Restarting Generic Klonopin taper

Hey buddies hope and pray everyone is hanging in there and doing as well as they can. This is rough. I appreciate the forum and its supporters as I got zero help from doctors for all of this.

 

Quick recap of my journey is noted below. Also included in my signature but hitting my character limit. All meds started as a result of tinnitus. Finished last Lunesta on 3/28 and holding 0.41 mg generic Klonopin since 3/7.

 

Symptoms permit will resume Klonopin taper on 4/5.

 

I have a couple of planned taper plans I may approach. Nothing set in stone as has been noted taper based on symptoms and listen to your body.

 

Taper Plan #1 - 10% approach - try to drop 10% every 7-14 days (10 day average?) - downside more impact to my body and may catch up with me

Taper Plan #2 - 5% approach - try to drop 5% every 5-7 days (6 day average?) - hopefully less impact on my body..I hope

Taper Plan #3 - take a planned approach but adjust base on my bodies feedback.

 

Since holding klonopin for awhile will start with a 10% reduction first - to 0.37 mg and feel that out.

 

thx seekingtoheal

 

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2/20 - Started Lunesta 3 mg

2/20 - 12/20 - Interspersed Ambien/Ambien CR/Lunesta

8/20 - added 0.5 mg K at night for sleep

9/20 - upped K to 0.25 mg 3x a day

10/5/20 - K cold turkey on per Dr. (bad withdrawal)

10/20/20 - Reinstated 0.5 mg K o

12/18/20 - Tapered K down to 0.1125 mg

12/19/20 - medical setback (0.5 mg night / 0.12 mg day)

1/31/ -  Split 0.5 mg nightly dose on 2/8 to 0.25 mg nightly & 0.25 mg daily

2/17 - 0.084 g at night and 0.062 g during day (0.43 mg)

2/27 - Currently taking - 0.084 g at night and 0.054 g during the day (0.41 mg)

3/7 - Decided to hold Klonopin and Taper 3 mg Lunesta - Wk 1 25% cut of 3 mg Lunesta (2.25 mg)

3/14 - Wk 2 50% cut of Lunesta (1.5 mg)

3/21 - Wk 3 75% Lunesta cut (0.75 mg)

3/28 - Stopped taking Lunesta holding Klonopin @ 0.41 mg

4/5 - Subject to symptoms restarting Klonopin taper

 

 

4/4 - Restarting Klonopin taper. I am going to start with a 5% reduction basically for the first week per feedback and see how that goes. Thinking of a middle ground between cut and hold and somewhat micro taper. We will see.

 

Mainly tracking weight reductions right now. But weigh 7 pills and get a average. So I am reducing from 0.138 g to 0.131 g - 5% for the first week. My total count of pills weights .167 g so that puts me going from 0.41 mg to 0.39 mg. Will see how that goes and make adjustments along the way...faster would be ideal but see what my body tells me.

Might as well get started I guess since you're not sure if what you're feeling is from the Lunesta or the Klonopin.  Remember, there is still healing to be done after the last of the benzo so take it easy and allow your brain to keep up with what you're doing.

What Pamster said! I like your taper plan #3. You've come so far! I'm really impressed with your last year of reductions and adjustment; it's never linear and your fortitude shows.

 

I'm curious what you mean by a "middle ground between cut and hold and somewhat micro taper". Do you mean you'll be daily micro tapering aggressively and holding when needed? Or taking bigger cuts every few days or every week? I would be hesitant to the second approach, because with my cut-and-hold experience, clonazepam WD seems to still come in waves after day 10; this could catch you by surprise after another big cut.

 

Are you comfortable with dry weight reductions? I don't know your taper method history, but if you do have a system that's working for you, that's great! 

 

Always let your body be your guide... Good luck and keep us posted!

What Pamster said! I like your taper plan #3. You've come so far! I'm really impressed with your last year of reductions and adjustment; it's never linear and your fortitude shows.

