Clonazepam from 2 to 1 mg / day

Hello , I would like to reduce my dose from 2 mg to 1 mg / day . And plan to stay there for a while . I take 4x 0,5mg daily , on the most places I read that its the best to taper a little bit from every intake dose . There is a company which has premade tapering strips with an option , lowers the dose under 28 days by reducing from each intake pill a little . From the overall dose it is 0,1 mg reduction every 2nd day with really precise cuts .

Do you think this could be ok , or its too agressive ? 

 

Hello, potzz.

 

Are you referring to Tapering Strips from the User Research Centre (URC) of Maastricht University in the Netherlands?

 

https://www.taperingstrip.org/

 

Re: your question about whether reducing from 2.0mg to 1.5mg in a month is ok or too aggressive ...

 

That would be a reduction of 25% in a month. The general rule of thumb is to reduce by 5-10% every 10-14 days.  So 25% is on the high side.  However, you are on a relatively high dose and at (what sounds like) the beginning of a taper so may be able to tolerate this.  The only way to know is to try it.  If your withdrawal symptoms increase at any point during the month, you could switch to a stabilization strip.

 

An alternative strategy would be to begin with a more conservative taper rate of 5% -10% the first month. If you tolerate that ok, you could cautiously increase the rate the next month.

 

According to the prescribing information for clonazepam, URC can can produce doses as low as 0.025mg of clonazepam.

Hello Libertas ,

 

I was refering to this exactly , theese look fantastic but super expensive if I want to make a slow taper .

I am kind of overloaded with work and all other life stuff , and I dont know how to start the taper , I definetly not good in slicing the pills myself also im afraid that the clonazepam is not distributed evenly in the pills And if thats true that it not makes sense to taper only one dose at a time  its even harder .

 

Also Rivotril is not aviable anymore here , and I am afraid to change to generic pills . So i will try to get my prescription from abroad till its possible .

 

Also I was able to manage this better , when I had rivotril in liquid form which dosed 1mg per 1 drop.

 

Currently I have  a friend who can send me my script from abroad becouse of lockdown , but unfortunately only pills are aviable in that country too .

My doc can presribe me a liquid form with no issue , but I have no way to get it .

 

@ To Buddies who live in EU , please let me know if you know any pharmacy who can ship abroad RIVOTRIL 2,5 MG/ML . (or maybe a trustful buddy who could pick it up and send to me , yeah its completly legal , becouse of the lockdowns , If someone can help me with this please DM me .)

 

Its strange that I've asked the pharmacy which makes these tapering strips its not problem to ship it  , but they cant ship me rivotril liquid .

Its all about the money I guess , you need 4 tapering strips if you dose 4 times daily , and one strip costs 77 EUR . I could spend atleast 2000 eur to go slow and steady : D

 

 

Still not sure if to cut from every dose or just from some of.

An example like this :

Morning 0.375mg

Lunch : 0.5mg

Dinner : 0.5mg

Night : 0.375mg

 

Roughly 1.75mg instead of 2mg

Is it ok to start like this?

 

 

That would be a 12.5% reduction.  (I’ve included a link below to an easy-to-use tool you can use to calculate percentage change.)

 

Given that you are starting at a relatively high dose, it might be tolerable.  The only way to know would be to try it.  Is this the first time you have attempted to discontinue clonazepam? 

 

That’s concerning that a prescription oral solution of Rivotril is no longer available in your country.  Do you know why?  Is a prescription compounded suspension an option?

 

FYI re: the compounding pharmacy that makes tapering strips ... I got the impression (which may or may not be correct) that it is a non-profit affiliated with a research university.  So my guess would be that the motivation is not money/profit but rather the desire to help patients who wish to discontinue psychotropic drugs.

 

Percentage Change Calculator

https://www.calculatorsoup.com/calculators/algebra/percent-change-calculator.php

Yes , I have tried to discontinue it before in 2018 , I was on dose 4x0.3 mg , sometimes i even skipped my night dose , was very happy overall , then In 2019 my country decided to ban all clonazepam products. Even doctors were not sure how to proceed , so i had to change to pill form and I updosed to 0.5 mg , becouse I was unaware that this little acts so much , I had a half year with some broken pills or I dont know what it was , it made extremly anxious by the time ,But even doctors said never seen something like this before . i still have those pills , same brand evrything is same but if now I would take it i would be like insanely bad , And i was on them half year , I just rcognized I was breathing extremly forced on them to avoid diarrhea . So this made my progress lost pretty much , then went cutting the 2mg pills to 4 doses , they were very fragile so i think some days i had much less then on other day . I also randomly just scratched of some of the pieces , I wanted to Withdraw like this , was not a good option for sure , Now stable on 0.5mg pills .. with quite high anxiety sometimes , when i think it would be time to taper but I am afraid after all this experience . On the other hand sometimes now I feel like this is too high dose , I usually get dizzy when i take my pill for like 1 hour , then its quite okay . Too much mental fog and hard time to focus , I even have to drink coffe sometimes to be able to concetrate on mental tasks. There were times when I drank like 4 coffes a day and I was on much lower dose , I had no anxiety at all. Currently I have fears to start the taper. I mean I have no depression at all , just anxiety and get tired too fast .

I’m sorry you have had such a difficult time.