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Clonazepam taper help


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Hi folks.

 

I’m currently down to .375mg Clonazepam daily and now getting ready to cut .0625 from my daily dose. I’m now using the .125 mg wafers and I can successfully cut those in half but any smaller and it gets tricky. I’m try to stick with the dry cut method for now and hoping to use that method until jumping off. My question: can I just remove .0625 from my morning dose ( half of a .125 pill ) and leave my evening dose alone? Is it ok to have two different size doses in a day if the daily total  dose remains the same or should I be removing from both morning and evening dose to keep them even? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

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Hi folks.

 

I’m currently down to .375mg Clonazepam daily and now getting ready to cut .0625 from my daily dose. I’m now using the .125 mg wafers and I can successfully cut those in half but any smaller and it gets tricky. I’m try to stick with the dry cut method for now and hoping to use that method until jumping off. My question: can I just remove .0625 from my morning dose ( half of a .125 pill ) and leave my evening dose alone? Is it ok to have two different size doses in a day if the daily total  dose remains the same or should I be removing from both morning and evening dose to keep them even? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

I know what it's like, posting a question and waiting for a reply.

 

I only can share, Klonopin, being long acting, I've seen people adjust morning, or evening doses based on their needs, without much difficultly.  As you said, it's the Total Daily Dose to keep in mind.

 

I'm sure other folks may chime in, but think you're OK adjusting dosing during the day, as long as it adds up to same daily dose.  :thumbsup:

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Thank you for the response. I was able to comfortably cut my .125 OTD into quarters so I can adjust both morning and evening dose evenly.
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Yay! Quarters pill cuts are my limit too. Can you get something like this where you are?

[nobbc]https://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B07MH6XTL7[/nobbc]

 

This splitter is amazing; the blades never dull, and as long as your tablets are pretty flat (I have flat round clonazepam tablets with one score line); be sure to stand the pill up on end, so the blades press on the front and back of the tablet, the thinnest section between the blades (instructions say cut top to bottom with the pill lying flat, which is not right) and they snap right in the middle! Then I lay the halves split-edge-down, again blades on either side of the front/back of the tablet, eye-ball the middle and snap again. Perfect quarters.

 

I'm doing a liquid/tablet DMT now with a 0.125mg/ml liquid (equivalent of 1/4 of my 0.5mg pills per ml), so with a 1ml syringe that has 100 gradations I can reduce one of my daily doses in liquid by 0.00125mg increments; of course I usually reduce by quite a bit more, but you can see how precise liquid can be.

 

Lastly, it's totally fine to have different doses in the day with clonazepam (assuming you don't feel otherwise from experience). The method I'm using, I DMT just 1/4 of a pill reduction from one of my doses in liquid form until it's gone, then I cut another 1/4 from the same dose, until that dose is eliminated. Then I move my other doses slowly around the clock to even things out, pick another dose to eliminate and start cutting and titrating 1/4s from that one. With clonazepam's long active duration (10-12 hours), and it's half-life, I know many people get away with just one dose a day, day or night, whatever is hardest for them to cope with symptom wise.

 

Your approach to keep things even is also totally valid; just maybe not necessary.

Keep cutting! You're doing great!  :thumbsup:

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi folks.

 

I’m currently down to .375mg Clonazepam daily and now getting ready to cut .0625 from my daily dose. I’m now using the .125 mg wafers and I can successfully cut those in half but any smaller and it gets tricky. I’m try to stick with the dry cut method for now and hoping to use that method until jumping off. My question: can I just remove .0625 from my morning dose ( half of a .125 pill ) and leave my evening dose alone? Is it ok to have two different size doses in a day if the daily total  dose remains the same or should I be removing from both morning and evening dose to keep them even? Thanks in advance for any suggestions.

 

1hopeful, checking in with you to see how your .0625 mg cut is doing. I too now am at 0.375 mg and am doing a daily micro dry cuts each day. I am tapering right now via weight (0.001g a day). How is the cut going? Sounds like you are making great progress!!

