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hi, i always check in and read the postings because I admire you all so much for being able to get off and deal with it.

 

i tried to taper off ativan(before that, i was on 1mg klonopin a night....benzo of choice :D for 8 years) while taking 300mg of wellbutrin.  i was down to 2.5 mg of ativan.  I was having too many wd symptoms while ON ativan(god, how would i feel with less???)....crying, paralyzed with anxiety, lost around 15lbs in a month..and depression (what good was the wellbutrin doing?).  I had to go to work in the midst of all this..having to hide my tears from coworkers or crying my eyes out while sitting in a traffic jam.  I couldn't take anymore of this.  I am also an alcoholic.  I ended up going to partial hospitalization.  The doctor just said "stop the 300mg of wellbutrin and start 50mg of pristiq"  "its a new drug and works really good". 

 

Since partial hosp is mon-fri, the blackest depression had to hit me on a sunday.  I thought it was temporary but monday was no better.  tuesday, i just told them how i really felt and ended up in the hospital for 6 days.  I guess you can say that i crashed.  i think i was too unstable to start tapering.

 

this is my diet now:  2mg klonopin, 12.5 ambien, 300 wellbutrin, 20mg prozac, and albilify(supposedly helps stubborn depression). 

 

what does this all add up too?  less depression, no anxiety, no insomnia, yes to BRAIN FOG.  I don't know why but I always laugh when I say that.  Its not the antidepressants i'm worried about but the fact that i went from 2.5 ativan to 2mg klono and 12.5 ambien.  Right now,  I still feel side effects when I take klonopin during the day.  I have to drink like 3 cups of coffee to get me through the morning.  I take 1mg in the morning and 1(plus the ambien) at betime.

 

I must be more than stable.  I think I am overmedicated.  Should I start tapering from klonopin first? or ambien?  I really want to get off this stuff someday.  Can I smash the ambien and klonopin together and do titration off both at the same time.  I do know that I have to go really slow because of the bad experience with ativan.  doctors don't know anything about wd I feel like i'm on a life sentence. 

 

Hugs and kisses, Erica(or the zombie clone of me)

 

 

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Hi eeerooo,

 

Happy to see you have posted. We usually recommend coming off the benzos and z-drugs first before the anti-depressants. I believe the first step would be the ambien. We usually recommend tapering at about 10-12% off your total dose over a 7-14 day period. Are you familar with The Ashton Manual. I will provide a link below where you will find a lot of information regarding benzos. We do not recommend tapering two meds at a time. If you will stop back in tomorrow, someone can help you further as I am not that familar with all the meds you are currently taking. In the meantime, please familarize yourself with The Ashton Manual and the Stepping Off Guide, both links are provided below. Hang in there, you can do this!!

 

http://www.benzo.org.uk/manual/bzcha01.htm

 

http://www.benzobuddies.org/buddiesguide/tables/stepping-off

 

T2 :smitten:

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Hi Eeerooo,

Since ambien and other z drugs are a bit harder to to direct taper off of, due to dosage and pill size, it's usually suggested to cross over to a benzo for convenience's sake.  Since you are already on klonopin, this should be easy, as long as you can be guaranteed enough klon to complete a taper. Basically, you would reduce your ambien and increase your klon according to the equivalency charts until you are on all klon. Once you are feeling somewhat stable, you can begin your klon taper.  :)   

 

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Hi,

 

Yet another perspective from me.

 

In your position, I'd be inclined to not switch to Klonopin, but stick at your present dose of 2mg klonopin, and taper off the 12.5 Ambien without switching. Once you have tapered off the Ambien, then taper off the Klonopin. Ashton suggests that people taper off benzos before attempting to taper off their antidepressants - I have no reason to dispute this advice.

 

Ambien is a very much weaker benzo/'z' drug than Klonopin. The 12.5mg Ambien is probably equivalent to about 0.3mg Klonopin. This means that your Ambien accounts for only about 13.5% of you totally daily dose of benzo (-like) drugs, so tapering off the Ambien should not take too long. What dose pills of Ambien do you use? If you can manage it, you might try reducing your Ambien intake by half (this will account for only about 7% of your total dose of benzos), sticking with your new regimen for 1-2 of weeks, then cut out the remaining Ambien and take just the Klonopin for 1-2 weeks. Of of course, if you can reduce your dose of Ambien by a quarter each time (instead of half), even better, and you would probably make cuts every 4-7 days instead.

 

The time I've indicated is just a ballpark figure. The time needed between cuts varies with the size of cut made and the individual response. Once off the Ambien, we will then help you taper off the Klonopin.

 

Good luck.

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Hi,

 

If you instead decide to switch just Klonopin, you should probably take about an additional 0.25mg Klonopin for the 12.5mg Ambien being dropped..

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Just a FYI is all - Ambien comes in 6.25 and 12.5 mg CR formula and 5 mg and 10 mg regular (generic available for the regular ambien but not the CR last I knew). 

 

Tapering the ambien, when it is only coming in 12.5 mg continuous release, might be hard (and the instructions are to never divide it).  To taper I believe you have to switch to the regular form or I guess if you ground it to a powder, you would be able to use it, but then the CR aspect is gone.

 

Also my personal experience with the one time I received generic was that it wasn't the right strength even though it was supposed to be 10 mg it seems more like 5 mg in how I reacted to it. 

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Hi,

 

Good catch, Annie. Yes, CR (controlled Release) benzo pills should not be divided. Either obtain the 6.25mg tablets, and take 6.25mg per day instead of the 12.5mg tablets for 7-14 days (or however long you feel you need before dropping the Ambien completely). Or, do as Eljay suggested, and switch to an additional 0.25mg Klonopin to replace the 12.5mg Ambien. This should represent only a tiny drop in your total daily dose of benzo, and you should be able to start cutting the Klonopin within a week or so.

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Just to be precise about this, I am not aware of any problem with splitting these benzo CR tablets, only that they will no longer act as CR tablets, and will become, in effect, regular release tablets. In this situation, I don't think it matters much if you split these tablets.
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For this med, I agree, I don't think it would matter, however, for other meds, it would be quite crucial to not split them and lose the time release nature.

 

The one that comes to my mind first is Pseudoephedrine HCl - I used to have to take this and it was / is in many cold and allergy pills and the double dose for the 12 hour formula or even the quadruple dose for the 24 hour formula can raise your blood pressure sky high.  Splitting the 24 hour formula in half still give you way too much at a time. 

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hi everyone,

 

thank you for your suggestions.  I tried cutting the ambien pill and that was a disaster.  It was so hard.  Anyway, I saw my psych and guess what he said....that I could just stop the ambien ct since I'm on 2mg of klonopin.  I'm afraid to just stop taking it even though I've only been taking it for around 3 weeks.  Has anyone ever been on ambien and a benzo?  Any suggestions on what to use to cut the ambien pill?

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Hi, eeerooo.

 

I was on lorazepam and ambien.  I took 1/2 -1 of a 10mg pill at night and had no trouble cutting my pill in half with a pill splitter from the drugstore. A razor should also work.  Make sure you have regular ambien.  I'm not sure, but it's possible the ambien xr (extended release) shouldn't be cut up.

 

Klonopin is pretty powerful and 2 mg k. = about 80mg ambien.  Do you take some of your klonopin at bedtime by any chance?  If not, maybe starting to move your evening dose closer to bedtime will make it easier to drop the ambien.  Hopefully, you will be able to do okay on 1/2 a 10 mg pill before stopping it all together.

 

 

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