Starting new klonopin taper/need math help

Greetings buddies,

 

I have been using klonopin for 12 years.  I went to inpatient detox and they tried a taper that was too fast: 2mg to .125mg in 7 weeks.  I did fine until the 3rd day of only one dose of .125 in the evening.  They moved me back up to 1mg (.5mg 2x per day) and sent me home a week later to try a longer taper.

 

I have 3 questions about my new taper:

 

I plan to make a 10% cut on my first .5 mg. dose of the day.  Does the 10% cut mean 10% of the total daily amount as opposed to 10% of one of the 2 daily doses?

 

I have a good mg. scale and razor blade.  How do I calculate a 10% reduction in weight in both cases: a 10% reduction in the weight of 2, .5mg pills and a 10% reduction in the weight of a single .5mg pill?  In other words, if two, .5mg pills weigh X amount, how do I calculate 10% of that weight in order to cut my daily amount by 10%?

 

Lastly, I did well at detox with the initial 25% cut from 2mg to 1.75mg per day with the .75mg taken in the am and the 1mg in the pm.  I have been on 1mg (.5mg 2x per day) for 7 weeks now with no withdrawal symptoms.  Is it advisable to make my 1st cut a 25% cut, go 2-4 weeks and make another 25% or a 10% cut?

Another failed detox attempt..... not surprised. What were your symptoms and how severe were they to make the detox facility bump you back up to 1 mg per day?  The cut should be 10% of the daily, so if you want make a 10% reduction reduce each does by 5%.

Forwardartist,

 

Pamster recommended I check on you.

 

I help all types of people with their taper math.

 

I need to warn you, my mother is seriously ill and I am exhausted caring for her.  I hope I can still help you.

 

Like you, I was a long term user.  It is common to be able to reduce extremely fast at first without too many symptoms.  But nearly everyone reaches a hard point.

 

Please do not get hung up on percentages.  They are meaning less except to set your first reduction.

 

You are currently at 1 mg  (0.5 in AM and 0.5 PM). 

 

If your biggest withdrawal problems are Insomnia, then I strongly suggest you taper only from your morning dose until it is gone.  Benzos stay in the blood so most are fine with one dose per day and if you can get enough rest, you can handle daytime withdrawal better.

 

I recommend you think of your future taper in two phases.  While your are over 0.2 mg total for the day, your taper rate is higher.  When you get below 0.2mg, we might slow down your rate depending on your symptoms.  You should keep a journal of your symptoms so we can learn your patterns.  Write down the weight of benzo you are taking and how each day is going.

 

I can make you a taper schedule where you weigh your dose on the scale for each day.

 

To do this I need the following information:

(1) What is the mg dose of one of your pills (read from the bottle).

(2) What is the weight of 10 pills (I will divide by 10 to get an average weight per pill).

(3) Do you want to taper just the morning dose first or both morning and evening at the same time?

 

 

 

I had horrible anxiety with tingling sensations in the arms and legs along with a buzzing sensation in the forehead area and racing thoughts.  I was doing so well and then all of a sudden - bam!

 

Thank you for the dosing info.  Can you help me with the math?  My .5mg klonopin tablets weigh .200 grams.  In order to make a 5% reduction per tablet in terms of weight, what number am I looking for on the scale and what math do I use to come up with the correct 5% reduction?  I will be cutting the pills with a razor blade.

 

I see you are tapering klonopin as well.  How is it going?

 

 

Thank you Bob7!

 

10, .5mg tablets weigh 2.009 grams.

I would like to reduce from the AM dose first.

 

This was meant to be a reply to Bob7 but I couldn’t find a reply button under his response.

Hi this is Bob7.

When you click reply, everyone sees it including me.

 

Thank you for the data. 

 

I think you should start with a 10% reduction and hold that every day for a minimum of 10 days.  After that, you can do your next reductions "as soon as your withdrawal symptoms are tolerable".  The reason to wait a minimum of 10 days is, reductions can add up and hit you all at once. 

 

10% of your total daily intake is 0.1 mg reduction.  After today, we will not talk in terms of percentages very much because they are misleading.  For example, reducing 0.1 mg when you are at 1 mg is 10%.  But when you get down to 0.2mg, reducing 0.1mg is a 50% drop. 

 

I agree, reduce the AM dose until it is zero.

 

So now for the scale weights.  Each new reduction, get your scale weights from the table below:

Taper AM         PM         Dose

Number grams grams mg

0         0.201 0.201 1.0

1         0.161 0.201 0.9

2         0.121 0.201 0.8

3         0.080 0.201 0.7

4         0.040 0.201 0.6

5         0.000 0.201 0.5

6         0.000 0.161 0.8

7         0.000 0.121 0.3

8         0.000 0.080 0.2

 

NOTE - I stopped the table at 0.2 mg (on the 8th taper) as I suspect well before then we will need to slow down your rate.  So please, journal your progress and contact me if you need to change the taper.

 

Remember, after each reduction, wait a minimum of 10 days and then, based on how your feel, do not do another reduction until your symptoms are tolerable.

