Liquid Tapering with Clonazepam

I'm new at this and still learning. I'm dissolving the Klonopin tablets in water and then measuring it into separate jars. Is plain water okay to use for this? I was just told that milk or club soda may be better. Are the Klonopin tablets soluble in water?

Thanks.

Klonopin is very poorly soluble in water.  I don't know how stable a mixture will be if prepared in water.

 

Milk (whole milk) works pretty well.  The fat seems to help keep the klonopin in solution.

 

If you want to use water, a lot of people will thoroughly dissolve the pill into a few ml of alcohol, then add water to give a desired volume. 

Thanks badsocref, I'd prefer not to use the two liquids that you mentioned. Any other liquids, how about the club soda that I mentioned previously?

I'm interested in this too, so I hope you don't mind me joining the conversation. I tried pharmacy compounded liquid and it made me very sick. I bought a scale, but the jumpy numbers are making me a jumpy number myself.

 

I just tried mixing a batch of MCT oil suspended crushed clonazepam tablets. I learned some tricks about managing the dry powder, but I don't feel like I got a fine enough or even enough particle size distribution and ultimately I tossed the batch. I could do it again and grind longer, but I'm thinking, wouldn't it be nice if it was dissolved in something instead of just crushed by hand. MCT oil is not extremely viscous, but it's the same suspending agent used by my compounding pharmacist... Could we make water more viscous and get the same kind of suspension?

 

Like yourself Affablie, I prefer not to use homogenized milk or ethanol.

 

The solution that I'd like some help thinking about is dissolving the tablets in a mix of pure water and methyl cellulose. Methyl cellulose is a food-grade, non-allergenic thickening agent and it thickens plain water; by adding viscosity I think I'd be increasing the particle suspend-ability. It would be a water dissolution of the tablets, but a methy cellulose suspension of the medicine. If you shake it before dispensing, it can't be any WORSE than a pure water suspension, right? Honestly, my compounded liquid required VIGOROUS shaking.

 

What do you buddies think about my thickened water idea? Depending on how much you're taking, the only issue I see with it is that it's used in large doses as a laxative...

 

https://www.drugs.com/mtm/methylcellulose.html

Thanks badsocref, I'd prefer not to use the two liquids that you mentioned. Any other liquids, how about the club soda that I mentioned previously?

 

I've not heard of club soda being used successfully.  It's still basically water (a bit acidified). 

 

There are some published DIY versions of Ora-Plus on the web.  But you might need a something of lab setting to make it properly (sonicator, mixers, mortar/pestle).  It's possible that other 'beverages' may work as well as milk, but you're delving into areas where we tend to speculate with little available data.  Milk seems to work because of the fat.  Maybe something like a non-dairy coffee creamer could be used as a non-dairy substitute (since they contain a lot of fat), but I'm not aware of anybody who has tried.

 

Generally highly viscous liquids are worse extractants.  At the cannabis lab we'd see all sort of people try to extract flower with MCT oil or glycerol.  Didn't work well.  It's hard to get good mixing/extraction with viscous liquids (it's possible, but it takes much longer).

 

Thickening agents (PEG, methyl cellulose, gums) can stabilize mixtures, but you usually want to add the thickening agent after the drug has been extracted into something non-viscous then slowly thicken the mixture.

 

We ought to open up a chemistry of benzos section or thread.  There are more than a few folks who wonder about this stuff.  Maybe pooling heads/info would be useful.

Badsocref; I'm a little confused. I think you're saying high viscosity equals poor extraction. Why would extraction be needed in a suspending agent?

 

My pharmacy compounded clonazepam was not extracted into anything; my pharmacist specifically said she wouldn't be able to get it to dissolve in anything she felt comfortable compounding. Instead it was suspended in MCT oil, because, I've assumed, the viscosity helps suspend the particles long enough for a decent dose extraction. After sitting in the fridge for 24 hours, the mixture would always have settled considerably, and needed vigorous shaking for accurate dosing.

