Taper Schedule Advice

I took 1 mg/1 time a day of Ativan for 3 months and have been trying for the last few weeks to taper off this drug.  The doctors in my area seem to think that a taper schedule of 3 weeks would be sufficient, but I found that not to be the case.  They wanted me to take 3/4 of a 1mg tab and then skip a day and take a half a tab every other night.  Then they wanted me continue taking the tab in half and do the same thing.....take a pill skip a day and so on.  On the in between days I was miserable, shakes and tremors, also on these nights I could not sleep.  So, the following day I would be a zombie with all the tremors, etc.  So, this is where I am at now,  I have 7 pills left and the doctor probably won't prescribe any more for me.  I am at the end of the 4th week and the 1/2 tab is too much. So, I have no idea how to proceed.  My schedule tells me to take .5 mg dose tonight but I think this is too much.

What can I do with my last 7 pills???  Do you have any recommendations for me.

While sub-optimal, perhaps something like this might help to ease you down to zero...

0.5 mg per day for 5 days (1/2 pill)

0.375 mg per day for 5 days  (1/4 pill + 1/8th pill)

0.25 mg per day for 5 days (1/4 pill)

0.125 mg per day for 5 days (1/8 pill)

0.062 mg per day for 5 days (1/16 pill)

Personally, I don't like the every-other day approach.  Too much variability in your dose from day to day.  Your body doesn't like that (as you've seen).  You'll have to estimate the quarters, eighths and sixteenths to the best of your ability.  You could purchase a small milligram scale, but given the short time you have to work with, I don't know how much help it will be to you.

Salight

If you can, I would go to the ER and explain things.

Try to get them to give you some pills and a prescription for some more to do a proper taper.

Take in the Ashton Manual to them and get them to understand the importance.

My Dr doesn't believe you can get addicted to these things, and certainly doesn't think that they give you much WD symptoms, but he prescribes me the pills, and I'm tapering off on my own.

I recently found a Rapid Assessment Addiction Clinic (hate the word addiction) and they are now helping me with my taper and they also have counsellors and a psychiatrist etc.

This clinic is out of a large hospital in Toronto, maybe they have these type of clinics where you are.

Frankly, I think they deal mostly with opiodes, but know the Ashton protocol and follow it etc.

Good luck

WinnieDog

badsocref,

    How much water should I use to dissolve 1 mg of valium to take out 1 ml a day more or less??  Been looking and looking for answers on this.  Would really appreciate your advice.  Thank you.

Valium is very poorly soluble in water.  I would not recommend simply diluting a pill into water.

Many people dissolve a crushed pill into a few ml of alcohol (or propylene glycol).  After it's thoroughly dissolved, people add water to bring up the total volume to 100-300 ml (the volume is up to you - just be consistent).  Then they remove a little each day.

Even better is to obtain a pharmaceutically-made liquid valium preparation.  That can either be taken directly or diluted with water (depends on how it's made).

fwiw - I'd get stable on 1 mg (pill) before trying to move to liquid.