How to Symptom-Base a DMT Schedule?

Hello! I'm doing my first steady DMT (last one crashed because of an inflammatory response to the suspending agent), and I'm at day 8 reducing 0.64%/day (9%/14-days, based on past experience with cut-and-holds) and two days ago a whole bunch of stressful things happened and I got hit with a wave of WD that had me seriously rethinking my taper rate.

 

As a result of the various emotional events, my face is inflamed, I've had paranoia, severe anxiety, waves of severe depression, loss of appetite, akathisia, etc. I held the taper rate steady through all this but I think my body is struggling to recover.

 

I'm following a DMT spreadsheet with liquid/tablet dosages for each day. I'd welcome some advice on how to give my body a chance to recovery without needing to revise and print a new spreadsheet every time something like this happens. Two ideas come to mind, maybe there are others?

 

1. I just hold at my current day/doses on the spreadsheet until I feel better.

2. I hold today, then cut tomorrow, hold the next, and continue until I feel better.

 

I'm favoring the second idea. Any suggestions? Thanks! 

 

Your symptoms and your body should guide you. Are you functional? If you cut and have severe withdrawal symptoms, then slow it down. Don't rush it. You really don't want to get stuck with long-term symptoms.

 

Cut and hold to stabilize and be functional, and then cut a little bit more, and see what happens.

 

If you can't handle 7% over 10 days, then try with 7% over 14 days.

 

My taper is a bit faster (around 20% per week for the first 2 weeks), but I have minimal symptoms and am carefully watching everything. I am sleeping very well and fully functional through the day.

 

I am actually going to slow things down as I head into the lower levels (less than 0.20mg). From what I hear, this thing bites harder as the numbers get lower.

 

But, we keep fighting the good fight. 

Hey darkachnon; thanks for your reply and care. I'm happy to hear you can taper quickly at this time, and I'm glad you're keeping an eye out for that rate catching up on you. With your short-term use, I am hopeful you'll get the signs in time to adjust.

 

Yeah, I'm aware that increasing symptoms are a sign to slow down. I'm not mentally stable, so yes, I'm holding. I do eat and walk and things, but I'm driving myself and my wife a little crazy with my depression and anxiety, not to mention the edgy body pain and muscle spasms.

 

Yes, I could adjust my taper rate. <i>EDIT: My taper rate was actually 9%/14-days, not 7%/10; the difference is 0.64%/day vs. 0.7%.</i> I'm going to cut again soon with my current spreadsheet until I reach an even tablet dose then hold and adjust my approach.

 

 

I'm quite a bit shocked that my liquid didn't smooth more of this taper out; it did something, especially at the beginning, but then something all sort of caught up to me on day 6-7. Not my usual cut and hold experience at all; usually by day 6-7 I'm feeling smaller waves and windows and starting to get my bearings.

 

I am starting to suspect my liquid might not be metabolizing equivalent to my pills. My pharmacist suggested fudging my spreadsheet numbers based on symptoms; there's no way to know exactly how my body is handling the liquid. Basically I'd pretend my liquid was less potent, and maybe it would then be a better equivalent to the 1/4 tablet I use my liquid dose to replace and titrate.

 

There's three options I see at the moment:

1. Change my taper rate, trying to keep pace with my body despite any liquid discrepancy.

2. Fudge the liquid potency numbers, trying to better match the 1/4 tablet equivalent.

3. Hold the liquid in my mouth for a few minutes, trying to get better absorption.

 

I want to change all three at once, but that wouldn't clarify the situation. Doing just one option, it will take a full week or more to judge if it's having the needed effect, and I don't feel very patient today... 

 

I'm leaning towards fudging the liquid potency by about 10%, and just changing this variable alone for the next week or two. Holding again if necessary.

 

Thoughts or other ideas are welcome! 

How are you making your liquid? Can you kindly explain. Thanks!

Of course darkarchon; thanks for asking.

 

My liquid is pharmacist compounded; it consists of only coconut-derived MCT oil and pure clonazepam, at a ratio of 0.125mg/ml. I'm not sure how familiar you are with liquid medicines, but this is a suspension. The clonazepam doesn't likely dissolve at all in the oil; after vigorous shaking the oil simply floats the particles long enough for me to draw an even dose. I keep the medicine in the fridge for whatever added viscosity that gives it, and the oil is a very stable preservative.

 

We arrived at this composition after trying a proprietary suspension agent that was also MCT oil-based, but I got very sick with that mixture; likely it was something they were calling a "bitter blocker" which was inflaming my whole body after every dose. The pure MCT oil mixture has none of this effect.

 

As an aside, it would be possible to make an MCT oil-based liquid at home rather easily, with a mortar and pestle and a graduated cylinder, both of a size appropriate to your batch volume. I know there are YouTube videos showing how to make a pharmaceutical suspension in this fashion.

 

I'm really perplexed...

 

Mechanically, all that's happened since last Thursday is that I've removed 1/4 of one tablet, representing 7.7% of my total dose. Then I've substituted that 1/4 tablet with a supposed equivalent of liquid clonazepam, and daily reduced that liquid portion by around 1/11th of a 1/4 pill per day (1/100th of a milligram roughly). However, instead of smoothly adjusting to a bunch of tiny cuts over 11 days, I'm feeling a series of noticeable cuts that started on day one and severely peaked at day 6 with overwhelming WD; where is my liquid clonazepam!?  What is it up to? At day 6 I was supposedly still taking almost half of that 1/4 tablet in liquid; a total reduction of only 3.85% spread over 6 days; truly nothing special. And instead, I was hanging on for dear life!

