Dry tapering. Having trouble getting off at 1/4 a 2mg tablet

Hello,

 

Was trying to find the Diazepam thread but this thread is also appropriate, feel free to move if necessary.

 

This is our (wife who is on the medication, and myself) first attempt at putting down the history of tapering, so once I'm done, I'll try to copy to the signature for any future posts.

 

2009: Given 2.5mg diazepam three times a day for two months.

 

After that was given 2.5mg to use as needed, 2 to 3 times a week.

 

2017 started using more, taking every second day, sometimes every day. Same amount - 2.5mg (1/2 5mg tablet)

 

Late 2018 started taking 2.5mg every day.

 

July 2019 - started trying to taper.

August - slightly less than 1/2 5mg tablet

September - Oct: Around 1/3 5mg tablet

November: Getting on to 1/4 5mg tablet - still no massive w/d symptoms.

 

2020:

January - moved to slightly over 1/2 of a 2mg tablet.

March: moving closer to 1/2 of a 2mg tablet.

April .75-.9 of 1/2 a 2mg tablet most of the time

May same as April

29th May Went to a quarter of a 2mg tablet for 7 or 8 days. Massive w/d effects, felt awful.

June: Went up to .6 of 1/2 a 2mg tablet, symptoms haven't settled. Still feeling the worst ever.

July: Trying to move to 1/4 of a 2mg tablet.

 

Symptoms: Feeling awful. Massive heart palpitations, and blood pressure going crazy at times. Reacting very badly to insect bites! Fear of death, fear of lots of things. Panic attacks, sense of anxiety, tearfulness, social anxiety, can't talk to people, can't work, OCD, sense of hopelessness, feeling like life will never get back to normal.

 

Some of the issues which we took the benzo's for seem to have been replaced by the benzo's if that makes sense. Since tapering, some issues have gone away that may have been caused by benzo's, for example, bad feelings, but different than now. Every afternoon a horrible black depressive feeling that was so awful that we think it was benzos.

 

But other issues like panic attacks have become much worse, general anxiety.

 

Up to now we have been tapering by hand and by eye. We brought a jewellery scale but initially gave up on it after it seems to have trouble with the 0.00 to 0.04 range. We have gone back to a mixture of eye and scale now. We have taken a bunch of tablets and split them into quarters. We have put all the ones that weigh 0.04 in one pile (17 of them) and will start with the largest (by eye) and work down, then go onto the ones that weigh 0.03.

 

It seems to make more sense to talk in weight of tablet than mg of Diazepam, as we don't really know what we're getting when you account for bits splitting off when you cut etc, but basically we are talking just under .5 mg of Diazepam I think.

 

We've done a lot of reading here, perhaps not enough, but I am posting here looking for any advice or feedback, my wife isn't keen on computers and so finds lots of reading frustrating, but is also finding the w/d very difficult and fears she may not get better. She also isn't comfortable with change and so doesn't like the idea of moving to a liquid taper. Moving from 5mg tablets to 2mg tablets was a big deal for example.

 

While any advice or words of support for her, would be welcome, I also would like to ask, could going by eye, and so potentially have very slight changes in the dosages from day to day, be part of the cause of the heavy withdrawal symptoms.

 

Thanks.

Weighing will be easier with a milligram balance (0.001 g sensitivity).  They're available for around $22 from Amazon (Gemini-20).  It should help.

Does having that accuracy make a difference to the withdrawal symptoms?

It helps to have milligram precision - especially later when the pieces get very small/light.

It helps to have milligram precision - especially later when the pieces get very small/light.

 

Thanks badsocref. The w/d symptoms have convinced her to try using liquid to taper, or more importantly to get accuracy with dosage. The Gemini 20 scales aren't available here without considerable cost and waiting. Times are hard.

You may find it necessary to up-dose slightly when you switch to a liquid.  It would be a small change - just 5-10%.  Many (but not all) people report that they feel like they get less medicine when they do liquids.  Seems to be an absorption or bioavailability thing.  Just a heads up.

Oh I am so glad you mentioned that. Thank you. Another cut is not what we want right now.

 

If you didn’t mind giving a little more advice, without responsibility  of course. She is taking a quarter of a 2mg tablet but having such a hard time we were considering trying to get to .6 mg or up to a third of a tablet, so theoretically .666666.  So maybe .6 liquid would be a good idea. Or even .7? Is going up by an extra point something to be cautious about? Ugh. Just thinking about it is nausea inducing and I’m the one who has it easy.

Oh I am so glad you mentioned that. Thank you. Another cut is not what we want right now.

 

If you didn’t mind giving a little more advice, without responsibility  of course. She is taking a quarter of a 2mg tablet but having such a hard time we were considering trying to get to .6 mg or up to a third of a tablet, so theoretically .666666.  So maybe .6 liquid would be a good idea. Or even .7? Is going up by an extra point something to be cautious about? Ugh. Just thinking about it is nausea inducing and I’m the one who has it easy.

 

Going up a little isn't something that usually causes a problem.  But it doesn't always provide the anticipated relief.  Are you thinking of increasing the pill dose before switching or will you wait until you begin liquid to adjust the dose?

 

Sometimes nausea can be approached similarly to morning sickness.  So if your wife remembers what did/didn't work if/when she was pregnant, it might help.  There was a recent discussion on this, and I seem to recall that a timely batch of carbs stopped nausea for at least one woman.

Going up a little isn't something that usually causes a problem.  But it doesn't always provide the anticipated relief.  Are you thinking of increasing the pill dose before switching or will you wait until you begin liquid to adjust the dose?

 

We are going to move to .65 mg diazepam today via a milk based liquid, from approx .5 tablet (a quarter of a 2mg tab). She has been on .5 but the larger 1/4 of the ones available. That is, we broke many tablets into quarters and have been going from the largest down but it’s hard to tell.

We are trying to get rid of the bad symptoms that have emerged since we came down to .5 and I suspect many may be related to inconsistant dose sizes, in addition to the relatively large reduction from half a tab with a little taken off, to half. Thanks for the help. At least our measurements should be better now.

 

I’m sorry, I was trying to make a small joke about the nausea. It’s me that feels nauseous. She feels like hell. Like someone is scraping her brain from the inside. And that makes me feel sick. Hence the small unfunny joke.