Titration methods for Valium?

Hi,

I've just recently joined the group.  A short history of where I'm up to - I was started on Valium, or Diazepam as it gets called here in the UK, 20mg/day just over 3 years ago.  I noticed it was messing with my memory after a few months and I knew I needed to get off of it.  Easier said than done, eh? I didn't start cutting until last February due to other health issues mainly to do with chronic pain and depression.

So I'm down to 9mg/day now, I loosely followed the Ashton Method except that I take 3 doses daily, i.e. at the moment 3mg 3 times a day, approx every 8 hours.  I'd found going from 20mg/day that I could manage a 1mg cut every fortnight, I would do the reduction on a Tuesday and feel bad for 9 days and quite suddenly start feeling a good bit better on the 10th day onwards.  Very different from other meds I've detoxed from.  I'd have a 'long weekend' to catch up on the household chores that I'm capable of doing, go shopping for food etc and then I'd cut another 1mg the next Tuesday. I got to mid-July and at that point was down to 11mg/day.  We'd had a nice Summer in this part of the world for a change last year so I decided to have a rest from the usual fortnightly routine and stayed 'stable' for a while. 

I started reducing again early last November, going from 11mg/day to 10mg wasn't too bad but my real troubles began after I cut from 10mg/day to 9mg/day in the middle of last November and haven't felt right since then.  I figured that a 1mg cut in dose had become proportionally too big for me to cope with even though I'd read about others managing 10% of daily dose reductions well enough but everone's different so I've decided to start doing 0.5mg cuts instead but have yetto try that.  Luckily my doc is a really nice guy who has been very accommodating and is letting me do all this in my own time, I just check in with him now & again to let him know how things are going. He did prescribe some Lyrica for me and said it should help but once I read up about it I decided using one addictive drug to get off another wasn't for me, also the side effects didn't look like any fun at all so I gave that a miss. 

I recently tried changing over to the liquid version of Diazepam (the 2mg in 5ml variety) as I figured it would be easier to accurately make smaller cuts as I progress(?) through the single-digit sized daily doses. Unfortunately the liquid kind didn't agree with me.  It took a couple of days to happen after changing from the tablets but (apart from that vile & very persistent fake-fruit taste, raspberry? whatever it is, yuk and it lingersssss..) it started giving me really thumping, almost migraine-intensity all-day headaches and also made me short of breath, not good for an asthmatic.  I changed back to the 2mg tablets yesterday and those unwanted side effects have already dissipated.

I'm hoping very much that I'll be able to cope with 0.5mg cuts going between 9mg and 5mg, I guess I'll see when I start but I have a few questions regarding measuring properly accurate doses that I'm hoping someone might be able to offer any suggestions or advice with.  I've noticed on the forum that alcohol is being used as a solvent for the tablets but I don't want to do that, even in the teensy-weensy amounts involved (I'm in the UK so Everclear type-stuff isn't a practical option and the strongest vodka I can buy locally is only 50% alcohol) also I just figure being on Valium and Morphine is already quite enough, I really don't like the idea of adding any other CNS-affecting things into the equation.  I also saw mention of almond milk which I could do but can I not just use distilled water, or even tap water? can't I just crush a 2mg pill up into powder, add water, draw the solution into a syringe and use a quarter of what's in the syringe as 0.5mg? (obviously no needle)

Also regarding accurate measuring, The 2mg tablets are scored down the middle and break in half, but they're never quite equal halves.  I've tried cutting them with a razor-sharp kitchen knife but then they just seem to shatter or little bits break off, or some damn thing will go wrong. I've tried various ways of holding them while I break them but again I never ever get really equal halves. Or perhaps at this point does the small difference in size matter that much? am I perhaps being a tad obsessive?

At this point it's been almost 2 whole months since I went from 10mg/day to 9mg/day and it still feels like I'm living from one day to the next, whereas getting from 20mg/day to 11mg/day was pretty unpleasant but much more predictable and it felt like I was making real progress whereas now I've no idea how I'll feel each day until each day arrives.  I think I'm improving slightly overall but I still feel really edgy a lot of the time, especially first thing in the morning and early evenings for some reason.  It's all very frustrating as I just want this toxic, mind-killing sh*t out of my life for ever.  It's been like walking into a fog that doesn't want to let me out.  It's like a demon and it's wrecked what was left of my life.

Things that don't help me are that I spend nearly all of my time on my own and I have limited mobility due to the chronic spinal pain and referred pain that comes from that too.  I've been pretty depressed, sometimes suicidally but I just do my best to hold on to my hope.

Anyhow I don't want to sound too melodramatic or like I'm sorry for myself, after reading through some of the people's experiences in the various sections of this forum I feel very lucky especially when I see how some of the American people in the forum are being treated by their various doctors. So many of the American doctors sound either uncaring, incompetent or both. 

Well I guess I should leave it there, but If anyone has any suggestions or advice I'd appreciate it, I'm just feeling at a bit of a loss fo whats best to do after finding the liquid Valium not being suitable for me.

Best Wishes

LabRat2

Hi Labrat - I tapered from 10mg of Valium, starting last October and am now at 3mg a day (I had to updose from 2.5mg back to 3mg because the cut was too hard). The beginning of my taper, like your's was much easier and it's gotten harder as I got lower. Sleep has become a real issue.