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If you ever consider a liquid/tablet hybrid, it's the best of both worlds in my opinion. I've got a post on how I do mine in the tools and techniques link in my signature. I'll add a post there soon about how to make a liquid clonazepam formula from tablets. Maybe something to think about as you get lower.

 

Keep us posted!  :thumbsup:

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Hi Seeking,  thanks for checking in. I’m making decent progress by splitting the .125 into quarters but no smaller. I don’t think they are perfect cuts but I also read somewhere here that the cuts don’t have to be 100 % perfect at this dose because the long half-life makes things smoother if I’m dosing twice a day. I will probably switch to liquid compound once I get to .250 which will hopefully be next week in order to maintain 10 % reductions. Things got pretty tough for me once I hit the .375 mark and have had crappy days since then but the symptoms are getting somewhat manageable now that I’m cutting at 10 percent. The cut that messed me up 3 weeks ago was a 25 % reduction. My symptoms are mostly nerve pain in arms and legs and that uncomfortable chest tightness that accompanies the anxiety. Hard to eat when that happens as it revs me up. I used to look forward to hiking when my withdrawals started up in the beginning but now I’m so sensitive to walking too much as it just revs me up but that seems to be getting better as well. I did a couple of NAD IV infusions last week and that has helped a little but it’s pretty expensive and they usually need to be back to back for a few days to see better results.
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Hi Seeking,  thanks for checking in. I’m making decent progress by splitting the .125 into quarters but no smaller. I don’t think they are perfect cuts but I also read somewhere here that the cuts don’t have to be 100 % perfect at this dose because the long half-life makes things smoother if I’m dosing twice a day. I will probably switch to liquid compound once I get to .250 which will hopefully be next week in order to maintain 10 % reductions. Things got pretty tough for me once I hit the .375 mark and have had crappy days since then but the symptoms are getting somewhat manageable now that I’m cutting at 10 percent. The cut that messed me up 3 weeks ago was a 25 % reduction. My symptoms are mostly nerve pain in arms and legs and that uncomfortable chest tightness that accompanies the anxiety. Hard to eat when that happens as it revs me up. I used to look forward to hiking when my withdrawals started up in the beginning but now I’m so sensitive to walking too much as it just revs me up but that seems to be getting better as well. I did a couple of NAD IV infusions last week and that has helped a little but it’s pretty expensive and they usually need to be back to back for a few days to see better results.

 

1hopeful good to hear. I am a hiker to and have not been at all this year. I am still DMT once a day at night. May try to split but trying not do but might have to. Do you still take the zoloft? Do you think that has helped at all?

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I’m not sure if the Zoloft helped and in fact I would think that the combo makes things a little tougher. I get a little reved up when I take my Zoloft dose in the morning. I think a lot has to do with how it affects your stomach which in return affects your withdrawals but I really wouldn’t give it much thought. I will eventually taper off of the Zoloft a few months after I finish my benzo taper. You are getting really close though. Are you cutting every week or every two weeks? I feel like at my lower doses I should be cutting every 10 days.
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I’m not sure if the Zoloft helped and in fact I would think that the combo makes things a little tougher. I get a little reved up when I take my Zoloft dose in the morning. I think a lot has to do with how it affects your stomach which in return affects your withdrawals but I really wouldn’t give it much thought. I will eventually taper off of the Zoloft a few months after I finish my benzo taper. You are getting really close though. Are you cutting every week or every two weeks? I feel like at my lower doses I should be cutting every 10 days.

 

I have Zoloft but have never taken it. To revved up in them morning as it is. I was trying a 5% cut a week and it was relatively rough. I tried daily micro taper/cutting by 0.001 g per day to see how that goes and have been doing that almost a week. Not great but not horrible. I may try .002 g for the next week. For me .001 is about 10-11% every 14 days and .002g is about 21% every 14 days...we will see..My "plan" is to re-evaluate my dosing at 0.1125mg but at this point just doing week by week and may do every 2 weeks but will let my symptoms/body drive me. Really want to be done but want to be smart and not backfire my progress.