 

This barely stable mixture of suspended clonazepam powder is the "formula" my pharmacist had for making liquid clonazepam and she used a pre-mixed suspending agent made just for the purpose. The only ingredients in the suspending agent were MCT oil, various lipids, glycerol, and a "bitter blocker". The MCT oil was the bulk of the solution, I can't speak to the lipids as I don't know much more than that they're fats and like MCT would only seemingly add viscosity, and you said yourself the glycerol will be a poor solvent for clonazepam. So I'm only really seeing an oil, suspending a bunch of powdered clonazepam. I'm simple that way. 

 

If I'm misunderstanding I welcome the correction, but it sounds like MANY people are doing water titration, which is basically just a suspension in a poor suspending solution. Why not use that same method (it's great for dissolving tablets), but make it a better suspending solution? Methyl cellulose sounds like the ticket; it's worth a try to me. If I want better preservation, maybe add a little vegetable glycerine, or if you're not intolerant like I am, someone could add a little ethanol.

 

I'm going to try making my own liquid one way or the other; it's just too easy to dose compared to this jumpy scale business. I don't mean to be pig-headed, I'm not a chemistry buff, I welcome the idea of a chemistry/compounding benzo section, but this isn't rocket science. I just need tiny parts of tablets to float around in a known volume of liquid so I can take tiny bites. I think that's what Affablie is after too (I don't want to put words in their mouth).

Okay, sorry to be all over the place, but I'm learning more about methyl cellulose and the kind I can buy on Amazon is actually called "Hydroxypropyl Methylcellulose", and I'm a bit leery of it. Maybe small doses are fine, but I just don't like all those scary syllables, plus some reports that it's an endocrine disruptor (sp? don't quote me on anything about chemistry)...

 

What about just using glycerol or vegetable glycerine to increase the viscosity of the water? I'm going to keep scratching my head and calling friends. I'll report back if anything clicks. Worst case it's back to MCT oil...

Here's a way to think about the viscosity extraction efficiency...

 

Imagine you have some instant coffee (or instant tea) powder in two cups.

 

In one, you pour water.  In the other you pour glycerol.

 

Try to mix them.

 

It takes a lot of extra work to get the coffee into the glycerol.  It's not due to any limits in solubility.  It's due to viscosity.  It limits diffusion thus mixing. 

 

Much easier to first dissolve the coffee into water then add the glycerol.  For benzos, I still think it's much easier to get the drug into alcohol then dilute it with water.  Maybe PEG or glycerol or methyl cellulose will make the final suspension more stable.  I have no idea.  You're going to need an HPLC (or UPLC) to test that out.

my compounding pharmacy makes my liquid Ativan with water and PEG.

They can make any dilution that is necessary, I wanted the 0.1/1 so it's easy to get down to 0.001mg.

 

The first compounding pharmacy I went with gave me MCT oil and the ativan was definitely at the bottom a lot, like a huge amount of sediment!

 

I couldn't go with the MCT oil, as I had an allergy to it (it's made from coconuts etc.).

 

Badsocref - you are reminding me of my fluid mechanics classes that I took in engineering, I took a ton of classes on DNAPLs (dense non-aqueous phase liquid) and LNAPLs (light non-aqueous phase liquids)!! We also learned about how surfactants are used to clean up oil spills from groundwater! Don't make me go to the basement and find all my old Groundwater texts and notes! But I do think that viscosity is the answer! Tons use water, and do ok, but some just can't go with that!

 

For me, I'm not sure my body likes the liquid at all! It's like I'm not even getting a dose. I miss my sublinguals!

 

Winnie

I still have my old physical biochemistry book somewhere.

 

PEG200 is commonly used in formulations.

 

1 mg of a sublingual will pack much more punch than 1 mg of a liquid formulation.

Yes it sure does, but what has really messed me up was the 5mg of Versed they gave me at my colonoscopy in late Oct.

I've never been the same since.

 

I can't get stable on anything!

 

My dr wants to move me to clonazepam, but I'm just so scared of every move I make.

 

Winnie

I'm checking back at 10:30 pm my time and read the posts. I had a hard time following the discussion with the various solutions, combinations, for me this was chemistry. As I said I am new to trying to get to tapering this poison Klonopin. My first goal is to get on a consistent dose 1X/day which I'm not doing now because I'm taking less than 1/2 of a .5mg tablet. I hope that I can stabilize a bit. (haven't been there for a long time) After that I'll start to taper if I can find a reliable method.

