Finding the Sweet Spot

So the main problem I seem to be encountering right now is 'Finding my sweet spot'

 

There is a sweet spot where I am withdrawing just enough where I feel good but not too much for it to spiral out of control. But I can't always tell when I'm there or in 'danger zone withdrawal markers' that are telling me I need to back off.

 

How do you know you are in the sweet spot?

Honest answer? I don't know. Just when you think you've found it, and everything is going well, the benzo changes the rules and - ooops - it's gone again. I think you just have to always be vigilent and act as soon as you feel the slightest hint of a problem. Having said that, I've always used afternoon headaches as my early warning sign, but just lately my sleep has gone to sh**, but I haven't had any headaches at all - so who knows what's going on ....

Hi Smiff

I think the sweet spot is very elusive too. What helped me was a daily log noting any uptick of symptoms on a 1-10 scale.  When symptoms ticked up any little bit I would immediately hold or take an updose and then do a hold. It also helped to throw in holds along the way even when I felt well. My shortest hold  was one day and my longest was 17 days. It was also necessary to reduce my cut rate multiple times. As you can tell from my sig line, my last few months in particular were really really slow. There were certainly a lot of mistakes along the way which took a significant time to correct. The slowness of the process continuously surprised me. IMO, the fundamental problem is we want off the benzo asap which leads to pushing the taper too fast. During a taper, particularly with Valium, problems seem to gather without much of a hint over a period of time and then hit all at once. Very early recognition will hold them off. Whenever in doubt, always take the conservative route. You know you're in the sweet spot when symptoms are minor or diminishing as your dose continues to drop. I doubt anybody has ever done it perfectly but it does seem possible for some to do a taper without too bad of symptoms. Good luck.

Bart

Oh dear Bart and DP.. If anyone is going to know how to find the sweet spot it is you two.

 

I guess the sweet spot is just always going to be a little tricky, perhaps particularly because of valium's long half life.

 

My taper is in the sweet spot the last few days. I'm on what should be a manageable regime of 0.03% out of almost 8mgs in addition to sweet sweet daily bikram yoga keeping me steady. Fingers crossed eh xx

Well, that's good to hear.

 

My dose will be at 0.8mg tomorrow night, so my current plan is to hold for a week, and then each time I reduce by 0.1mg I will do another hold for a week (or whatever I feel is right at the time). I have no idea if this will help, but I guess doing a regular hold every few weeks certainly won't hurt, particularly now that my dose is getting in the "teeny tiny" category.

Hi Smiff

Sounds like you've got it going well. I did get better at it as I went along. Don't be afraid to try different things and always always go with the conservative option when faced with a choice. With this method I was able to arrive at the end of my taper fairly close to healed but the process was painstakingly slow and a lot of it was just plain boring.

 

Hey DP

I'll bet your intermittent holds will help. Your tissue levels will still be falling while you hold. Preventing problems in the first place will get you healed faster than waiting for problems to crop up and then fixing them.

 

Bart

Thanks Bart. It was actually a similar comment you made on another thread that made me decide to follow this routine. You are a constant source of wisdom for me...... I bow to THE BART!

So the main problem I seem to be encountering right now is 'Finding my sweet spot'

 

There is a sweet spot where I am withdrawing just enough where I feel good but not too much for it to spiral out of control. But I can't always tell when I'm there or in 'danger zone withdrawal markers' that are telling me I need to back off.

 

How do you know you are in the sweet spot?

