An objective view on jumping. Someone check my logic? :)

In a nutshell:

- Started at 1mg clonazepam daily and did cut and hold until roughly .125mg (weight: .085g)

- WD symptoms were pretty brutal and decided to move over to a direct micro-taper; reducing .001g per day

- I have reduced .001g per day for the past 77 days fairly successfully. Am currently at .008 and have some wd symptoms kicking in. Not terrible, but the first “bad” wave since I started a micro-taper 2+ months ago. Some nausea, muscle pain, headaches, anxiety...the usual suspects.

I know the general consensus is wait and stabilize but, objectively, the accuracy of scales and distribution at these weights are not going to be consistent and the chances I have taken less/more on any given day are pretty high. At this point I think my best bet is to complete the next 8 days and jump. There are no noticeable effects after taking a dosage or reduction of any symptoms anymore. I think this is just my baseline for how I’ll feel post-jump (which isn’t that bad all things considered).

Am I crazy to not hold at such a low level? I just don’t see the benefits of prolonging my taper any further. I know this sounds like I have all the answers but the closer I come to 0 the more uncertain I am becoming lol

Any advice/feedback is welcomed. Thanks in advance.

I'm a little confused. If I understand correctly, your 0.125mg dose is 0.085g in pill weight; so if my math is correct your current 0.008g pill weight is 0.012mg of clonazepam. A suggested jumping dose for clonazepam is 0.025mg, or twice what it seems like you're currently taking.

It seems like you're done with the medicine already and in acute.

Is my math wrong? Am I missing something?

.025 is way too high to jump from. Heather Ashton is all of her wisdom was still having people cut too high (that is where most of the .025 comes from). I believe the 8 days should be finished all the way down to .001 which is the smallest read you can get for K on the scale.

To the OP, unless you've accumulated withdrawals on the way down and are finally feeling them, you're probably just going through a bad roll of inaccuracies. My advice would be to continue to taper assuming it doesn't get any worse. I would expect it to stay about the same or even out, and then you'll recover after the 8 days. If it gets worse, I would hold a day or two to see if it improves.

I pulled out my old calendar from 2019 and checked. I jumped at .087 Xanax.

That was not planned.

I wasn't sure when to stop completely, and I woke up that morning and decided to not take my dose or any that day or the next. I wanted to be done with tapering but figured I could continue with the very low dosages and keep reducing if needed.

At .087, I felt the same as when taking that small amount. So, I didn't feel great but no worse than dragging it out. And, I slowly began to heal and feel better. 

It does differ from person to person, so I can't say when it's time to quit. That .087 worked in my case. I'm a year and nine months off now.

Sorry for the late reply, haven't been feeling the greatest the past few days.

@slownsteady No, you're not missing anything. I would say that the Ashton Manual are more guidelines than rules.

@DigitalRob I think there is a good chance I've accumulated withdrawals. Was perfectly fine until a few days ago and now got slammed with a wave of intense headaches (I mean really, really bad headaches), shakiness, I think people call it internal vibrations?...I guess I am fortunate that I have mostly physical symptoms and not many mental ones at the moment. Don't really know if it's worth holding at this dosage as I don't think I am actually taking enough clonazepam for my body to even recognize. It's pretty terrible but not unbearable. More similar to when I was doing cut and hold at the beginning of my taper. I was determined to taper down to .001 and hop. Today I'll be on .005...do you think holding on these crumbs would make much of a difference?

Sorry for the late reply, haven't been feeling the greatest the past few days.

 

@slownsteady No, you're not missing anything. I would say that the Ashton Manual are more guidelines than rules.

 

@DigitalRob I think there is a good chance I've accumulated withdrawals. Was perfectly fine until a few days ago and now got slammed with a wave of intense headaches (I mean really, really bad headaches), shakiness, I think people call it internal vibrations?...I guess I am fortunate that I have mostly physical symptoms and not many mental ones at the moment. Don't really know if it's worth holding at this dosage as I don't think I am actually taking enough clonazepam for my body to even recognize. It's pretty terrible but not unbearable. More similar to when I was doing cut and hold at the beginning of my taper. I was determined to taper down to .001 and hop. Today I'll be on .005...do you think holding on these crumbs would make much of a difference?

If I was you, and I'm not, I'd be done fussing with the medicine. I agree Ashton's methods are rushed and best used as guidelines. I still think there is a therapeutic limit to these medicines, and often it seems there is a psychological hurdle buddies face when jumping about no longer having a benzo "daily support", even if it's not really there anymore. This is why I think skill-building is such an important part of benzo tapering, so that there are other daily supports in place to turn to when the medicine is gone. Hanging on to the last crumbs seems very common especially, I've noticed, when some portion of the taper has been rushed and I have not heard of much in the way of benefits being gleaned by these low doses; buddies seem to either updose, stabilize and try again or they just let go eventually and healing continues.

I hear the adjustment to zero benzo can still be rather difficult, physically and mentally, and I'm a long way from jumping myself so I don't want to give any direct suggestions. I just want to congratulate you on your perseverance and how far you've come in your taper; you've almost made it to somewhere I hope to be in two years time! Wahoo!

I'm wishing you the best, whatever you decide. Benzo freedom is not far away now! 

@[sl...]

UPDATE: I jumped and I didn’t even know it! Haha. I am very fortunate in that my wife has been measuring/tracking my micro-taper as it was becoming very frustrating/triggering for me and I was obsessing over progress…just wasn’t a positive experience. I thought I had another day left but I was wrong. I definitely have had a rough week, symptoms wise, but I am functioning and feeling optimistic about what the future has to hold…so I guess that’s a positive? Here goes nothing…

Congratulations!!

Hope your healing journey goes smoothly!

UPDATE: I jumped and I didn’t even know it! Haha. I am very fortunate in that my wife has been measuring/tracking my micro-taper as it was becoming very frustrating/triggering for me and I was obsessing over progress…just wasn’t a positive experience. I thought I had another day left but I was wrong. I definitely have had a rough week, symptoms wise, but I am functioning and feeling optimistic about what the future has to hold…so I guess that’s a positive? Here goes nothing…

AntiXenik how are you doing since you jumped?  Congrats on jumping!!!