Another question for Bella Amis or Jim Hawk, Please.

Hi again,

I started a dlmt off Klonopin that you helped me with on June 1. I started at .5mg K morning ,noon and night. I started titrating my morning dose and have about a week left, but I'm wondering if I could switch my morning dose with my noon time dose? my mornings have always been the toughest but I have been able to be home, so put up with it.

Yesterday, I started teaching a month long summer nature program and the mornings are unbearable with the anxiety and nausea that comes with it. It's tough for this old lady to be trecking through muck & catching frogs while I'm trying not to be sick. I should have thought about this before and started with the noon time dose to begin with. 

Is it okay to switch?

Thank you, thank you for your input!!

Juelli

Hi Juelli 

I started titrating my morning dose and have about a week left

Let me first congratulate you for been nearly 1/3 way off.

This is the second time this week I learnt about inter-dose withdrawal with someone taking 3 doses of Clonazepam a day . The thing surprises me due to the properties of the medication known to be having long half-life elimination (20-40 hours). You probably belong to that population that are hyper sensitive to the fluctuation of the drug in your organism.

However as the peak effect of K fades away only after 8-10 hours, I don't think yours was inter-dose withdrawal. I think it's due to insufficient dose of benzo after several cuts that have been perhaps too fast and that your body struggles to catch up. Could you please refresh me on your taper pace?

Should you decide to hold the morning dose and start to taper the noon dose now, I do not see any problem as long as the total daily dose remains the same. The long elimination half-life of K will do the rest to smoothen drug variations in your plasma during the day.

Option 1: Hold with the morning dose for a couple of weeks and when stable start to taper the noon dose.

Option 2: Increase the morning dose a little bit to arrive to a stable level and subtract the same quantity from the noon dose. When stable, start to taper the noon dose.

Hope it helps.

Hi Jim, thank you so much!

I am tapering 10% every two weeks. I use vodka to dissolve the tabs. I do a combo liquid and tabs. I was doing pretty good because I had no stress I was at home and just taking it easy and now I'm kind of falling apart with all these kids.  I like option 2. Perhaps I could take a quarter mg from my noon dose and take it in the morning with my liquid. And I will not reduce any more until my classes are over in 24 days.

Does this make sense?

Can't tell you how much I appreciate your help.

Hi juelli 

Went back to your previous exchanges with Bella Amis and found this

This is a Fixed Quantity taper of 0.15 mg/14 days. This amount corresponds to 10% of the 1.5 mg (3 * 0.5 mg) when you first started. Now, you are one week close to 2/3 of the road with your (nearly) 1 mg (2 * 0.5 mg) left. By maintaining the reduction of 0.15 mg but now over 1 mg, the taper pace has become 15%. This can explain the start of symptoms.

This is a known problem of this method also known as symptoms-driven taper as opposed to Fixed Percent taper. We will need to re-adapt the reduction quantity. Here is the proposed new schedule when you come down to 2 * 0.5 mg in some weeks:

We will repeat the adaptation of the reduction one last time when you are at 1/3 of the jump point (0.5 mg).

If you have doubts, please ask.

                Hi Jim,

                                I'm currently on 1.5 mg of Xanax at bedtime,(3 years) and I have researched the different tapering methods and I think Liquid is the best way to go for me.

            I recently clicked on a thread that had your tapering methods.

    I must have done something wrong, because when I went to submit the info, a red box circled info that was missing.

    Can you help with this?............I went to reduce about a ml a day and my starting liquid amount would be 148ml of water and 3ml vodka for a total od 150 ml solution.

    I think I run into trouble when entering tablet size, since it's 1 1/2 tablets.

                                                                                                                                                                        Thanks

Hi AI52

I'm currently on 1.5 mg of Xanax at bedtime

With no inter-dose withdrawal during the day?

To generate your taper plan, go here: http://benzo.alwaysdata.net/ and enter following parameters in Liquid Taper:

Hope this is what you were looking for.

All the best!

                Thanks Jim,

                                        As a matter of fact I do seem to  get a bit irritable about mid afternoon along with emotional stuff, gastro issues, cramping, muscle twitches etc.........So maybe dose a few times?

Hi AI52

So maybe dose a few times?

I read a number of buddies spread Xanax doses throughout the day to counter its short elimination half-life.. Many do with 3 doses, others with 2.

Hi juelli 

 

Went back to your previous exchanges with Bella Amis and found this

 

This is a Fixed Quantity taper of 0.15 mg/14 days. This amount corresponds to 10% of the 1.5 mg (3 * 0.5 mg) when you first started. Now, you are one week close to 2/3 of the road with your (nearly) 1 mg (2 * 0.5 mg) left. By maintaining the reduction of 0.15 mg but now over 1 mg, the taper pace has become 15%. This can explain the start of symptoms.

 

This is a known problem of this method also known as symptoms-driven taper as opposed to Fixed Percent taper. We will need to re-adapt the reduction quantity. Here is the proposed new schedule when you come down to 2 * 0.5 mg in some weeks:

 

We will repeat the adaptation of the reduction one last time when you are at 1/3 of the jump point (0.5 mg).

 

If you have doubts, please ask.

 

Thank you, Jim. I have to digest this. Need to take time this weekend.

Juelli

Hi Juelli

I'll be travelling next 3 weeks with limited access to computer. I'll reply whenever possible.