[me...] Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 Hi all, I have some questions about my taper. I have been tapering off diazepam for the past 3 years. My story is long, complicated, and unfortunately probably very familiar to people on this forum. Here is the short and quick version: in 2014, I was prescribed 1.5 mg clonazepam for periodic limb movement disorder. I self tapered without consulting a doctor or these forums, and when I jumped all hell broke loose. There was a delay between my jump and the onset of the withdrawal, so I did not actually realize that my horrible and bizarre symptoms were caused by benzodiazepine withdrawal. I went to many specialists, none of which could figure out what was wrong with me. Several months out, I was then prescribed xanax to take prn for panic attacks by a neurologist, which worsened by PAWS and made the symptoms unbearable. Finally, I reinstated the clonazepam to see if the root cause of my symptoms was lack of treatment for my sleep disorder. My symptoms cleared up almost immediately. This was when I realized that I was dependent of benzodiazepines. After this I moved, and my new sleep doctor asked me to taper off my clonazepam (at 1 mg/night at this point). I did an immediate .25 reduction, and all hell broke loose. I asked him if I could go down slower, and he referred me to a psychiatrist. My psychiatrist switched me to 14 mg diazepam per night, and I proceeded to taper at a very slow .2 mg per month for the next three years. My withdrawal symptoms which started after the .25 mg drop persisted, but gradually improved over about a year and a half. Today, three years later, my only symptoms are slight headaches and irritability at night as my previous dose wears off. I am able to function quite well and enjoy life. Right now I am on 5 mg diazepam/night. In the past few months I have experimented with decreasing my dose by .2 mg every 2 or three weeks. This has not caused any increase in withdrawal symptoms. Recently I have received an invitation to study in Germany for 4 months next spring (I am a PhD student.) I contacted the German customs office to ask about bringing my medication with me legally, and unfortunately it will be difficult to arrange. So I am interested in speeding up my taper and discontinuing diazepam ``quickly" prior to January of next year. Here is my current plan: a decrease of .2 mg per week until I am off. At this rate I would discontinue completely in mid November. Prior to this I felt quite relaxed about my taper as I have no significant withdrawal symptoms and I am enjoying my life. I also know that at my current slow pace, I will eventually be off the medication. A sense of being in control of the process which decreasing has been very helpful for my mental health through this process. But now I am scared. I am wondering what you all think of my current plan: does it seem very fast/abrupt, or likely to cause significant withdrawal symptoms? Thank you for taking the time to read. Any suggestions/thoughts are appreciated. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[da...] Posted May 19, 2021 Share Posted May 19, 2021 You can make a tapering plan here: https://benzo.alwaysdata.net/ I made a tapering plan starting at 5mg diazepam and reducing at 10% every 10 days. This would take 219 days to get to 0.5mg (which is where one could jump). We have 7 months left in this year (roughly 210 days). In other words, it can be done before the end of the year. However, you should balance tapering with your body and your symptoms. Have you ever tried to increasing your taper rate (even just a little bit) to see how your body reacts? Are you still stable and functional? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[me...] Posted May 19, 2021 Author Share Posted May 19, 2021 You can make a tapering plan here: https://benzo.alwaysdata.net/ I made a tapering plan starting at 5mg diazepam and reducing at 10% every 10 days. This would take 219 days to get to 0.5mg (which is where one could jump). We have 7 months left in this year (roughly 210 days). In other words, it can be done before the end of the year. However, you should balance tapering with your body and your symptoms. Have you ever tried to increasing your taper rate (even just a little bit) to see how your body reacts? Are you still stable and functional? Thank you for showing me this tool. I cannot get it to work - for some reason the graph produced at the end is blank. Also, I am using a liquid diazepam solution (1mg/ml), which (I think?) should make tapering easier. I have tried increasing my rate somewhat. At the beginning of this year I decided to decrease by .2 every 3 weeks (instead of every months), and more recently I have upped it to .2 every other week. I am stable and functional. I have no tried to increase further yet, although I plan to start a faster taper on Friday. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[da...] Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 Go into the liquid taper section. See screenshot below as an example. Here is a 219 day liquid taper, starting at 5pm and stopping at 0.5mg. free online b Day Date Dose 1 Total dose # / / mg = ml mg/day 1 / / 4.9476 4.95 4.9476 2 / / 4.8957 4.90 4.8957 3 / / 4.8444 4.84 4.8444 4 / / 4.7937 4.79 4.7937 5 / / 4.7434 4.74 4.7434 6 / / 4.6937 4.69 4.6937 7 / / 4.6445 4.64 4.6445 8 / / 4.5958 4.60 4.5958 9 / / 4.5477 4.55 4.5477 10 / / 4.5000 4.50 4.5000 11 / / 4.4528 4.45 4.4528 12 / / 4.4062 4.41 4.4062 13 / / 4.3600 4.36 4.3600 14 / / 4.3143 4.31 4.3143 15 / / 4.2691 4.27 4.2691 16 / / 4.2243 4.22 4.2243 17 / / 4.1801 4.18 4.1801 18 / / 4.1362 4.14 4.1362 19 / / 4.0929 4.09 4.0929 20 / / 4.0500 4.05 4.0500 21 / / 4.0076 4.01 4.0076 22 / / 3.9656 3.97 3.9656 23 / / 3.9240 3.92 3.9240 24 / / 3.8829 3.88 3.8829 25 / / 3.8422 3.84 3.8422 26 / / 3.8019 3.80 3.8019 27 / / 3.7621 3.76 3.7621 28 / / 3.7226 3.72 3.7226 29 / / 3.6836 3.68 3.6836 30 / / 3.6450 3.65 3.6450 31 / / 3.6068 3.61 3.6068 32 / / 3.5690 3.57 3.5690 33 / / 3.5316 3.53 3.5316 34 / / 3.4946 3.49 3.4946 35 / / 3.4580 3.46 3.4580 36 / / 3.4217 3.42 3.4217 37 / / 3.3858 3.39 3.3858 38 / / 3.3504 3.35 3.3504 39 / / 3.3152 3.32 3.3152 40 / / 3.2805 3.28 3.2805 41 / / 3.2461 3.25 3.2461 42 / / 3.2121 3.21 3.2121 43 / / 3.1784 3.18 3.1784 44 / / 3.1451 3.15 3.1451 45 / / 3.1122 3.11 3.1122 46 / / 3.0795 3.08 3.0795 47 / / 3.0473 3.05 3.0473 48 / / 3.0153 3.02 3.0153 49 / / 2.9837 2.98 2.9837 50 / / 2.9525 2.95 2.9525 51 / / 2.9215 2.92 2.9215 52 / / 2.8909 2.89 2.8909 53 / / 2.8606 2.86 2.8606 54 / / 2.8306 2.83 2.8306 55 / / 2.8009 2.80 2.8009 56 / / 2.7716 2.77 2.7716 57 / / 2.7425 2.74 2.7425 58 / / 2.7138 2.71 2.7138 59 / / 2.6853 2.69 2.6853 60 / / 2.6572 2.66 2.6572 61 / / 2.6294 2.63 2.6294 62 / / 2.6018 2.60 2.6018 63 / / 2.5745 2.57 2.5745 64 / / 2.5475 2.55 2.5475 65 / / 2.5208 2.52 2.5208 66 / / 2.4944 2.49 2.4944 67 / / 2.4683 2.47 2.4683 68 / / 2.4424 2.44 2.4424 69 / / 2.4168 2.42 2.4168 70 / / 2.3915 2.39 2.3915 71 / / 2.3664 2.37 2.3664 72 / / 2.3416 2.34 2.3416 73 / / 2.3171 2.32 2.3171 74 / / 2.2928 2.29 2.2928 75 / / 2.2688 2.27 2.2688 76 / / 2.2450 2.25 2.2450 77 / / 2.2215 2.22 2.2215 78 / / 2.1982 2.20 2.1982 79 / / 2.1751 2.18 2.1751 80 / / 2.1523 2.15 2.1523 81 / / 2.1298 2.13 2.1298 82 / / 2.1075 2.11 2.1075 83 / / 2.0854 2.09 2.0854 84 / / 2.0635 2.06 2.0635 85 / / 2.0419 2.04 2.0419 86 / / 2.0205 2.02 2.0205 87 / / 1.9993 2.00 1.9993 88 / / 1.9784 1.98 1.9784 89 / / 1.9576 1.96 1.9576 90 / / 1.9371 1.94 1.9371 91 / / 1.9168 1.92 1.9168 92 / / 1.8967 1.90 1.8967 93 / / 1.8768 1.88 1.8768 94 / / 1.8572 1.86 1.8572 95 / / 1.8377 1.84 1.8377 96 / / 1.8184 1.82 1.8184 97 / / 1.7994 1.80 1.7994 98 / / 1.7805 1.78 1.7805 99 / / 1.7619 1.76 1.7619 