax and now at .325 Klonopin.  Im feeling  good and have very few side effects right now, except for ringing in the ears (constant, but I'm learning to ignore) and off and on "knots in stomach" which I feel as soon as I  get out of bed.  I think they tend to reduce sometime after Ive taken the .125 xanax around 11:00 am.  That seems odd to me that I would wake up with wd symptoms when I've actually increased my Klonopin during my taper of Xanax.  Can you explain why that might be happening?  Anyway, I am wondering if I should do another cut (xanax) now?  You suggested crossing the rest of  my xanax to klonopin, either all at once (sounds scary to me) or 0.06 mg at a time with a week or so  break in between.  I have a couple of questions about how to do that:  1) how do I measure 0.06 mg?  I am able to easily cut my .125 mg Xanax  into half which is .0625.  Is that ok or is that too big?  2)  Do I then increase the Klonopin by same amount? 3)  When you say with a week or so break in between, does that mean "holding" at the dose?  4)  Would it be ok if I had to hold longer--like 3-4 weeks??  5) When I'm finished with the Xanax and feel comfortable, and have increased the Klonopin to 0.50, in what increments do I cut if I decide to taper without the Valium crossover?  6)  If I do decide to do a Valium crossover with the Klonopin (starting at .50 mg), how do I do that??? 

So sorry for all of the questions.  Of course, maybe there is a link on here that will answer all my questions, I'm not sure.  But the problem has been that my declining cognitive ability has rendered my brain almost useless when it comes to making sense of anything that has numbers, especially converting percentages to mg., etc.  I apologize.  I'm afraid my brain is ruined. 

Thank you for your help....

There is just one reply button because the thread keeps everything in chronological order. No worries, most people read all the replies even if it isn't addressed directly to them. You will get the hang of it!

Nothing really surprises me about benzos anymore, I think the key takeaway is that you are feelin pretty stable right now, which is great news. I don't think crossing the rest of the Xanax directly (0.125x to 0.125k) is so scary because you essentially just did that and were ok. The goal is to decrease Xanax and increase klonopin by the same amount. If you want to do that in two steps of 0.06 that's fine. As you said, easy to do that with the current Xanax pills. I'm assuming you have 0.5 mg klonopin pills? It can be very tricky to cut the pills into eighths which is what you would need to do 0.06 mg klonopin. There is a liquid klonopin and 0.125mg dissolving tablet but those would require a new prescription from your doctor. If you do try the 0.06 route then yes you would make the change and keep the new doses the same for a week or two. You can hold longer if you want. Personally I never saw any benefit to a longer than three week hold, but your mileage may vary.

I think the first step is to get stable on all klonopin, the rest of the taper can be figured out later. There's lots of help here when you get to that point! By the way, another option would be to keep the current dose of klonopin and taper the Xanax but it sounds like you already tried that and didn't like it.

JKS