 

I'm curious what you mean by a "middle ground between cut and hold and somewhat micro taper". Do you mean you'll be daily micro tapering aggressively and holding when needed? Or taking bigger cuts every few days or every week? I would be hesitant to the second approach, because with my cut-and-hold experience, clonazepam WD seems to still come in waves after day 10; this could catch you by surprise after another big cut.

 

Are you comfortable with dry weight reductions? I don't know your taper method history, but if you do have a system that's working for you, that's great! 

 

Always let your body be your guide... Good luck and keep us posted!

 

Thanks slownsteady. I currently do a dry cut method with a scale for planned reductions. Yes I am comfortable. What I meant was I like the incremental benefits of a daily micro taper approach but that is a lot of overhead with any method. What I was thinking was that instead of a 10% every 10-14 days ideally and doing a 5% every 7 days. If that does not work then I might do a 3.5% cut every 4 days, not sure. Your info is good with understanding impact on day 10. I am hoping the 5% every 7 days will work.

 

Good luck with your taper and will keep up with your posts. Patience is so hard doing this...like all just want to be done...kudos to your approach....I am trying to up spin my progress..frustrated I up dosed but have reduced again and gotten rid of ambien and lunesta...still amazes me I was on a benzo and Z drugs....all messy.

 

thx seekingtoheal

Hello seekingtoheal; glad I could help. Some of your words don't make sense to me. You said something about micro tapering being a lot of "overhead". Do you mean it's a lot of thinking? I agree the math is tedious, if that's what you meant; that's why I use a website to generate my DMT schedule....

 

Here is the specific page for dry tapering: http://benzo.alwaysdata.net/direct/directForm.php

 

This form will generate a DMT based on the dry weight of your pills and the number and quantity of your daily doses. It's like magic! I couldn't DMT without it. I use a slightly different form from the same site for my liquid/tablet hybrid DMT.

 

I hope I understood your "overhead" reference; if not please clarify. You might really enjoy doing a DMT since you have a scale. It wouldn't be any more work than the weighing and cutting you'll have to do for a cut-and-hold, plus a DMT is gentler on your nervous system.

 

Let me know what you think! And congrats on all your progress so far!

Hello seekingtoheal; glad I could help. Some of your words don't make sense to me. You said something about micro tapering being a lot of "overhead". Do you mean it's a lot of thinking? I agree the math is tedious, if that's what you meant; that's why I use a website to generate my DMT schedule....

 

Here is the specific page for dry tapering: http://benzo.alwaysdata.net/direct/directForm.php

 

This form will generate a DMT based on the dry weight of your pills and the number and quantity of your daily doses. It's like magic! I couldn't DMT without it. I use a slightly different form from the same site for my liquid/tablet hybrid DMT.

 

I hope I understood your "overhead" reference; if not please clarify. You might really enjoy doing a DMT since you have a scale. It wouldn't be any more work than the weighing and cutting you'll have to do for a cut-and-hold, plus a DMT is gentler on your nervous system.

 

Let me know what you think! And congrats on all your progress so far!

 

slownsteady, thanks. Yes that is what I was talking about. I checked out the website, very nice.

Update:  Started my next taper last night to 0.131 g down from 0.138 g (.38 mg from .41 mg)...tinnitus is super loud right and and jaw is sore maybe from clenching. Last nights sleep was about 5 hours so less than before.  More burning in hands and feet and as before nervous system feels super ramped up, shaking as well. Maybe I should have waited another week after Lunesta taper...not sure...have to hang in there and push through.

 

On thinking more about the micro direct taper and using scales and reducing say 10% every 14 days the challenge of say dropping from 0.138 g to 0.137 g to 0.136 g each day is the scales are not perfect at that measurement.

 

Options could be dropping every 4 days, every 7-8 days and maybe that would be a less shock on my body.

 

                              dosage        weight              dosage      weight

1       /      /    0.4071 0.138 (137.614 mg) 0.4071 0.138

2       /      /    0.4043 0.137 (136.649 mg) 0.4043 0.137

3       /      /    0.4014 0.136 (135.683 mg) 0.4014 0.136

4       /      /    0.3986 0.135 (134.717 mg) 0.3986 0.135

5       /      /    0.3957 0.134 (133.751 mg) 0.3957 0.134

6       /      /    0.3929 0.133 (132.786 mg) 0.3929 0.133

7       /      /    0.3900 0.132 (131.820 mg) 0.3900 0.132

8       /      /    0.3871 0.131 (130.854 mg) 0.3871 0.131

9       /      /    0.3843 0.130 (129.889 mg) 0.3843 0.130

10       /      /    0.3814 0.129 (128.923 mg) 0.3814 0.129

11       /      /    0.3786 0.128 (127.957 mg) 0.3786 0.128

12       /      /    0.3757 0.127 (126.991 mg) 0.3757 0.127

13       /      /    0.3729 0.126 (126.026 mg) 0.3729 0.126

14       /      /    0.3700 0.125 (125.060 mg) 0.3700 0.125

I think many that people do the straight pill DMT dropping by 1mg of pill weight per day, as you're seeing. It seems crazy to me on the cheap scales, but that's why I titrate only my liquid portion. The dry taper proponents argue the discrepancies even out and get lost in the noise; certainly could be true with a long acting benzo like K.

 

You could also crush your pills, mix with filler (micro crystalline cellulose) and then you'll be making much more accurate measurements since it will be a larger weight per mg of medicine. You'd have to fill gelatin capsules or swallow a bit of powder every day. Bob7 has a whole website devoted to doing this... https://benzodrytapermath.com/

 

You could still use the filler approach with the website I posted earlier; just weigh 10 pills plus the 10x the volume of filler you want to use per pill (based on your capsules or it could be ANY amount, if you wanted to just scoop and swallow powder). Then crush up the pills and mix with this volume of filler, and follow the spreadsheet for each days dose.

 

Some people don't even use a scale; they just crush up pills, mix in a known volume of powder (like the cellulose mentioned or powdered sugar), and then use that known pill-to-filler ratio to calculate how much powder to take at each dose (or at their titrating dose). Tablespoons and teaspoons are involved; this has been used for more of a cut and hold approach I think.

Thanks for the info. 1mg a day sounds like a lot to me. .001 g a day sounds better.

Why not 0.0001 of a decagram?  Good luck! Let us know what you decide to try.

I'm grateful the two of you are talking this through because you lost me a long time ago. 

Seeking,

 

Please also remember the following.

 

The very fact that you started your next taper reduction will cause your anxiety to go into overdrive.  Anxiety is present even though you may not be able to identify it specifically. 

 

So you have extra anxiety because you're starting another reduction and that anxiety can actually be more powerful than the reduction itself.

 

Anxiety can definitely make you cleanse your teeth, create pain and who knows maybe even ear issues.

 

At least for me anxiety was at the core of all my withdrawal symptoms and yes the drug withdrawal was also very significant but do not disaccount your brain's power to get all worried about each reduction.

 

So during times of your reductions take extra care to do prayer and meditation and yoga and exercise and every anti-anxiety technique in the book.  Also reduce your responsibilities anywhere you can in life to cut back on stress-induced anxiety.

 

 

Thanks all for the feedback.

 

slownsteady - hope it never gets to that!

 

Pamster - thanks for checking in..."seeking" for that magic taper that probably does not exist to maximize taper and minimize symptoms

 

Bob7 - I think you are on the money...I am a clencher/grinder by nature...you are right to cut back stress...it does not help tinnitus either...

 

So going to stick right now with 5% for the week and tweak from there.

 

It is befuddling to me that I took my nightly dose last night around 11 pm...when I woke this morning around 6 am definitely had the shakes and some intense tingling burning sensation...now a little after 11 am and the symptoms have tapered relatively much.