 

slownsteady - you commented about jumpy scale. Does that mean that using a dry method with a scale is also not simple for tapering? My using a pill cutter to cut 2/3 of a half of tablet is not working too well! Let us know if you find an answer! Thanks

This is a very clear explanation of how to make your own solution for tapering:

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=252673.msg3213498#msg3213498

There's a liquid formulation discussion going on here: http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=253375.0

 

Join us! 

I'm going to ask this again because I've been getting tapering advice and I want to "restabilize" with a consistent dose of Klonopin daily for a month or two.  My brain is foggy so it's hard to figure things out on my own. An acquaintence suggested the following plan would work. Put two .5 mg. Klonopin pills in 200 ml. of water to dissolve. Put 40 ml. (.40 of one pill) of the liquid into 5 small jars. That should be 5 equal doses of 40% of one pill. This amount is approximately the amount that I've been taking each night. I stopped this when I found out that Klonopin is not very soluble. If I need to add Vodka to the solution I can do that and just need to know how much is needed for a solution. If someone has a better suggestion I'm open to that. I'm new at this and I'm just having trouble learning fast enough. I got destabilized by changing my dosage without knowing the hazards.

Thanks for any help.

 

What I usually tell folks is to crush the pills, then dissolve them really well in a 3-4 ml of alcohol (the stronger, the better).  Finally, add water (200 ml in your case) and mix thoroughly.

I'm sorry I didn't mention this earlier Affablie; I find drug store pill splitters to be impossible to use accurately. The tool I found that does PERFECT halves and quarters of my 0.5mg K pills is this: [nobbc]https://www.amazon.com/EqualSplit-Splitter-Crafted-Medical-Aluminum/dp/B07MH6XTL7[/nobbc]

 

It takes a little bit of hand strength, but you could easily set it up and wack it with a rubber mallet or a shoe if you were having trouble. Literally, almost perfect splits as long as you line them up right and the 0.5mg tablets I have are scored in half, so I tuck the score into one of the blades and it's a breeze. For quarters I lay the half flat between the blades and eye-ball the middle.

 

You could reduce the risk of your water and alcohol taper mix by doing the rest of of your dose in tablet form, split as necessary. You only need to be tapering 1/4 of a tablet at a time, so that could be what you dissolve in liquid, and take the rest as accurately split tablets with the device above or similar.

 

I hope this helps. You will get your brain back when you stabilize; might not take as long as you think. Badsocref is right, your odds of getting a good distribution of medicine go up if you can crush the pills finely in a mortar and pestle, and then try to dissolve it first in alcohol before diluting.

 

Personally, I tried both a water titration and a water/ethanol titration (but I went very weak on the ethanol because I'm sensitive). More water helped hold the suspension longer, but I also minimized the impact of all of this by only titrating the 1/4 pill I'm actively tapering. I took everything else in tablets.

 

EDIT: I for get if I mentioned this site: http://benzo.alwaysdata.net/titration/titrationForm.php

 

There you can create a liquid/tablet hybrid DMT taper, and print out a spreadsheet of exactly how much to take in liquid. You can make up whatever liquid solution you want (0.25 of a tablet in 300ml if you want or anything), and there are instructions on there similar to Badsocref's suggestion in the Read Me First link at the bottom of the page.  Just a suggestion, if you're math-limited like me.

 

Edit: Deactivated commercial link.

Hello! Im also interested. I watched a youtube tutorial on how to make a formula of Bezo Tappering

Its 1mg: 2ml Propelyn Glycol: 8ml of water. Is this good? Thank you!

Thanks very much for the help. It's not all sinking in because of my brain fog. I need to reread and see if I understand. Does my approach sound logical? My once a day dose is .4 of a .5 tablet not 1/4 of the tablet. 

I didn't mention that I'm also taking Cymbalta 1x/day 20 mg.

Two questions are

1. I haven't had any alcohol in 4 yrs. so is ethanol safe to drink? I'm concerned about using alcohol with Klonopin and Cymbalta. Is it safe?

2. Is there a reason to use ethanol instead of vodka?

I'll probably have more questions later. Thanks again.