 

What dose of K are you at?

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I’m at .28 mg.  What were your symptoms when it got rough? I’m trying to calibrate my expectations for normal withdrawals that are typical during a decent taper but maybe I’m trying to tolerate too much?
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Slownsteady thanks for the info. Can you make a liquid form from the .125 ODT wafers?

 

Yes, I believe you can make a liquid from from these. I'm currently using a liquid I made from regular 0.5mg tablets, but I suspect the ODT wafers would work even better since they're designed to come apart easily in water. I use ethanol as a solvent; this is important to make sure the clonazepam is evenly distributed in the liquid. With a liquid/tablet hybrid, and a mildly potent liquid, the dose of ethanol can be very small; less than 1/3rd of a mL of ethanol/day.

 

I have a link in my signature to with my new tools and techniques log; currently I have a post on liquid/hybrid tapers. Next I'll be writing a post on how to make homemade clonazepam liquid; it's pretty easy if you can tolerate a tiny ethanol, and procure a few graduated cylinders, 180 proof alcohol, and maybe a glass stir rod. There will be other bits and bobs that make things easier, but the basics are just liquid measuring tools, alcohol, stirring and water.

 

Let me know if you find the info about liquid/tablet that I've posted in my signature, and what you're thinking of trying next.

 

Can you tolerate a very small amount of ethanol per day?

Did you manage to find a tool to cut 1/4 tablets? That would be a bonus!

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I'm taking it slower and steadier these days. I am holding for more than two weeks off my last cut because I don't think that i'm giving myself enough time to stabilize between tapers. I've been doing cuts weekly and I think that the cuts from Clonazepam will stack up on you at that rate due to the long half life. best to wait at least two weeks between cuts. I will probably give it another week before cutting again. Feeling less in the way of anxiety and agitation but still have the tingling and burning nerve pain in arms and legs. I believe that's a sign that we need to slow down. Can't get rid of all of the symptoms when stabilizing but at least we should be functional. How are you progressing?
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I'm taking it slower and steadier these days. I am holding for more than two weeks off my last cut because I don't think that i'm giving myself enough time to stabilize between tapers. I've been doing cuts weekly and I think that the cuts from Clonazepam will stack up on you at that rate due to the long half life. best to wait at least two weeks between cuts. I will probably give it another week before cutting again. Feeling less in the way of anxiety and agitation but still have the tingling and burning nerve pain in arms and legs. I believe that's a sign that we need to slow down. Can't get rid of all of the symptoms when stabilizing but at least we should be functional. How are you progressing?

 

I am getting close to being at that point of holding. I have been doing DMT taper for 3 weeks and one of those weeks doubled up to see if I could handle. It was rough. I also believe my cuts are catching up with me. I still also have the nerve pain. Trying to push but starting to feel the need to slow down.

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I'm taking it slower and steadier these days. I am holding for more than two weeks off my last cut because I don't think that i'm giving myself enough time to stabilize between tapers. I've been doing cuts weekly and I think that the cuts from Clonazepam will stack up on you at that rate due to the long half life. best to wait at least two weeks between cuts. I will probably give it another week before cutting again. Feeling less in the way of anxiety and agitation but still have the tingling and burning nerve pain in arms and legs. I believe that's a sign that we need to slow down. Can't get rid of all of the symptoms when stabilizing but at least we should be functional. How are you progressing?

 

I'm happy to hear you're slowing down and giving yourself longer holding periods between cuts.

 

When I was doing clonazepam cut-and-holds I noticed it took 2 days to start feeling WD symptoms, days 5-9 these symptoms peaked, and days 10-14 I would generally recover. The larger my cut, the longer that recovery period seemed to need to be, and the more miserable I felt in-between.

 

I worked out a spreadsheet recently and found that even when I took bigger cuts, the extra days needed to return to full functionality essentially kept me at the same taper rate: 6-7%/14 days; even when I was cutting 9% on a DMT, I had to hold so much it still averaged out to 6%! And I had a really rough time symptom wise.