 

The great mystery to me is my symptoms I felt about 8 hrs after taking and then backed down a bit...you would think the symptoms would increase as I get longer to half life...or maybe lingering effects of Lunesta taper....who knows

Many of us find that our worst symptoms are in the morning or the first few hours of the day.

 

I believe this is because when you wake up your mind starts racing about the things you need to do after being in the state of deep relaxation of sleep.  This ties in with my theory about anxiety is a big driver.  When you wake up and you have all this stuff coming at your brain it's got to make more anxiety in the morning.

 

By midday or towards the end of the day you have sorted through much of your issues and the anxiety is naturally lower.

All good points.  Thx.

This post is helpful in understanding mornings, its not written for benzo folks but some of the tips may be useful. Understanding Morning Anxiety

Hello seekingtoheal; glad I could help. Some of your words don't make sense to me. You said something about micro tapering being a lot of "overhead". Do you mean it's a lot of thinking? I agree the math is tedious, if that's what you meant; that's why I use a website to generate my DMT schedule....

 

Here is the specific page for dry tapering: http://benzo.alwaysdata.net/direct/directForm.php

 

This form will generate a DMT based on the dry weight of your pills and the number and quantity of your daily doses. It's like magic! I couldn't DMT without it. I use a slightly different form from the same site for my liquid/tablet hybrid DMT.

 

I hope I understood your "overhead" reference; if not please clarify. You might really enjoy doing a DMT since you have a scale. It wouldn't be any more work than the weighing and cutting you'll have to do for a cut-and-hold, plus a DMT is gentler on your nervous system.

 

Let me know what you think! And congrats on all your progress so far!

 

slownsteady - one thing to note. Still really like the tapering site but for the dry taper I noted that when you enter your data and submit for your calculations the first time I submitted I noted with a 10% reduction every 14 days it would basically take me a year. When I clicked back and submitted again it noted it would take a 135 days.

 

I used 0.5 mg tablet, 1.69 g total for 10 tablets, start date of today, 10% reduction every 14 days, and 0.41 daily dose.

So I do notice the site can be a bit buggy; it's somehow based on which fields you fill first. I get an issue where the percentage reduction gets replaced with some random number and sometimes it's even locked so I can't change it. Before clicking submit, review all the form fields to make sure that they haven't changed; likely the reduction rate was messed up your second time. If the reduction rate is locked and you can't change it, just refresh the page (also percentage and quantity rate fields are mutually exclusive; you may have to delete one to edit the other). All your information will still be there and the reduction rate section will be unlocked; put in your desired rate (percent is best, don't try a quantity based reduction unless you're crazy or in a desperate hurry), and then submit.

 

Look carefully over your results and make sure you're getting that nice reverse exponential curve from a percent reduction. FYI, at a 10% reduction, you're looking at a 372 day taper.

 

You likely saw a linear taper the second time; graph will look like a straight line. You can try it, but it's likely to catch up with you; even with the attenuated ending (last 1/3rd timeline is at 1/3rd reduction amount) you're signing up for the wooden roller coaster.

 

Let me know if you get it working right. 

Thanks. I sincerely hope it does not take me a year.

Everyone wants to rush. You can taper as fast as you want, but your body will be limited by how much support it has to heal. These supports are very complex, so it becomes just a simple factor of how much your body is suffering.

 

If you can taper faster than 10% of your current dose per 2-weeks consistently, and your body is healthy and managing diet, exercise, etc. with relative ease... yeah, it'll be quicker than a year. But don't push it if you don't have to; your body has very real limits, and WD symptoms are those limits getting crushed. I think the ideal taper is so perfectly aligned with your bodies recovery rate you wouldn't feel a thing; but... everyone, including myself, wants to rush.

 

Sometimes there are good reasons to hurry; usually, I find, there aren't. I know you'll find what works for you! 

Agreed. Since I just finished my 3-4 week taper of 3 mg Lunesta (which has a ashton equivalent to benzos although different approach) that is why I started with 5% klonopin taper restart first. We will see..as noted might catch up with me.