Ethanol is just a fancy word for the alcohol that is in most alcoholic beverages; vodka is 40% ethanol. It's a small amount in the mixture suggested below, but yes, some people are sensitive (like me) and still try to avoid it. I'd try using it first, since it's such a small amount, but it's not absolutely necessary.

 

Here's what I was suggesting...

 

Your 0.5mg tablet can be easily broken with the tool I described or another cutter into 4 pieces. Each piece is 0.125mg; this is a special number to remember. You can take 3/4 of a 0.5mg tablet to get 0.375mg. That's pretty darn close to your 0.4mg dose, and it's pure tablets which is easy to store and take IMO.

 

If you want that last 0.025mg to add to 0.375mg of tablets, then you might crush the last 1/4 piece of that tablet and dissolve it in 0.5ml of ethanol (double this if you're using vodka or similar), then dilute that in water, stir/shake vigorously and take 2% of that solution (0.025 is 2% of 0.125mg, the amount in the 1/4 pill you dissolved). So if you're total diluted volume equals 100ml, you stir/shake vigorously then drink 2ml. You might be able to save the remaining solution in the fridge and keep shaking/stirring it each day to take another 2ml dose (or less if you're tapering); water based solutions generally last a couple weeks in the fridge, up to a month if you're careful and work clean (or so my pharmacist says).

 

The reason I say dilute to 100ml is so you can use basic kitchen tools, plus a 5ml syringe to get your dose with reasonable accuracy (people do 200ml or 300ml to make it easier to be accurate but the math gets harder). This is just one of MANY options, I'm just trying to give you a sense of how to get that last 0.025mg that would bring you up to 0.4mg for the day. Take the rest of your daily dose in parts of tablets and you'll minimize the risk of any mix ups you make during the liquid dose since it's such a small part of your total dose.

 

Does any of this make sense? Someone might need to check my math, but I did my best.

 

Please feel free to ask more questions! And tell me more about your needs. I can try to suggest modifications to the above approach, if that would help.

 

EDIT: Lastly, check that website I sent with my previous post; it will make a taper schedule for you, and let you use tablets as much as possible. You just need to put in the information and press submit. Plus the "Read Me" button has tips on mixing your own liquid solution.

 

You'll get this! 

Thanks slownsteady, this last email with more details helped a lot. I'll work on this, get the better pill cutter and see how I do. I appreciate your willingness to help me with this.

Great! I'm glad that helped. Definitely give that cutter a try; it saved my bacon. Update us when you've got more questions; I'll keep this thread notifying me and try to help if you run into other issues.

Thanks very much for the help. It's not all sinking in because of my brain fog. I need to reread and see if I understand. Does my approach sound logical? My once a day dose is .4 of a .5 tablet not 1/4 of the tablet.

I didn't mention that I'm also taking Cymbalta 1x/day 20 mg.

Two questions are

1. I haven't had any alcohol in 4 yrs. so is ethanol safe to drink? I'm concerned about using alcohol with Klonopin and Cymbalta. Is it safe?

2. Is there a reason to use ethanol instead of vodka?

I'll probably have more questions later. Thanks again.

 

The stronger the alcohol, the better.  Vodka (usually 40% ethanol) is just barely OK for what we do with it.  Everclear (80-95% ethanol) will work a little better.

 

If you're a recovering alcoholic and don't want to use ethanol, I fully understand.  Using a few ml of propylene glycol is the other choice.  If you're just concerned about mixing alcohol and a benzo, the amount of alcohol you're using here is very small.

I'm very sorry but my brain fog caused me to make errors in my previous posts. If you're still willing to continue to help after my misleading mistakes here is the correct information.

 

I'm taking .75 of .25 mg (1/2 of a .5 mg) Klonopin. This is .1875 mg. of Klonopin 1x per day. I want to stay on this until I can stabilize. If I divide my .5 tablet by .1875 I get 2.6. So if I put 2 tabs in alcohol and water I can get roughly 5 doses and it's good for 5 days and saves me some time making it. Does it matter how much water and alcohol I add to it or can I make it 200 ml. and take 40 ml. per day? I do know that I should crush the pills before adding to the liquid (water and Everclear)  Does this make sense or am I missing something?

Thank you.

I don't know if it's wise to make a 5-day supply.  A fair number of people have said that the solution is good for two days.