 

I am suspicious that suspending the medicine in oil has altered the metabolism efficiency. I can't say for sure, I'm just going off of symptoms. Because MCT oil inspires some digestion, and I usually take my doses apart from any food, I am liable to suspect that there is some degradation taking place with the oil dose as it passes through my gut. Either that or my liver is doing something funny.

 

Neither case may be true; I may simply be tapering too quickly, it just looks really odd based on the symptoms happening at only a supposed 3.8% reduction; I've cut and held 7.1% without issue.

 

I'm thinking about fudging my liquid potency pretending it's only 90.9% it's actual strength while tapering at 9%/14 days (same as before, I was mistaken earlier saying 7%/10). Once I'm stable (today, tomorrow) I'm inclined to try tapering for two weeks at this new potency adjustment... I wonder what conditions will confirm or deny my hypothesis of incorrect liquid to tablet equivalency?

If you have replaced the pill with the liquid, and you are feeling symptoms immediately, then something is off. Can you stabilize if you bump up the liquid intake? That is what I would do.

 

I don't know anything about MCT oil suspensions, since I am using a vodka dissolved solution, and it is working for me. Could you try a vodka dissolved solution?

 

You have the correct approach. Find a way to stabilize first, and then work your way down slowly.

 

Let us know how the next week goes. 

Thanks for your reply! You hit the nail on the head with your vodka suggestion.

 

I am holding my dose, but it's almost like there's no liquid clonazepam in the mix at all. I am stabilizing, I would be also if this was just a cut-and-hold; I'm that suspicious.

 

I had an earlier plan, but just making a 10% potency adjustment seemed kind of wild and unlikely to succeed. Since I'm unfamiliar with doing a DMT, it's really hard to justifying "fine tuning" the MCT oil liquid potency with only cut-and-hold tapers to compare to.

 

After much gnashing of teeth and pulling of hair, I have a new plan! And it's right along your lines of thinking...

 

I just whipped up some homebrew. It's 3.75mg of clonazepam, crushed and dissolved in 10ml of 180 proof organic grape alcohol, and then diluted with water to a total volume of 30ml; mortar and pestle, graduated cylinders, and funnels were involved. I gave the tablets a good long stirring and grinding in 90% ethanol in the mortar for a start. I also tried to be efficient and wash residuals from the mortar and funnel into the larger batch as I diluted the mix. Hopefully I am now holding a bottle of well-preserved, 0.125mg/ml liquefied clonazepam tablets and ethanol. And, for the cherry on top, it has a syringe adapter and a matching oral syringe with 100 gradations (thanks pharmacist!).

 

As you've likely gathered, I'll be swapping this for my pharmacy compounded liquid; I do still have the MCT oil batch as backup. Most of my severe symptoms have eased up in the last day or so as I've held. I will start tomorrow doing the same 9%/14 day taper with this new liquid; I'm thinking it may even feel like a tiny updose. If I'm still having issues in a few days or during the next 1/4 pill reduction, I'll need to hold again and then turn my attention to adjusting my taper rate.

 

Seriously, I was so hopeful about the MCT oil suspension; my pharmacist was confident it would work too. But something is funny... maybe the next week will reveal that the MCT oil was the culprit, or maybe I'll learn something else. It's probably best that with the ethanol-dissolved homebrew I'm at least on a well-tread path. I used Ultra2007's tried-and-true 2.5ml 180-proof alcohol per 1mg K, and added even a little extra for good measure.

 

Thanks again darkarchon; I really appreciate your help chewing this over.

Hello slownsteady:

 

How is the vodka solution coming along? Hopefully things are getting better and your symptoms have improved?

Well, I don't want to be hasty, but I had a really good day yesterday after making the liquid medicine switch. Things were still difficult, I had anxiety and some gut pains, but I drove pretty far by myself, I socialized for 1.5 hrs and well-tolerated a disagreement with my father, and in the afternoon I decided to RUN my usual 1.25 mile walk. A walk I hadn't been able to do for a few days; I ran it. I'm not a runner, though I'm built like one.

 

So... early indications are there is likely a HUGE different between how my body metabolizes the ethanol solution versus the MCT suspension; I likely updosed by by getting on the new liquid, even though I was technically cutting, and I got a quick stabilization increase. I'm probably going to feel like a punching bag today after yesterdays antics, but I needed that confidence boost. Things seem like they're getting back on track!

 

Thanks so much for asking. 

I've seen a lot of people here having trouble switching to liquid DMT. I don't know what's the reason, but maybe is what you said about the body metabolizing it differently, I've also read many people saying that it's as if the liquid was less potent than the pills.

 

I'm dry cutting, it's so much trouble for me to do the liquid. For me dry cutting is not giving any trouble. But I'm on diazepam, other drugs are more difficult to do dry micro cutting because the potency per mg and shorter half lifes.

Hello slownsteady. Awesome to know that you had a really good day. That is indeed a blessing. There will be good days and not so good days. Adjust, stabilize, and just keep plugging away slowly and surely.

Hello lqtys:

 

There are so many potential variables can impact the results. The key for all of us should be finding something that works and helps us move towards the goal of being free of benzos.

 

As Malcolm X once said: "We want freedom by any means necessary"