Need help

Hello,

I am taking care of my Fiancee(Canadian citizen) who has been on Ativan, 3mg/day/ one dose at night for 11 years. She had no idea the drug was dangerous as she trusted her doctor. In October 2016 before we met she became ill; severe headaches, intense muscle pain, neck pain, unable to get adequate sleep. She went to her doctor and he said it was a pinched nerve!, unbelievable! We met in January 2017 and she was somewhat symptom free but had sporadic bouts of neck pain. Then in 2018 all hell broke loose; we went to numerous doctors/ER visit and they had no idea what was going on, they eventually said it was Fibromyalgia. I am surprised doctors could not figure it out since she was on only one medication, Ativan. Eventually we figured it out she was having withdrawals due to the fact once she took her dose at night the symptoms subsided for a few hours; my fiance then went on-line and was horrified at all the side effects of the medication.

Fast forward to March 2019. She entered a rehab facility that immediately switched her to Valium; this quick switch almost killed her. I went to the facility and got her the heck out of there and brought her to a hospital in Toronto that switched her to Klonopin a starting dose of 2.75 mg divided into 3 doses.

We have successfully tapered down to 1.18 mg; I am a biochemist by trade an implemented a milk based micro-taper. Currently are dosing is as follows: night dose at 10:30 pm is currently equivalent to 0.59 mg, morning dose @ 10:30 am is 0.295mg and afternoon @ 4:30 is 0.295mg. The problem we need help with is that her night dose does not carry her through to her morning dose (12 hour duration), she is experiencing intense physical pain and severe head pain, along with profuse sweating. I am considering splitting the night dose in half, 0.295 mg at 10:30 pm with an equivalent followup dose at 4:30 am. This will allow her to have 4 equivalent dose over a 24 hour period.

Any suggestions or help would be greatly appreciated, she feels like she is at the end of the road with no hope

Hi Richard.

 

Sounds like your fiancée has had a rough time.  She is lucky to have such a good advocate!

 

Here’s a link to General Taper Plans   

 

The Ashton Manual is a comprehensive and highly regarded free online resource about benzodiazepine use, withdrawal and recovery. If you’re not familiar with it we recommend having a look.

 

Other members replying to your posts generally prefer to know where you are in the process, so here’s how to add your benzodiazepine information automatically to your posts: go to Profile, then Forum Profile, write your pertinent info (benzodiazepine, dose, taper history) in the text box and save. Thanks! Let us know if you need help with this.

 

Take care,

Challis 

 

 

You might get in touch with a BB member by the name of builder. He has been helping lots of people and is known as an authority on titration plans. You could PM him or read some of his posts. GOOD LUCK!!

You might get in touch with a BB member by the name of builder. He has been helping lots of people and is known as an authority on titration plans. You could PM him or read some of his posts. GOOD LUCK!!

 

Withdrawal or taper advice should not be given via the PM system, all questions should be posed on the open forum.

 

Thanks!

 

pianogirl

My fiancee was on a milk microtaper currently at .83 mg of clonazepam; this is divided into 3 doses given every 8 hours. Recently we tried switching to a liquid compound pharmacy brand(on it for 2 days); it resulted in a severe reaction even though the dose was theoretically the same. We switched back to the milk taper but she is having worse physical pain that is unbearable. Will she get re-acclimated to the milk taper. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated.