Questions re: liquid microtaper

I have just watched this video on a liquid microtaper, with the aim of speeding up the last leg of my marathon journey.

Just a few questions. Given that I am coming down from the last quarter pill, would I need as much as 300 ml water?

Would I throw away any excess (75% right from the get-go) or could I use the excess on subsequent days?

Also would a 15 or 20% monthly reduction be too fast? I have to go quicker with this or there is no point switching from dry cutting. What would be a ballpark period of time for getting off a quarter pill?

A couple suggestions...

First, clonazepam in my experience doesn't like to dissolve in water. It will, but it takes plenty of water and agitation. Since you're at low doses, this could work out for you, but when I do a daily liquid discard of clonazepam I first put 0.125mgs (1/4 of a 0.5mg tablet) and 0.5-1ml of alcohol in my primary liquid measuring vessel and stir to let it dissolve for maybe 20-30 minutes. Then I dilute to my intended volume with water, stir vigorously, then take my reduction from the middle of the volume of liquid.

You do not need any specific volume of water for dilution. The dilution I suggest would be based on how accurate your liquid measuring equipment is (measuring vessel and syringes/pipettes). Some people use 180ml or 240ml because these are 3/4 or 1 US cups, which is marked on common measuring vessels like Pyrex. The more dilute your liquid solution, the more accurate you can be at taking reductions. I think 300ml is not unreasonable, especially if you want to do something like a DMT all the way to the end and only have 0.5mg tablets.

The only way you'd be tossing 75% from the get-go is if you started with dissolving a whole 0.5mg tablet every time; all you need to avoid this is a decent pill cutter. If you have 0.5mg tablets, I suggest getting an aluminum pill cutter and cutting them into 1/4s. That way you'll only be dissolving 0.125mg and your first reductions will be minimal discards.

No one can tell you how fast is too fast for your body, but 15-20%/month is within the 5-10%/14 day guidelines that is common around the forum, so it's not too fast by that standard. If you do a 10%/14 day daily liquid discard reduction, you're looking at 214 days (7 months) to get to 0.025mg which is a suggested jumping dose for clonazepam.

Honestly, nothing about liquid tapering should save you tapering time over a dry scale method. It will offer you increased accuracy and possibly less hassle so I still think it's worth considering, but your body's recovery rate is the limit on how fast you can reduce.

Here's how I schedule my liquid taper DMT: http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=254653.5#post_generator

Solubility of Lamotrigine, Diazepam, and Clonazepam in Ethanol + Water Mixtures at 298.15 K. Journal of Chemical and Engineering Data, 2008, Washington D.C.: American Chemical Society, pp. 1107-1109. Accessed online at:

https://digital.library.unt.edu/ark:/67531/metadc674044/m2/1/high_res_d/Acree%20Pub-479.pdf

Thankyou very much for that.

Good suggestion to quarter the tabs to start off with. I have been told, though, that it is not a good idea to dry cut as the benzo is not distributed evenly and I thought that DMT using whole pills would get around that.  On the other hand, I guess even liquid tapering may not result in totally even distribution, but I still think a DMT with quartered pills is better than dry cutting <10% of a pill when I get down really low.

Thanks also for the link and the scheduling website.

I tale it alcohol means vodka? And would I expect to experience increased s/x for a while when u change taper methods?   

Thankyou very much for that.

 

Good suggestion to quarter the tabs to start off with. I have been told, though, that it is not a good idea to dry cut as the benzo is not distributed evenly and I thought that DMT using whole pills would get around that.  On the other hand, I guess even liquid tapering may not result in totally even distribution, but I still think a DMT with quartered pills is better than dry cutting <10% of a pill when I get down really low.

You are correct. Per the Titration: FAQs, we do not know if homebrew liquids made with regular tablets are true, homogeneous solutions. Consequently, there is no guarantee that each and every milliliter of a homebrew liquid contains exactly the same amount of the active drug substance.

Thankyou very much for that.