 

For me, it's minimal WD that is almost non existent. I pay attention to certain things that seem to show up to let me know holding a bit longer might be needed. My taper is always the same percent since I found my sweet spot. But I know the symptoms that start showing up as a clue that WD could be coming which for me are:

 

1)  tinnitus that is persistent rather than off and on but more off

2)  headaches, blurry vision beyond reading because I need glasses that magnify as a norm to read

3)  insomnia of any sort (though this is one I sometimes cause unrelated to WD where I get involved in a TV series, movie or video game and stay up too late and get 5 or less hours sleep - this for me can trigger more insomnia so I have to be really good about getting to bed by midnite or 1am the latest)

 

Those are the ones right off the bat that I watch. The trick is to pay attention to what your symptoms are. Keeping a journal is VERY helpful. I even have an excel spreadsheet I track some things on. If you write your symptoms and rate your WD for each day, you can start to see patterns and become aware of what certain triggers are and when you do your best. When you write WD symptoms in it and rate you WD level you will notice certain things are signs. My three things above are my signs. I watch the headaches. I hold for headaches if when it's time to cut I'm still getting them. Blurry vision or dizziness that shows up and stays for a while is also a sign. If it shows up after a cut and stays well into the cut I know I cut too soon and should hold a little longer. My sweet spot has no or only fleeting dizziness or blurry vision. You have to know what you symptoms are and which ones ramp up when the wheels on the wagon are getting lose.

 

Also, paying attention to things that contribute to WD are key. This is where insomnia comes in for me but it can also be a sign that I cut too high or too soon. For me, sugar, processed foods and carbs ramp up WD stuff. So I avoid them or when I have them I know the dues. Equally worthy of mentioning are things that help minimize WD which for me are exercise (moderate to a light challenge), periodic crying as a stress reliever (sad movies are great for this), and (sorry if this is TMI but I've found it works for me) orgasms - MASSIVE stress reliever and great for helping with sleep.

 

Once you find the cut and hold that works for you, it's generally smooth but for some it takes a bit to get there. Just pay attention to whatever symptoms are signs to you that things are ramping up. But as a general rule, noticing any kind of increase in symptoms is a sign to hold or cut less.

 

Hi Smiff

I think the sweet spot is very elusive too. What helped me was a daily log noting any uptick of symptoms on a 1-10 scale.  When symptoms ticked up any little bit I would immediately hold or take an updose and then do a hold. It also helped to throw in holds along the way even when I felt well. My shortest hold  was one day and my longest was 17 days. It was also necessary to reduce my cut rate multiple times. As you can tell from my sig line, my last few months in particular were really really slow. There were certainly a lot of mistakes along the way which took a significant time to correct. The slowness of the process continuously surprised me. IMO, the fundamental problem is we want off the benzo asap which leads to pushing the taper too fast. During a taper, particularly with Valium, problems seem to gather without much of a hint over a period of time and then hit all at once. Very early recognition will hold them off. Whenever in doubt, always take the conservative route. You know you're in the sweet spot when symptoms are minor or diminishing as your dose continues to drop. I doubt anybody has ever done it perfectly but it does seem possible for some to do a taper without too bad of symptoms. Good luck.

Bart

 

This is what I do though I do cut and hold method.

 

I pay attention to symptoms as they show up and stay. The stay part is the key because I can go a few cuts with a bit of tinnitus here or there but not there as a norm or maybe I'll have a bit of blurry vision but overall I don't. Something like that I pay attention to. Then if it shows up early in the next cut and lingers for a good portion of it or if it's ramped up at all, I know that a hold is needed. But the good thing is that when I see the hold is needed the symptoms aren't bad. They are just on my radar so even then it's not a rough cut. It's just a bit more symptomatic yet overall, I'm still functioning well.

 

I can relate to a lot of what is being said here.

 

After finally recognizing that I was cutting too fast, which took me a while after switching to liquid titration because the lag time of V was different from the cut & hold method, I started over at .005 mg/day. That's .2 ml from a 200 ml milk suspension; it's easier for me to work with liquid measurements than mg's.

 

I kept this rate for 3 weeks, HOLDING ON SATS AND SUNS, then moved up to .3 ml for 3 weeks with weekend holds, and so forth. I am currently beginning my third week at .5 ml. (.0125 mg). I felt like I was finally in my groove, or SWEET SPOT, until just yesterday when I woke up with some G.I. discomfort and a head that felt like I had a fever. Maybe that's what people call tinnitus. It reminds me of when I used to get a lot of fevers as a kid. Hard to describe--a sort of throbbing in my head, with the ringing noise definitely there but not bad enough to be terribly distracting, and a kind of lightheadedness that makes me a bit dizzy and clumsy.

