Tapering down from 20mg Valium - Dangerous Limitations

Evening everyone,

Due to some insurmountable fatigue I've had lately that makes me unable to drive and sometimes even attend social gatherings, my doctor said it's best for me to lower my benzo dosage. The benzo first, and then my antidepressant that's also causing a lot of sleepiness.

As of now, I'm taking 20mg of Valium throughout the day: 5mg, 5mg, and 10mg (morning, afternoon, evening). The dosage I take during the day doesn't affect my fatigue, although I wish it could. I've discarded all other potential causes and we've narrowed it down to the SNRI and the Valium.

I've taken benzos since 2015, but I had taken benzos before in 2011, of which I withdrew from really badly.

My main problem here is that I want to make an Ashton Manual-like reduction of 1mg every two weeks, however, there's no dosages other than 10mg of Valium or generic diazepam that are sold here, so I'm taking a shot at going with a pharmacist to get 1mg dosages in small bags (it'll look weird ).

However this is very likely not a possibility and I'm most likely going to have to taper from 20mg to 17.5mg. Which is about 13.5-ish percent. My doctor told me that I could try taking 20mg one day and 17.5mg the next day and so on and so forth for about a month, until I can finally stay at 17.5mg. I have my doubts though, as I think this would be like playing ping pong with my brain.

What would be the best idea in this case? A reduction to 17.5mg (or simply cutting that fourth of a pill to a very crude and rough estimate of an eight and taking that one instead) or 20mg/17.5mg on and off?  :-\ :-\ I feel like my doctor's method will ruin me, badly.

Thanks in advance and good luck to everyone :)

Are you able to get oral diazepam solution 5mg/5ml? That’s what I have been using. Seems like every pharmacy in the US carries it. My local CVS constantly keeps it in supply just for me, at least that’s what they told me.

It just seemed like the easiest method to make accurate cuts with. I have just been following Ashton’s protocols. For each stage I have my doctors give me a months supply.

My last script was this;

Stage 15 (30 day supply)

diazepam 5mg/5ml solution

360mg (three hundred sixty)

Am PO 8mg

Pm PO 4mg

And generally what I have been doing is take 8 and 4 for 3 weeks and then on the last week I start sort of a micro taper dropping .1mg every night to help ease my transition into my next stage of 8mg and 3mg.

Woah, how do you mean "going with a pharmacist" can I ask one to divvy up my pills in smaller amounts? I thought the doctor writes the script and there you go.

Please respond, I got a lot of learning to do.

Eutychus

Woah, how do you mean "going with a pharmacist" can I ask one to divvy up my pills in smaller amounts? I thought the doctor writes the script and there you go.

Please respond, I got a lot of learning to do.

Eutychus

There is a Rx liquid V available.  If your pharmacy doesn't stock, they can simply order it from their distributor.

It comes a 1mg per ml solution, which can the easily be further diluted with water.  If you dilute it 9:1, you then have a .1mg per ml solution which means you can easily measure down to .01 (hundredths) mg or even .001 (thousandths) of a mg.

Woah, how do you mean "going with a pharmacist" can I ask one to divvy up my pills in smaller amounts? I thought the doctor writes the script and there you go.

Please respond, I got a lot of learning to do.

Eutychus

 

There is a Rx liquid V available.  If your pharmacy doesn't stock, they can simply order it from their distributor.

 

It comes a 1mg per ml solution, which can the easily be further diluted with water.  If you dilute it 9:1, you then have a .1mg per ml solution which means you can easily measure down to .01 (hundredths) mg or even .001 (thousandths) of a mg.

Builder,Thank you for this info! How do doctors generally feel about this? I want my doctor to be comfortable and reassured that this is a responsible well managed solution (pun) when I see him on my next visit. It seems getting the cross from K to V is the hurdle I will be facing. He seems to want to eliminate V before K, If that happens then won"t a future switch from K to V be "kindling"? Eutychus

@[Bu...]

Excellent advice, thanks again.

@windshield1991 - I'm in a similar boat. Back in November I made it to just 10mg per day, but trying to get through the holidays killed me. I'm now taking 15mg of Valium and 0.5 of Xanax per day—a lousy situation.

Woah, how do you mean "going with a pharmacist" can I ask one to divvy up my pills in smaller amounts? I thought the doctor writes the script and there you go.

Please respond, I got a lot of learning to do.

Eutychus

 

There is a Rx liquid V available.  If your pharmacy doesn't stock, they can simply order it from their distributor.

 

It comes a 1mg per ml solution, which can the easily be further diluted with water.  If you dilute it 9:1, you then have a .1mg per ml solution which means you can easily measure down to .01 (hundredths) mg or even .001 (thousandths) of a mg.

Builder,Thank you for this info! How do doctors generally feel about this? I want my doctor to be comfortable and reassured that this is a responsible well managed solution (pun) when I see him on my next visit. It seems getting the cross from K to V is the hurdle I will be facing. He seems to want to eliminate V before K, If that happens then won"t a future switch from K to V be "kindling"? Eutychus

I guess it depends on how docs feel about tapering in general.  When I told my doc I wanted to try a daily microtaper with liquid because I was no longer able to make .5mg dry cuts, he was glad to write my scrip for liquid.

Kindling:  Other than what you read hear on BB, there really is not much definitive research about kindling and benzos.  And anyway, switching from  one benzo to  another is NOT the same as withdrawing from a benzo, so the whole "kindling" thing wouldn't apply anyway.

If you check out this book online.  It's free to read.  The back of the book has a schedule where Hobson was able to take the different milligrams of valium and cut them to taper down.  It was interesting how he was able to use the different pill cuts to achieve very low doses.  Check it out.  You don't have to go liquid.  I tried the pharmacy for the liquid valium when I was on it and it made me feel worse.  It was also expensive.

You will have to scroll down to the bottom to find the schedule.  Hope this helps.  Copy and paste the link below on your google and then scroll down.

http://www.thebenzobook.com/benzo/pdfs/the-benzo-book10.pdf