The 2mg pills are really hard to cut accurately. I am going to try the liquid Valium and hope it works. I know it didn't work for you but you can also use pills and make the liquid yourself. Check out the titration board on here and people will help you out. Just post that you need "detailed advice to make liquid Valium from pills."

I am going to taper much slowly. Cutting 1mg a week was fine at the start but too fast for me now.

To go from 1mg-0 i am using Tapering Strips from the Netherlands (you can order them via your doctor - only drawback is that they are expensive). This will allow people to not cut pills and make gradual reductions every day in a simple way.

here is the link to learn more:

https://www.taperingstrip.org/

Good luck with your taper - you are on the road to being Benzo-free and healed. Reach out if you ever need anything or just someone to talk to!

Hey Labrat!

No, you can not make a reliable liquid using only water because diazepam is not water soluble. However, you could use propylene glycol as a solvent instead of vodka, or make an emulsion with full fat milk. Also, if you would prefer to avoid the liquid altogether, many people successfully taper using a milligram scale to weigh their doses. This would allow you to cut what you desire from your tablets (FYI I have found a craft knife or exact knife cuts tablets much more precisely than a pill cutter or knife.) Like liquid, a scale also allows for making smaller cuts more often, even daily, which many find causes less symptoms than a "cut and hold" taper. Your plan to start with 0.5mg cuts every 2 weeks is reasonable, though as you get lower in dose you may need to adjust again. Just as you noticed that cutting 1 MG from 10 was different than cutting 1 from 20, cutting 0.5 from 5 will be different than cutting it from 10.

Welcome to the boards and good luck with your taper! We're all rooting for you!

Hi To both of you and thanks for your advice. I think using milk to make an emulsion  will be the easiest way for me as I always have that in the fridge but I'll go to the titration secton and get some guidance first.

BTW what's a 'dry taper' I've seen that terminology used all over this forum and I don't know what it means.

Best Regards to you both,

LabRat

Hi LabRat -

A dry taper is cutting the pills - the cut and hold method of tapering.

A liquid taper works well for  lot of people. Check out the Liquid Titration Board and you will get all the info you need and people will help you make a plan.

My one piece of advice is to go slow and listen to your body and make gradual cuts.

You got this!

A dry taper is not a cut and hold taper unless you choose for it to be. I am doing a dry daily micro-taper currently. There are a multitude of ways to do it, just like the liquid.

"Dry" just means you are using tablets for tapering instead of liquid. Pros are having no concern about problems switching, not having to ingest additional material (vodka, propylene glycol, milk - which can affect absorption to some degree), ability to make doses way ahead of time and store them, and ability to take your doses in public without pulling out a beaker and syringes.

Hi Waves - I stand corrected.

Do you measure your pills and do the math? How do you ingest Valium powder? (I am tapering from valium, currently at 3mg).

I was going to get Rx liquid valium as it seemed easiest but my concern is that the switch from pills to liquid will be hard to handle.

I also stink at math so get easily confused by percentages etc.

Thanks!

 

 

I was going to get Rx liquid valium as it seemed easiest...

It is!

 

... but my concern is that the switch from pills to liquid will be hard to handle.

 

Its not!

 

 

Hi Waves - I stand corrected.

 

Do you measure your pills and do the math? How do you ingest Valium powder? (I am tapering from valium, currently at 3mg).

 

I was going to get Rx liquid valium as it seemed easiest but my concern is that the switch from pills to liquid will be hard to handle.

 

I also stink at math so get easily confused by percentages etc.

 

Thanks!

Hey Hope!

The majority of people seem to have no issues switching to the liquid. Based on what I have read here it seems to be at least 75%. I have spoken to a number of people who were not able to switch to liquid, wanting to understand whether the trouble was due to mistakes in measurements, or cutting and switching at the same time, and this doesn't seem to be the case, so clearly there are some people who genuinely have trouble with it, for some reason or reasons we don't understand. I decided to stick with dry cutting because I am a person who is very sensitive to changes of any kind, systemically, so if anyone is going to have issues, it's me. But I have no judgment against others using the liquid method, as it seems to be a great solution for a lot of people.

What do I do? I use a gem20 milligram scale (the one Bella recommends when asked) to weigh out my doses. I have a little black laquerware tray I use to cut on, and a tiny craft knife to make precise cuts. I do not reduce my pills to powder as this is not necessary for me, I am able to make chunks that are the weight I desire. Then, I put my doses in tiny plastic pill boxes which I have labeled with the day of the week. I dose 3 times a day, so I bought a set of pill boxes in 3 different colors to represent time of day, but I could also just label them am, pm, and bed.

I make my doses about a week in advance, but I have 9 days worth of pill boxes, so I always have a couple days of pills left when I sit down to make my doses. That way if something were to come up or my scale pooped out on me, I have some wiggle room. It takes me about an hour to an hour and a half , but this is only because I have 3 doses a day to weigh out. If I were dosing once daily, it would take a half hour ato most. Then, for the rest of the week, when I am ready to take my dose, I just take it out of the pillbox and take it. If I am going out for the day, I just throw the pill boxes I will need in my purse. I am on the go a lot so this works really well for me.

I feel like there is some pushback sometimes when I bring up dry cutting as an option, as people are very passionate advocates of what works or worked for them. But I think it is important for people to know that they have options, because knowing that you have options reduces fear, and fear is one of our greatest adversaries in this process.