Is this reduction too small or too large …

Second telehealth session with my new doctor, who wants me off clonazepam because I’m a senior (68 yr old).

That’s fine with me but we’ve had disagreements about how fast to taper, which is critical to me.  (On my own volition I undertook a taper in 2020 but was unsuccessful at reaching 1/4 of my original dose in three months due to severe anxiety and had to reinstate.)

So we finally set a goal to get from .25 mg pm dose to .1875 mg.  (Morning dose to remain the same.) Timeframe is by next appointment in two months.

So I’ve drawn up a schedule for 3% (absolute) weekly reductions that will get me there.  I am using razor and scale method and started taper this week.  Not too bad … yet!  But would like feedback from the experienced ones here…

Thanks!

Am I understanding correctly that your current total daily dose is 0.5mg and you plan to reduce that dose by 0.065mg (0.25 minus 0.1875) over two months?

If so, that would be a taper rate of 13% over two months or 6.5% a month.

Given your age, long-term use, and history of an unsuccessful taper attempt, this is an appropriate initial/test rate for you in my opinion. Generally speaking, it is easier to speed up a taper that is going well than to recover from a too fast taper.

It sounds like your doctor might benefit from additional information about deprescribing benzodiazepines in ‘taken-as-prescribed’ patients such as yourself.  Perhaps this document might help:

Benzodiazepine Deprescribing Guidance Document (target audience is prescribers)

https://corxconsortium.org/wp-content/uploads/Benzo-Deperscribing.pdf

Edit: document reference added