 

So now I'm on a 6%/14 day DMT, and maybe I'll go up to 7% in a month if things are stable. There just doesn't seem to be any way to rush my body. Slow is smooth and smooth is fast.  :P

 

Keep up the great progress!  :thumbsup:

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I'm taking it slower and steadier these days. I am holding for more than two weeks off my last cut because I don't think that i'm giving myself enough time to stabilize between tapers. I've been doing cuts weekly and I think that the cuts from Clonazepam will stack up on you at that rate due to the long half life. best to wait at least two weeks between cuts. I will probably give it another week before cutting again. Feeling less in the way of anxiety and agitation but still have the tingling and burning nerve pain in arms and legs. I believe that's a sign that we need to slow down. Can't get rid of all of the symptoms when stabilizing but at least we should be functional. How are you progressing?

 

1hopeful how are you progressing?  I finally hit 0.28 mg today.

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Hey there! You are doing great! Congratulations on your progress. I’m down to.250 and feeling better. Debating whether or not to keep dry cutting from here on since I can only split my pills into quarters. If I keep tapering by one quarter pill at a linear taper I will be cutting more than 12 percent and so on. I’ll have to see how I feel by the next cut.
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Thanks. And kudos for you pushing ahead as well. If I stay on my schedule I will be at .25mg on 5/19...still pushing ahead.

 

The daily micro taper is ok. Some days worse than others but so far ok. I am dropping right now 0.001 g per day.

 

I cut and weight the pills on a scale and track in a spreadsheet.

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It’s good to see how you all are doing! I’m tracking your updates as I’m earlier in my taper. I’m down to close to 15% during day (0.082) and holding steady at .5 at night. I’ve been dropping about 4% a week and micro tapering each day. It’s been going alright - some anxiety, allergies, light nerve pain, and waves of being super tired, then waves of being fine. Overall manageable.

 

I’ve got the .125 tablets for day and using a scale. And .5 tablets at night. I hope things continue to go ok, but do worry it’ll get worse as I get lower. Right now I’m sleeping ok, which is why I got on K to begin with. But know that may not be the case when I start tapering my night pill.

 

Thanks again for posting your updates! It helps me as I look ahead to where you guys are at!

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It’s good to see how you all are doing! I’m tracking your updates as I’m earlier in my taper. I’m down to close to 15% during day (0.082) and holding steady at .5 at night. I’ve been dropping about 4% a week and micro tapering each day. It’s been going alright - some anxiety, allergies, light nerve pain, and waves of being super tired, then waves of being fine. Overall manageable.

 

I’ve got the .125 tablets for day and using a scale. And .5 tablets at night. I hope things continue to go ok, but do worry it’ll get worse as I get lower. Right now I’m sleeping ok, which is why I got on K to begin with. But know that may not be the case when I start tapering my night pill.

 

Thanks again for posting your updates! It helps me as I look ahead to where you guys are at!

 

 

KlonopinQuitterinCO it sounds like you are doing great! I think we all know this is not going to be a easy ride but trying to find a approach that is managable and leaves us functional. As I have been tapering my dosage (taken at night) my sleep has degraded. I ended up doing a prescripton for Mirtazapine 15 mg, for which I take half to help sleep. I did not want to but my sleep degraded pretty significantly. To be honest the scale to me is a hassle but I am not sure at least right now trying the liquid approach is my best option. I have a spreadsheet similar to yours I use that I created to track my reductions. I once tried 0.002 g a night which at that time/dosage was about 1.7% and it was too much for me. So my goal is to try to continue to average/hover around 1% or so  day. Todays drop will be about 1.10% and I will be taking 0.262 mg. In about 2-3 weeks I anticipate I might have to do my 0.001 drops every other day to keep my weekly percentage between 5-6%.

 

I am functional but it is a tough ride. What I am trying to remember is I have a base plan, I can tweak, but need to keep pushing to reach the end goal. I have confidence I will get there and have no doubt you will as well. Are you still taking Zoloft and if so do you think it helps.

 

Keep plugging away to the end day!

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