Is Titrating 1.5% Per Day too Fast for My Kpin Dose?

Thankful for all the info I've learned here so far.

I was dosing 0.5 mg of Klonopin for around 4 months straight once daily at night.

About 5 days ago, I started a liquid titration in whole milk. I've been taking out an extra 1.5 mL of the milk after letting the K pill dissolve in 100 mL for 24 hours each day.

After 5 days, I've tapered off 7.5% of my pill. The first 4 days were fine. I actually felt pretty good. However, last night I was hit with terrible nausea, anxiety, and heart palpitations. I barely slept at all - and when I did I had some pretty vivid nightmares.

All day today I've felt like I'm "not here" or out of body. Everything kind of feels like a dream and unreal. I've also been extremely fatigued and short of breath. Just standing up gets my heart flying.

My question is: Is Titrating 1.5% per day of a 0.5 mg Kpin pill too fast? I feel like my response given the low dose I'm on is more extreme than it should be - definitely wasn't expecting this.

And if it is too fast, what would be a better titration rate? 1% a day? 0.5% a day? Seems like 1.5% may be too much for me.

Also, now I'm a bit worried that the milk isn't doing it's job. I have whole fat homogenized milk. I let the pill dissolve for 24 hours and give it a few shakes every now and then. It definitely breaks up, and I know what's left are just parts of the pill that aren't the actual drug. But now I'm curious...

Greetings, somethingoranother.  Congratulations on starting your taper!  FYI clonazepam is a potent benzodiazepine (per Ashton, a 0.5mg dose is equivalent to 10mg of diazepam).  So 0.5mg is still a hefty dose.

Based on what you’ve shared, a 7.5% reduction in just 5 days may indeed be too fast for you.  Regrettably, no one can tell you what taper rate to use—each of us has to determine what taper rate works for us via experimentation.  We also have to be prepared to adjust our taper rate as we proceed with our tapers (a rate that works at the beginning of a taper may be too fast at the end).

If I were in your shoes, I would consider one or more of the following: (1) hold at my current dose until my withdrawal symptoms stabilized (i.e. stop changing and/or become tolerable enough for me to make the next reduction); (2) experiment with a lower taper rate; and/or (3) experiment with mini-tapering—at least until I gained a better understanding of optimal reduction amount, nature/pattern of withdrawal symptoms, etc. given the properties of my benzodiazepine and how it interacts with my unique physiology. (Mini-tapering involves reducing one’s dose by a “small enough” amount, allowing enough time to elapse for withdrawal symptoms to emerge and stabilize, then making the next reduction. The tapering technique you are currently using makes it difficult to establish which reduction—or set of reductions—was responsible for the withdrawal symptoms you are experiencing.)

Re: your question about using a homemade liquid made with whole fat, homogenized milk ...

Did you give your body time to adjust to the change in drug format (tablet to liquid) before you started to make reductions?  Have you read the Titration: FAQs?

Greetings, somethingoranother.  Congratulations on starting your taper!  FYI clonazepam is a potent benzodiazepine (per Ashton, a 0.5mg dose is equivalent to 10mg of diazepam).  So 0.5mg is still a hefty dose.

 

Based on what you’ve shared, a 7.5% reduction in just 5 days may indeed be too fast for you.  Regrettably, no one can tell you what taper rate to use—each of us has to determine what taper rate works for us via experimentation.  We also have to be prepared to adjust our taper rate as we proceed with our tapers (a rate that works at the beginning of a taper may be too fast at the end).

 

If I were in your shoes, I would consider one or more of the following: (1) hold at my current dose until my withdrawal symptoms stabilized (i.e. stop changing and/or become tolerable enough for me to make the next reduction); (2) experiment with a lower taper rate; and/or (3) experiment with mini-tapering—at least until I gained a better understanding of optimal reduction amount, nature/pattern of withdrawal symptoms, etc. given the properties of my benzodiazepine and how it interacts with my unique physiology. (Mini-tapering involves reducing one’s dose by a “small enough” amount, allowing enough time to elapse for withdrawal symptoms to emerge and stabilize, then making the next reduction. The tapering technique you are currently using makes it difficult to establish which reduction—or set of reductions—was responsible for the withdrawal symptoms you are experiencing.)

 

Re: your question about using a homemade liquid made with whole fat, homogenized milk ...

 

Did you give your body time to adjust to the change in drug format (tablet to liquid) before you started to make reductions?  Have you read the Titration: FAQs?

Thanks a lot for your response. Uhhh...no, I did not give my body time to adjust to liquid format before I started tapering lol. I did not know this was something that would make a difference, as I suspected the potency would be the same regardless of the medium (mistake I guess?)

Actually, the day before I started my titration, I upped my dose to .625 that night because I had a fairly stressful event I needed to attend. So the next day I immediately went back to start my taper from the 0.5 instead of the .625 I took the day before. Not sure how much effect this would have though considering I only upped it once. 

Unfortunately, I up dosed past my original dose today. I felt my symptoms were too intense to deal with and just took .625 instead of my normal .5 a couple hours ago. I have another event coming up in a week that I can't be sick for. But after that I'll have a good few months without anything too stressful to titrate.