 

 

 

My taper is going ok so far, but my doctor is pushing me too fast in my opinion. I feel like I will be ok for another cut or so, then I feel like it will catch up to me and hit me hard (similar to what happened to you). So I’m going to suggest to slow it down the next time I talk with her.  In the meantime I’ve been searching for other doctors to help me.  Unfortunately there are not many in my area, let alone ones that are benzo knowledgeable.  Most say they can’t help me (which is a lie) they just don’t want to help because they don’t want to or unwilling to learn and be patient with it. The lower you taper the harder it gets. Therefore the cuts should be smaller and/or held longer.

Thanks so much Bob7!  I will keep you posted.

 

I have a good razor blade.  Is there a special method of shaving tiny bits off a tablet in order to reach the desired weight without going over?

I do have some advice.

 

First, do NOT get hung up on being exact.  You are on a large dose of benzo right now and it stays in the blood long enough so if you are a little low one day and a little higher the next, it will average out.  Do not let the anxiety monster cause you to worry about getting exact numbers on the scale.  These scale change by just breathing on them.  I have seen people get so concerned about exact numbers, their anxiety creates chest pains. 

 

The razor blade seems fine for now (while you are doing large cuts).

 

In future, when you get lower in dose and the changes are smaller, we might have you crush your benzo using a spoon in a bowl and use the razor blade to scoop out your dose.  You can also buy empty gel capsules on amazon and fill them to make a bunch of capsules ahead of time.

Hi Bob7,  some YouTube videos on simple direct dry cutting say that the medicine is not evenly dispersed throughout the pill and the pill should be crushed first and then weigh the the desired amount.  Do I need to be concerned with this for my .5mg klonopin tablets or is it okay to cut directly from the pill? I am currently cutting from .201g to .161g.

 

One other question: I have seen that some people taper with daily reduction of .001g.  I am doing your recommended taper of 10% every 10 days.  Do you have any advice on the daily .001g taper versus the 10% every 10 days taper?

 

Best,

Forwardartist

I could tell you I used to cut method without crushing to get myself down from my high dose all the way down to 0.125 mg Klonopin.  I highly recommend it because it's so much easier and you need to keep your stress levels down.  So at these large dosages I wouldn't worry about uniformity in the pill.

 

As for your other question as long as you can tolerate the symptoms you want to use the fastest taper rate possible because the longer you're on the drug the more dependent you're getting at it.  So people who do 0.001 grams must be having a very difficult time with their symptoms or they're just too anxious to consider anything else. 

Thank you - I’m sticking with the 10% every 10 days that you structured for me.  I will let you know when the dose gets too small to cut.  I think TEVA is making .125g pills now.

Hi this is Bob7.

When you click reply, everyone sees it including me.

 

Thank you for the data. 

 

I think you should start with a 10% reduction and hold that every day for a minimum of 10 days.  After that, you can do your next reductions "as soon as your withdrawal symptoms are tolerable".  The reason to wait a minimum of 10 days is, reductions can add up and hit you all at once. 

 

10% of your total daily intake is 0.1 mg reduction.  After today, we will not talk in terms of percentages very much because they are misleading.  For example, reducing 0.1 mg when you are at 1 mg is 10%.  But when you get down to 0.2mg, reducing 0.1mg is a 50% drop. 

 

I agree, reduce the AM dose until it is zero.

 

So now for the scale weights.  Each new reduction, get your scale weights from the table below:

Taper AM         PM         Dose

Number grams grams mg

0         0.201 0.201 1.0

1         0.161 0.201 0.9

2         0.121 0.201 0.8

3         0.080 0.201 0.7

4         0.040 0.201 0.6

5         0.000 0.201 0.5

6         0.000 0.161 0.8

7         0.000 0.121 0.3

8         0.000 0.080 0.2

 

NOTE - I stopped the table at 0.2 mg (on the 8th taper) as I suspect well before then we will need to slow down your rate.  So please, journal your progress and contact me if you need to change the taper.

 

Remember, after each reduction, wait a minimum of 10 days and then, based on how your feel, do not do another reduction until your symptoms are tolerable.

 

You asked how I compute percentages.

 

The formula is:  100*(Reduction)/(Current Dose)

 

So when you were at 1 mg per day and your reduction was 0.1 mg, the result is:

100*(0.1)/1 = 10%

 

 

Hi Forwardartist,

 

I'm a short term K user, so I'm trying to wean a little faster than you likely want, but if helpful I have a Google spreadsheet that shows the math of what I'm doing. I plan to reevaluate each day/week and see if I need to hold at any point or slow down or speed up. So this isn't written in stone, but my initial plan to try to wean.

 

Feel free to copy and paste into a new spreadsheet and use the math if you'd find helpful at all! Bob7 is the true expert, and I had him review my spreadsheet too for his thoughts, and he thought it looked good for a short term user, especially since I have a section where I can track symptoms each day. But use whatever works best for you!

 

https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1OT2N6PvsdGg67r6xTyDPaiR-_qJwUqi0yJSmGikUdpM/edit#gid=1608964374