100 / / 1.7434 1.74 1.7434 101 / / 1.7251 1.73 1.7251 102 / / 1.7070 1.71 1.7070 103 / / 1.6891 1.69 1.6891 104 / / 1.6714 1.67 1.6714 105 / / 1.6539 1.65 1.6539 106 / / 1.6366 1.64 1.6366 107 / / 1.6194 1.62 1.6194 108 / / 1.6025 1.60 1.6025 109 / / 1.5857 1.59 1.5857 110 / / 1.5691 1.57 1.5691 111 / / 1.5526 1.55 1.5526 112 / / 1.5363 1.54 1.5363 113 / / 1.5202 1.52 1.5202 114 / / 1.5043 1.50 1.5043 115 / / 1.4885 1.49 1.4885 116 / / 1.4729 1.47 1.4729 117 / / 1.4575 1.46 1.4575 118 / / 1.4422 1.44 1.4422 119 / / 1.4271 1.43 1.4271 120 / / 1.4121 1.41 1.4121 121 / / 1.3973 1.40 1.3973 122 / / 1.3827 1.38 1.3827 123 / / 1.3682 1.37 1.3682 124 / / 1.3539 1.35 1.3539 125 / / 1.3397 1.34 1.3397 126 / / 1.3256 1.33 1.3256 127 / / 1.3117 1.31 1.3117 128 / / 1.2980 1.30 1.2980 129 / / 1.2844 1.28 1.2844 130 / / 1.2709 1.27 1.2709 131 / / 1.2576 1.26 1.2576 132 / / 1.2444 1.24 1.2444 133 / / 1.2314 1.23 1.2314 134 / / 1.2185 1.22 1.2185 135 / / 1.2057 1.21 1.2057 136 / / 1.1931 1.19 1.1931 137 / / 1.1806 1.18 1.1806 138 / / 1.1682 1.17 1.1682 139 / / 1.1560 1.16 1.1560 140 / / 1.1438 1.14 1.1438 141 / / 1.1319 1.13 1.1319 142 / / 1.1200 1.12 1.1200 143 / / 1.1083 1.11 1.1083 144 / / 1.0966 1.10 1.0966 145 / / 1.0851 1.09 1.0851 146 / / 1.0738 1.07 1.0738 147 / / 1.0625 1.06 1.0625 148 / / 1.0514 1.05 1.0514 149 / / 1.0404 1.04 1.0404 150 / / 1.0295 1.03 1.0295 151 / / 1.0187 1.02 1.0187 152 / / 1.0080 1.01 1.0080 153 / / 0.9974 1.00 0.9974 154 / / 0.9870 0.99 0.9870 155 / / 0.9766 0.98 0.9766 156 / / 0.9664 0.97 0.9664 157 / / 0.9563 0.96 0.9563 158 / / 0.9462 0.95 0.9462 159 / / 0.9363 0.94 0.9363 160 / / 0.9265 0.93 0.9265 161 / / 0.9168 0.92 0.9168 162 / / 0.9072 0.91 0.9072 163 / / 0.8977 0.90 0.8977 164 / / 0.8883 0.89 0.8883 165 / / 0.8790 0.88 0.8790 166 / / 0.8698 0.87 0.8698 167 / / 0.8606 0.86 0.8606 168 / / 0.8516 0.85 0.8516 169 / / 0.8427 0.84 0.8427 170 / / 0.8339 0.83 0.8339 171 / / 0.8251 0.83 0.8251 172 / / 0.8165 0.82 0.8165 173 / / 0.8079 0.81 0.8079 174 / / 0.7994 0.80 0.7994 175 / / 0.7911 0.79 0.7911 176 / / 0.7828 0.78 0.7828 177 / / 0.7746 0.77 0.7746 178 / / 0.7665 0.77 0.7665 179 / / 0.7584 0.76 0.7584 180 / / 0.7505 0.75 0.7505 181 / / 0.7426 0.74 0.7426 182 / / 0.7348 0.73 0.7348 183 / / 0.7271 0.73 0.7271 184 / / 0.7195 0.72 0.7195 185 / / 0.7120 0.71 0.7120 186 / / 0.7045 0.70 0.7045 187 / / 0.6971 0.70 0.6971 188 / / 0.6898 0.69 0.6898 189 / / 0.6826 0.68 0.6826 190 / / 0.6754 0.68 0.6754 191 / / 0.6683 0.67 0.6683 192 / / 0.6613 0.66 0.6613 193 / / 0.6544 0.65 0.6544 194 / / 0.6476 0.65 0.6476 195 / / 0.6408 0.64 0.6408 196 / / 0.6340 0.63 0.6340 197 / / 0.6274 0.63 0.6274 198 / / 0.6208 0.62 0.6208 199 / / 0.6143 0.61 0.6143 200 / / 0.6079 0.61 0.6079 201 / / 0.6015 0.60 0.6015 202 / / 0.5952 0.60 0.5952 203 / / 0.5890 0.59 0.5890 204 / / 0.5828 0.58 0.5828 205 / / 0.5767 0.58 0.5767 206 / / 0.5706 0.57 0.5706 207 / / 0.5647 0.56 0.5647 208 / / 0.5587 0.56 0.5587 209 / / 0.5529 0.55 0.5529 210 / / 0.5471 0.55 0.5471 211 / / 0.5414 0.54 0.5414 212 / / 0.5357 0.54 0.5357 213 / / 0.5301 0.53 0.5301 214 / / 0.5245 0.52 0.5245 215 / / 0.5190 0.52 0.5190 216 / / 0.5136 0.51 0.5136 217 / / 0.5082 0.51 0.5082 218 / / 0.5029 0.50 0.5029 219 / / 0.4976 0.50 0.4976 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[da...] Posted May 20, 2021 Share Posted May 20, 2021 I am using a liquid diazepam solution (1mg/ml), which (I think?) should make tapering easier. You can use the liquid to taper. You can also dilute it with water to allow better dosage control (e.g. 0.1mg/ml). ..more recently I have upped it to .2 every other week. I am stable and functional. I have no tried to increase further yet, although I plan to start a faster taper on Friday. If you are stable and functional, that is a very good thing. You can try the tapering plan and see how that works. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[me...] Posted May 21, 2021 Author Share Posted May 21, 2021 I am using a liquid diazepam solution (1mg/ml), which (I think?) should make tapering easier. You can use the liquid to taper. You can also dilute it with water to allow better dosage control (e.g. 0.1mg/ml). ..more recently I have upped it to .2 every other week. I am stable and functional. I have no tried to increase further yet, although I plan to start a faster taper on Friday. If you are stable and functional, that is a very good thing. You can try the tapering plan and see how that works. There is a glitch with the tool that is probably related to my browser. No matter, I managed to make a similar plan in excel. Thank you for pointing this method out to me. Previously I had only considered a ``linear" taper. E.g., evenly spaced intervals where the reduction is constant (reduce by .2 mg every 10 days until done, for example.) I am a bit nervous about the large (at least relative to my taper so far) reductions at the beginning of the taper. What are your thoughts on the upsides/downsides of the proportional decrease in this plan vs a linear taper. For example, another plan could be to decrease by .2 mg every 10 days. Should I expect the end of the taper to be significantly harder with the linear method? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[da...] Posted May 22, 2021 Share Posted May 22, 2021 I am a bit nervous about the large (at least relative to my taper so far) reductions at the beginning of the taper. If you are nervous, then you could take small baby steps to get adjusted. Tiny increases could be made whenever you feel comfortable. Note that you said earlier: "more recently I have upped it to .2 every other week. I am stable and functional. " For example, another plan could be to decrease by .2 mg every 10 days. Should I expect the end of the taper to be significantly harder with the linear method? The tapering plan I shared is a standard percentage decrease. Going with 0.2mg every 10 days means that the "percentage cut" will increase every week as your dosage drops. For e.g. cutting 0.2mg from 5mg is a 4% cut, while cutting 0.2mg from 3mg is a 6.66% cut. This means, that you could "feel" the cut more because it is a bigger percentage drop. However, everyone is different. When I tapered, I slowed down some weeks, while other weeks I sped up. In either case, I let my body and symptoms guide me. The key is to taper while still being functional and stable. A tapering plan should only be viewed as a general guide and one can always tweak it along the way. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[me...] Posted May 23, 2021 Author Share Posted May 23, 2021 I am a bit nervous about the large (at least relative to my taper so far) reductions at the beginning of the taper. If you are nervous, then you could take small baby steps to get adjusted. Tiny increases could be made whenever you feel comfortable. Note that you said earlier: "more recently I have upped it to .2 every other week. I am stable and functional. " For example, another plan could be to decrease by .2 mg every 10 days. Should I expect the end of the taper to be significantly harder with the linear method? The tapering plan I shared is a standard percentage decrease. Going with 0.2mg every 10 days means that the "percentage cut" will increase every week as your dosage drops. For e.g. cutting 0.2mg from 5mg is a 4% cut, while cutting 0.2mg from 3mg is a 6.66% cut. This means, that you could "feel" the cut more because it is a bigger percentage drop. However, everyone is different. When I tapered, I slowed down some weeks, while other weeks I sped up. In either case, I let my body and symptoms guide me. The key is to taper while still being functional and stable. A tapering plan should only be viewed as a general guide and one can always tweak it along the way. I