 

These, I believe, are my current 'early warning signs' of cuts catching up. Thank you all who continue to urge caution and taking it slow--I can never hear this wisdom too often. I think I'll hold here at 31 ml (from 200) for a few days or until this goes away.

 

I'm convinced that, after 19 years on K, this isn't going to be a speedy process and to try to push through these signs would just be folly. I've learned too much from my own mistakes, from you guys, and from reading the stories of so many who've gone before us to fool myself into believing otherwise. I hope! 

Besides, I've decided I don't care much for the symptoms of benzo withdrawal and would just as soon go without them (this is known as understatement).

 

Sorry if my lack of math skills is confusing. Does anyone else doing liquid titration work with ml's rather than mg's? I just keep my eye on the next amount of dopey milk to pull from the jar and leave it at that. Once a month, I try to do the math and update my sig. Next update, dec 3.  -utc

 

 

Sorry if my lack of math skills is confusing. Does anyone else doing liquid titration work with ml's rather than mg's? I just keep my eye on the next amount of dopey milk to pull from the jar and leave it at that. Once a month, I try to do the math and update my sig. Next update, dec 3.  -utc

 

Yes I always work in mls too, but I "translate" that whenever I post anything. I'm using a 100ml water and liquid valium solution and currently each day I reduce by 0.6ml, but that translates to 0.006mg in benzo-speak..lol...

Lots of good advice on this thread. Basically, know thyself. I'll have do more "research" on therapeutic O's. Uma Corbett from the Bristol Tranquillizer Project in the UK talks to an awful lot of people withdrawing from benzos and says 3-4 years is a common timeframe for healing. I believe that tapering faster does not cause us to heal any faster than a slower taper does provided we don't develop some adverse reaction to the benzo we are withdrawing from. Actually, a faster taper may slow the overall healing process because glutamate toxicity which comes most often from a sudden lowering of our doses actually kills neurons. They won't grow back overnight. There is abundant anecdotal evidence on these boards that a cold turkey is more likely to land you on a protracted withdrawal thread. Experts such as Ashton and Reg Peart also believe that a cold turkey is more likely to result in a protracted withdrawal state than a taper. During a taper we are all effectively in tolerance or relative withdrawal as our doses are lower than the amount our body "needs" to feel reasonably well. So the idea that we can develop tolerance withdrawal from tapering too slow is nonsense. I think it's best to just relax, listen to your body and tease the dose down gently using whatever method you wish. It will eventually end and  with extremely few exceptions, we will all heal, even the cold turkiers. I'm now  about 2 months out  since I ended my taper and will continue to take really tiny doses intermittently just to slow the final transition a little  as the last dregs of Valium leaches from my tissues.

 

 

Sorry if my lack of math skills is confusing. Does anyone else doing liquid titration work with ml's rather than mg's? I just keep my eye on the next amount of dopey milk to pull from the jar and leave it at that. Once a month, I try to do the math and update my sig. Next update, dec 3.  -utc

 

Yes I always work in mls too, but I "translate" that whenever I post anything. I'm using a 100ml water and liquid valium solution and currently each day I reduce by 0.6ml, but that translates to 0.006mg in benzo-speak..lol...

 

Same. Because I use the same method as DP it is easy to translate the mls to mgs: you just chuck 2 zeros in front.

 

I'm still working on what my early warning signs are. I think they may be any insomnia and any beginnings of heart palps; possibly headaches though I'm still recovering from concussion so headaches are part of it.

I know my no-s/x cut rate isn't higher then 5% every 2 weeks so that will always help as a guide.

 

I have an excel doc that I cross off my dosages so I may add a simple numbering system from 1-10 to monitor s/x. I'm thinking any days above a 3 probably warrants a hold given micro-tapering Vs slow s/x catch up rate.

 

A valuable discussion my dear BBs!