Been on Klon 6 months only

I have taken .5 mg Klonopin for about 5 months and then upped that to 1 mg for the last month.  I tried two taper attempts at 10% reduction every two weeks.  The first taper lasted 6 weeks and the second attempt lasted 4 weeks before I could not stand the anxiety anymore and resumed my regular dosing.  I am learning as I go here.  I am going to attempt my third taper Jan 1 in a few days and will try water taper for 10 months.  I have since learned that I can hold at whatever taper amount I am at if my anxiety is bad until things calm down where I did not know this the first two tries.  Do I have to taper for 10 months since I have not taken Klon that long? Thanks in advance.

There isn't a set timeline for tapering, it should be done according to your symptoms, reduce when you feel able, hold when things get too intense.  Hopefully you won't have to taper for 10 months but try to look at this as a journey that will take what it takes.  Going slowly will allow you to live your life while you rid yourself of the drug, going too fast will only make you hurt more on the way down and not promote healing when you're finally off the drug.

 

Do you need help figuring out how to do a liquid taper?

thanks kindly for your reply.  No, I don't think I need help figuring out how to do the water taper.  I am just following what I saw on Youtube.  Seems simple enough.  But thanks again.

At least from your previous attempts you have learned something about what won't work and what might work. 6 months is not that long but at the same time, long enough for a benzo to sink some claws in. Some people spend most of the time on the drug trying to get off it. There's a lot of variability between experiences. It does sound like it could take a while and be a little bit of an ordeal for you, based on how you describe your attempts.

 

You could try smaller reductions and/or reducing less often than every 2 weeks. I would suggest that would be a good idea since you have found the reductions unmanageable in the past. I would like to make a suggestion for the future, whatever you do, though. The next time things go downhill when you make a reduction - and they probably will again on this rocky journey - try to battle through the symptoms and hold at the dose you're on. I'm concerned that not only do these failed attempts sap your energy, they are also confusing to your nervous system. You keep going up and down in dose which causes your body to work harder to try and maintain a balance. A failed attempt leaves you weaker than if you had just stayed where you were. If you can battle through the adversity to make the reductions stick, even if it takes months, then you are making progress and slowly getting better. And once you survive a spell like this, you'll see that you can do it. You'll learn how not to get so bad again too but mostly you'll learn that you can cope when it gets difficult. And you'll learn that the symptoms come and go if you stick to your plan.

 

 

Thanks, I have decided to do a water taper.  10 months of taper this time and will hold at points where I feel a lot of anxiety until I feel better.  I had no clue I could HOLD the first two tapers I tried.  So I am learning as I go.  thanks for all the support.