see, thank you! I was thinking that I had to choose a tapering plane and stick with it no matter what, but this puts my mind at ease. If I am having trouble, I can slow down. I cut to 4.5 on Friday. For the past two nights I have been OK during the day, but at night I have started to have trouble sleeping. I have nightmares and I wake up in the middle of the night feeling very ``wired." I also feel very jittery and groggy in the morning. I am still functional. Yesterday I ran 4 miles, made lunch, worked for 6 hours on a research project, took a nap, played an online video game with some friends, and then cleaned the house. I think a lot of my worries come from my truly *terrible* experience going through acute withdrawal and PAWs years ago. I can't go through that again, and I am scared that I will get stuck there because my doctors pull my off the meds, or because I rush to get off before going to Germany. Thanks for your help! I think I will stick to this plan if my symptoms stay at this level. If they get worse I'll slow down, although this could be problematic because I need to be off Valium before January. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
[da...] Posted May 23, 2021 Share Posted May 23, 2021 I cut to 4.5 on Friday. For the past two nights I have been OK during the day, but at night I have started to have trouble sleeping.... Yesterday I ran 4 miles, made lunch, worked for 6 hours on a research project, took a nap, played an online video game with some friends, and then cleaned the house. Cutting from 5mg to 4.5mg is decent cut, and you will feel it. That is part of the course. You have to simply accept that you will "feel things" as you taper down, and the only way out is through. Yet, you did some amazing things: ran, made lunch, worked, napped, socialized with friends, and cleaned house. This is a wonderful example of being functional and stable, while tapering down. Thanks for your help! I think I will stick to this plan if my symptoms stay at this level. If they get worse I'll slow down, although this could be problematic because I need to be off Valium before January. I kept telling myself: - Be positive. Stay positive. Think positive. - Mind over matter. If you don't mind, it does not matter. - You will feel things along the way, but keep pushing forwards. - Freedom, by any means necessary! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
![[me...]](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%20viewBox%3D%220%200%201024%201024%22%20style%3D%22background%3A%239362c4%22%3E%3Cg%3E%3Ctext%20text-anchor%3D%22middle%22%20dy%3D%22.35em%22%20x%3D%22512%22%20y%3D%22512%22%20fill%3D%22%23ffffff%22%20font-size%3D%22700%22%20font-family%3D%22-apple-system%2C%20BlinkMacSystemFont%2C%20Roboto%2C%20Helvetica%2C%20Arial%2C%20sans-serif%22%3EM%3C%2Ftext%3E%3C%2Fg%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E)
![[Pe...]](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%20viewBox%3D%220%200%201024%201024%22%20style%3D%22background%3A%239b62c4%22%3E%3Cg%3E%3Ctext%20text-anchor%3D%22middle%22%20dy%3D%22.35em%22%20x%3D%22512%22%20y%3D%22512%22%20fill%3D%22%23ffffff%22%20font-size%3D%22700%22%20font-family%3D%22-apple-system%2C%20BlinkMacSystemFont%2C%20Roboto%2C%20Helvetica%2C%20Arial%2C%20sans-serif%22%3EP%3C%2Ftext%3E%3C%2Fg%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E)
![[No...]](data:image/svg+xml,%3Csvg%20xmlns%3D%22http%3A%2F%2Fwww.w3.org%2F2000%2Fsvg%22%20viewBox%3D%220%200%201024%201024%22%20style%3D%22background%3A%2367c462%22%3E%3Cg%3E%3Ctext%20text-anchor%3D%22middle%22%20dy%3D%22.35em%22%20x%3D%22512%22%20y%3D%22512%22%20fill%3D%22%23ffffff%22%20font-size%3D%22700%22%20font-family%3D%22-apple-system%2C%20BlinkMacSystemFont%2C%20Roboto%2C%20Helvetica%2C%20Arial%2C%20sans-serif%22%3EN%3C%2Ftext%3E%3C%2Fg%3E%3C%2Fsvg%3E)
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