 

Can feel it today...mainly tingling/burning sensations and just feel not good. Functional but not fun. I relapsed once and up dosed and do not want to do that again.

 

I have seen this question below. Since for my example the 0.5 pill has fillers in the pill how can you determine with dry cut the best way to ensure when you shave/cut you are getting the same dosage each time.

So you did a 5% cut-and-hold, starting yesterday? That's an awesome start; caution is often rewarded in this withdrawal journey; with hard cuts I like to ride out that full 10-14 days for any waves to pass before cutting again.

 

Functional is great, fun is hard! Our refrigerator has a message I wrote "How can we make this fun?"... it's been a challenge to have fun, I think, mostly because I've been cutting too hard, and didn't really slow down even though my DMT attempts kept failing. I'm stabilizing today until some fun comes back...

 

I think your question at the end is just splitting hairs. I haven't done pill shaving, because that method scares me with the inaccuracies of a cheap mg scale, but I think folks assume that the clonazepam is evenly distributed in the pill.

 

If you use something like Bob7s approach, you crush multiple pills and combine this with filler, getting a more accurate weight (by weighing a much larger amount of material) and you can tell yourself that, with ample mixing, you've eliminated any discrepancies in pill dosage distribution across several or more pills (which likely wasn't an issue to begin with, but we all have anxieties!).

 

You're already making progress! I hope the next couple weeks are functional for you; whatever happens you'll be learning your body's current recovery rate, and that's only going to help you going forward. 

So you did a 5% cut-and-hold, starting yesterday? That's an awesome start; caution is often rewarded in this withdrawal journey; with hard cuts I like to ride out that full 10-14 days for any waves to pass before cutting again.

 

Functional is great, fun is hard! Our refrigerator has a message I wrote "How can we make this fun?"... it's been a challenge to have fun, I think, mostly because I've been cutting too hard, and didn't really slow down even though my DMT attempts kept failing. I'm stabilizing today until some fun comes back...

 

I think your question at the end is just splitting hairs. I haven't done pill shaving, because that method scares me with the inaccuracies of a cheap mg scale, but I think folks assume that the clonazepam is evenly distributed in the pill.

 

If you use something like Bob7s approach, you crush multiple pills and combine this with filler, getting a more accurate weight (by weighing a much larger amount of material) and you can tell yourself that, with ample mixing, you've eliminated any discrepancies in pill dosage distribution across several or more pills (which likely wasn't an issue to begin with, but we all have anxieties!).

 

You're already making progress! I hope the next couple weeks are functional for you; whatever happens you'll be learning your body's current recovery rate, and that's only going to help you going forward. 

 

Thanks. I did a cut and hold at 5% starting on 4/4. I tapered 3 mg lunesta over 4 weeks ending 3/28, waited one week and then started my klonopin taper. I am doing weight cuts right now but calculate dosage. In short went from 0.41 mg to 0.39 mg. I can say I am feeling it. Symptoms include tingling/burning sensation, some shakiness, tension, and a headache. Not sure if it is the 5% cut or the 5% cut and lingering effects from the lunesta withdrawal. Thanks for your positive feedback and I wish you continued success with yours. Its going to be a ride for sure.

 

Yes Bob7 as well as Pamster have been super helpful. I am playing the scale game (bought 2) and you are right they do fluctuate. Going to try to stick with that for now. Basically I am trying to do a 7 day cycle for now. May have to extend, we will see. I weigh 7 pills and take total and average out and use the aggregate total is my pill weight for each day cut. Then I cut/shave the pill down to dosage/weight amount. Playing that out and will adjust as needed. I am not against other methods just have to see. l like the liquid taper approach but do not want to have to make batches each day or keep the drug in my refrigerator.

 

I will reassess my symptoms this Sunday and determine if I hold or make another cut.

Bob7 - hope you mom is doing and feeling better.