Did I really screw up by taking 0.125 more than my original dose to deal with withdrawal symptoms instead of just holding at the dose I was at titrating?

And do you have any recommendations at all for a standard rate to start off with for someone particularly sensitive to benzos?

I have an autnomic nervous system disorder in the first place which just exacerbates everything. I've talked to both my autonomic specialist and psyc who wanted me off Kpin and said reducing 25% each week was fine. But I tried that I went through arguably the worst night of my life 4 days later. Haven't felt stable since. They both "have never heard of that happening" but are on board with me taking as long as I need.

Should I go back to 0.5mg in a milk solution and just hold for a while to get used to it? Then start titrating at a third of the speed at like 0.5% per day? (I know you can't give a specific answer, I just want to know if you think this is a "reasonable" rate for someone sensitive).

Sorry for all the questions. I've learned a lot but a lot of these processes are still quite confusing to me. And I keep paying the price by screwing up. I really appreciate your time.

Greetings, somethingoranother.  Congratulations on starting your taper!  FYI clonazepam is a potent benzodiazepine (per Ashton, a 0.5mg dose is equivalent to 10mg of diazepam).  So 0.5mg is still a hefty dose.

 

Based on what you’ve shared, a 7.5% reduction in just 5 days may indeed be too fast for you.  Regrettably, no one can tell you what taper rate to use—each of us has to determine what taper rate works for us via experimentation.  We also have to be prepared to adjust our taper rate as we proceed with our tapers (a rate that works at the beginning of a taper may be too fast at the end).

 

If I were in your shoes, I would consider one or more of the following: (1) hold at my current dose until my withdrawal symptoms stabilized (i.e. stop changing and/or become tolerable enough for me to make the next reduction); (2) experiment with a lower taper rate; and/or (3) experiment with mini-tapering—at least until I gained a better understanding of optimal reduction amount, nature/pattern of withdrawal symptoms, etc. given the properties of my benzodiazepine and how it interacts with my unique physiology. (Mini-tapering involves reducing one’s dose by a “small enough” amount, allowing enough time to elapse for withdrawal symptoms to emerge and stabilize, then making the next reduction. The tapering technique you are currently using makes it difficult to establish which reduction—or set of reductions—was responsible for the withdrawal symptoms you are experiencing.)

 

Re: your question about using a homemade liquid made with whole fat, homogenized milk ...

 

Did you give your body time to adjust to the change in drug format (tablet to liquid) before you started to make reductions?  Have you read the Titration: FAQs?

 

Thanks a lot for your response. Uhhh...no, I did not give my body time to adjust to liquid format before I started tapering lol. I did not know this was something that would make a difference, as I suspected the potency would be the same regardless of the medium (mistake I guess?)

 

Actually, the day before I started my titration, I upped my dose to .625 that night because I had a fairly stressful event I needed to attend. So the next day I immediately went back to start my taper from the 0.5 instead of the .625 I took the day before. Not sure how much effect this would have though considering I only upped it once. 

 

Unfortunately, I up dosed past my original dose today. I felt my symptoms were too intense to deal with and just took .625 instead of my normal .5 a couple hours ago. I have another event coming up in a week that I can't be sick for. But after that I'll have a good few months without anything too stressful to titrate.

 

Did I really screw up by taking 0.125 more than my original dose to deal with withdrawal symptoms instead of just holding at the dose I was at titrating?

 

And do you have any recommendations at all for a standard rate to start off with for someone particularly sensitive to benzos?

 

I have an autnomic nervous system disorder in the first place which just exacerbates everything. I've talked to both my autonomic specialist and psyc who wanted me off Kpin and said reducing 25% each week was fine. But I tried that I went through arguably the worst night of my life 4 days later. Haven't felt stable since. They both "have never heard of that happening" but are on board with me taking as long as I need.

 

Should I go back to 0.5mg in a milk solution and just hold for a while to get used to it? Then start titrating at a third of the speed at like 0.5% per day? (I know you can't give a specific answer, I just want to know if you think this is a "reasonable" rate for someone sensitive).

 

Sorry for all the questions. I've learned a lot but a lot of these processes are still quite confusing to me. And I keep paying the price by screwing up. I really appreciate your time.

Libertas said everything just great. I'd follow that advice. If you cut a certain amount and it causes problems, then yes, it's too big of a cut no matter the size. Hold, stabilize, and make a smaller cut next time and see how you react. I'm mega crazy sensitive to everything, but 2+ decades of heavy klonopin doses made me even more sensitive to cuts and everything else in life. I'm also working full-time, so that's a big thing to throw in the mix. When I cut, I only cut about .25mL from liquid med. I dissolve a 1mg k tablet in 2.5mL of vodka then add water up to 100mL, then pull my needed dose amount (for a week or two). 25% cut in a week is ridiculous in my book, but remember that I've been putting this poison through my body for 25 years at this point. My opinion on updosing is to don't do it. Very rarely does anything good come out of it, but others may have different thoughts. A klonopin dose of .5mg is still equal to about 10mg of Valium (.625mg is about 12.5mg Valium), so k is super concentrated. A "small" dose is still a really big dose. So, maybe hold a bit, get to "normal", then do a tiny microtaper and see how you do. Trial and correction. You'll find your way!

Hang tight!