 

Good suggestion to quarter the tabs to start off with. I have been told, though, that it is not a good idea to dry cut as the benzo is not distributed evenly and I thought that DMT using whole pills would get around that.  On the other hand, I guess even liquid tapering may not result in totally even distribution, but I still think a DMT with quartered pills is better than dry cutting <10% of a pill when I get down really low.

I think this idea about an uneven distribution of medicine in a pressed and scored tablet is a myth; to my understanding there is a great deal of effort made to homogenize the powder before pressing tablets. I've heard this same concern twice recently, and I am fairly certain that pills that come scored indicate a high standard of homogenization, sufficient to warrant cutting halves and quarters. Furthermore, with a long half-life medication like clonazepam, any small differences in tablet-portion dose day-to-day are likely to be insignificant.

If you're still nervous, you can cut the same pill into 1/4s and use 1/4 per day, so you'll get the whole pill in 4 days and all the medicine in that one pill (minus the any dust from cutting).

I'm rubbish at finding scientific references, but here's Reddit on the subject....

I was being vague about "alcohol" because as Libertas pointed out, when making liquid medicine with tablets there's no easy way to identify the full and even dissolution of the clonazepam (due largely to all the tablet filler involved).

I suggest sourcing the strongest alcohol you can find. I was taught to use 2.5ml of 180 proof per 1mg of clonazepam. If you're using 0.125mg of K, that would be ~0.3ml so I rounded up to 0.5ml of 180 proof; if you only have 80 proof alcohol, then I'd use 1ml for the same 0.125mg, because there is about half as much ethanol in 80 proof as there is in 180 proof.

To your last question, if you switch your dose form such as to liquid, I suggest holding for at least 5 days to give your body a chance to start adjusting to any discrepancy in potency. Just a suggestion, but yes, it doesn't seem to hurt to be cautious.

I hope this helps! I'm glad you're exploring your options; I know you'll find something that works for you on this last stretch.

Congrats on getting this far in your taper! I'm inspired.

I think this idea about an uneven distribution of medicine in a pressed and scored tablet is a myth; to my understanding, there is a great deal of effort made to homogenize the powder before pressing tablets. I've heard this same concern twice recently, and I am fairly certain that pills that come scored indicate a high standard of homogenization, sufficient to warrant cutting halves and quarters. Furthermore, with a long half-life medication like clonazepam, any small differences in tablet-portion dose day-to-day are likely to be insignificant.

 

If you're still nervous, you can cut the same pill into 1/4s and use 1/4 per day, so you'll get the whole pill in 4 days and all the medicine in that one pill (minus the any dust from cutting).

 

I'm rubbish at finding scientific references, but here's Reddit on the subject....

 

I was being vague about "alcohol" because as Libertas pointed out, when making liquid medicine with tablets there's no easy way to identify the full and even dissolution of the clonazepam (due largely to all the tablet filler involved).

 

I suggest sourcing the strongest alcohol you can find. I was taught to use 2.5ml of 180 proof per 1mg of clonazepam. If you're using 0.125mg of K, that would be ~0.3ml so I rounded up to 0.5ml of 180 proof; if you only have 80 proof alcohol, then I'd use 1ml for the same 0.125mg, because there is about half as much ethanol in 80 proof as there is in 180 proof.

 

To your last question, if you switch your dose form such as to liquid, I suggest holding for at least 5 days to give your body a chance to start adjusting to any discrepancy in potency. Just a suggestion, but yes, it doesn't seem to hurt to be cautious.

 

I hope this helps! I'm glad you're exploring your options; I know you'll find something that works for you on this last stretch.

 

Congrats on getting this far in your taper! I'm inspired.

Great, thanks. You can up my feeling that if you use up the same pill over several days you are getting the full dose from it regardless of distribution. I have never worried all that much about it before.

I might stick with dry cutting but I suspect a DMT will get me to jumping point quicker.  I feel like a prisoner who can smell his release date coming - I just want to get out of the door as fast as realistically possible.

Glad you are feeling inspired by me :-)