Help w/ Math for Jump Dose Dry Taper Klonipin

[[Buddie]]

Hello all. I am horrid at math and hoping for some help/clarification that I am planning my jump from my dry taper from .5mg of Clonazepam correctly. I know the magic number many folks jump from is .025mg for Klonipin based off of the Ashton Method. Can anyone confirm whether the .025mg dose is based off of the weight of the pill? Or is there a conversion I am supposed to be doing? I’m getting myself so confused. I’ve been doing my dry taper going by the weight of one .5mg pill -TEVA brand weighing approx .170g-making cuts going by pill weight in mg ranging from 5-10%. Right now I am at .036mg according to my Gemini scale of my original pill. I am cutting down to .034 (5%) for my next dose with the goal of getting down to .025. Is that right? Am I missing something here? I want to be sure I am working towards the right goal for my jump. I hope this makes sense. My brain is mush. I appreciate it so much!

[[Buddie]]

No, the .025 mg is the dosage strength for recommended jump,  not the weight.

I take TEVA .5 mg pills and yes they weigh .170 g.

The jump dose WEIGHT is .008 g. (It's .0085g to be more precise but the scale will only show 3 decimal places.) Hope that makes sense.  (I am nowhere near that yet BTW.)

Hopefully an expert will be along to help soon.

[[Buddie]]

Thanks so much for your reply. Holy moly though. I thought I was getting close based on .025 being the weight to jump but it’s going to take forever at this rate. Am I making a mistake in doing my percentage reductions based on weight? i.e. Taking 5% off of .036 to get down to .034? How could I convert that over to dosage? I am so grateful for the help!

[[Buddie]]

When you get down lower in weights people generally stop using percentages because they don't make any sense.  For example on the last day of your taper you will be cutting 100% because you're getting rid of everything.  There's really no meaning in that.

 The other thing to worry about is when you get really low in weights the scales are no longer repeatable.

At that point you have 3 options.

 Just put up with the poorly performing scales knowing that the Benzo stay in your blood a long time so your probably be just fine.  It all averages out.

Or you could switch to a liquid taper.

There's another method where you add a filler to bring the weight up so the scale is linear but it's a lot of work so I won't bother you with that unless you want to hear about it.

[[Buddie]]

If you are about to go to .034g in weight, you are at about .10mgs in dosage strength and that is really great, you should get to the jump dose in just a few months at most. 
.5 mgs strength = .170 grams weight, so, roughly, your weight number is going to be about 1/3 of your dosage strength number, that's how I do it quickly in my head.

[...] is an expert so glad he is here to help.

There is a spreadsheet link somewhere on this site where you can plug a number in and then ask for a 5% reduction - you can do that in weight, or by dosage strength, either way it's a 5% cut.

  I think it's better on here though to always refer to your dosage strength, as opposed to weight.  Because, different brands of clonazepam might have different pill weights for their .5 mg pills; also, you want to be able to know how your dose compares to an equivalent dose of Valium, as Valium is the most used taper drug and the Ashton Manual is based on Valium. 

[[Buddie]]

[...]- you are awesome. Thanks so much for your reply. I took a look at the spreadsheet and am still pretty confused- now I’m questioning my whole method. It’s embarrassing how terrible I am with math so I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the help.  The math I’m doing is taking % cuts from the pill weight so doing 5-7% cuts by taking pill weight x .93 for 7% cut to get new weight (.036x.93=.033 weight new cut pill/hold 14 days then .031…) but it seems that would take forever (20 more 7% cuts or 40 weeks with the way I’m calculating) to get down to .008 as you said was the weight equivalent of .025 dosage rather than a couple of months. I have to be doing something wrong. You mentioned I’m at about .10mgs and the goal is .025, can I take that number and reduce by % until I get there to figure out how many more cuts I have? I should probably sleep on this and make sure I’m not losing my mind but I really am just that bad with math. Any guidance you can give-I’m beyond grateful.

And [...]-I’m starstruck! I’ve seen your filler website and all of my your incredibly helpful posts/replies on here so thank you, thank you for taking the time to help! Am I doing it wrong by making percentage reductions in the weight of my pill/powder when I’m making cuts? As you can see from my response to Ivy, I’m very confused. I am going to further explore and perhaps make the switch to liquid. I’ve got a lot more research to do. For now, let’s hope I’m doing this right with my current method! 

[[Buddie]]

[...]- you are awesome. Thanks so much for your reply. I took a look at the spreadsheet and am still pretty confused- now I’m questioning my whole method. It’s embarrassing how terrible I am with math so I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the help.  The math I’m doing is taking % cuts from the pill weight so doing 5-7% cuts by taking pill weight x .93 for 7% cut to get new weight (.036x.93=.033 weight new cut pill/hold 14 days then .031…) but it seems that would take forever (20 more 7% cuts or 40 weeks with the way I’m calculating) to get down to .008 as you said was the weight equivalent of .025 dosage rather than a couple of months. I have to be doing something wrong. You mentioned I’m at about .10mgs and the goal is .025, can I take that number and reduce by % until I get there to figure out how many more cuts I have? I should probably sleep on this and make sure I’m not losing my mind but I really am just that bad with math. Any guidance you can give-I’m beyond grateful.

And [...]-I’m starstruck! I’ve seen your filler website and all of my your incredibly helpful posts/replies on here so thank you, thank you for taking the time to help! Am I doing it wrong by making percentage reductions in the weight of my pill/powder when I’m making cuts? As you can see from my response to Ivy, I’m very confused. I am going to further explore and perhaps make the switch to liquid. I’ve got a lot more research to do. For now, let’s hope I’m doing this right with my current method!

If you've been functional as you've tapered then you've been doing it right. 

[[Buddie]]

[...]-Clearly I only have a few brain cells left (can’t even figure out how to reply to you using the “quote”) but yes, functional. Getting trickier as I go but Ive never seen support like this group anywhere. It’s been such a light in this struggle. You are all angels for taking time from your days to help others!

[[Buddie]]

[...]- you are awesome. Thanks so much for your reply. I took a look at the spreadsheet and am still pretty confused- now I’m questioning my whole method. It’s embarrassing how terrible I am with math so I can’t tell you how much I appreciate the help.  The math I’m doing is taking % cuts from the pill weight so doing 5-7% cuts by taking pill weight x .93 for 7% cut to get new weight (.036x.93=.033 weight new cut pill/hold 14 days then .031…) but it seems that would take forever (20 more 7% cuts or 40 weeks with the way I’m calculating) to get down to .008 as you said was the weight equivalent of .025 dosage rather than a couple of months. I have to be doing something wrong. You mentioned I’m at about .10mgs and the goal is .025, can I take that number and reduce by % until I get there to figure out how many more cuts I have? I should probably sleep on this and make sure I’m not losing my mind but I really am just that bad with math. Any guidance you can give-I’m beyond grateful.

And [...]-I’m starstruck! I’ve seen your filler website and all of my your incredibly helpful posts/replies on here so thank you, thank you for taking the time to help! Am I doing it wrong by making percentage reductions in the weight of my pill/powder when I’m making cuts? As you can see from my response to Ivy, I’m very confused. I am going to further explore and perhaps make the switch to liquid. I’ve got a lot more research to do. For now, let’s hope I’m doing this right with my current method!

Just wanted to update you that I finally figured out the spreadsheet and it’s making sense. Thank you so much for taking the time to help me. It means so much! I hope you have a wonderful day!

[[Buddie]]

you got this. i am dry tapering using the gemini scale from klonopin. i’m at .07 mgs weight is .028
👊🏻👊🏻👊🏻