Failed crossover from Klonopin to Valium, worried about dependence on both

[fuzzydunlop44]

I don't know if anyone here can offer advice or if this is the right place to post this but I'm just really scared and desperate for input. After having a very difficult time with a Valium crossover where I tried to swap one dose of .5 K for 10 mg's of V and dealing with a prescriber who did not understand that I needed to taper slowly, today I went back to my regular daily dosage of 2.5 mg's of Klonopin which I have taken for three and a half years for anxiety even though it stopped working a long time ago for that. I just am wondering in addition to the failed crossover late last year I had a failed Valium substitution as well. So overall I've taken 10mg's of Valium for a total of probably 30 days.
I had always thought that benzos were dose dependent meaning that as long as everything added up to the equivalent of 2.5 mg's of Klonopin that I could just switch back over. But now knowing how different benzos impact different places on the receptors I'm worried that I'm essentially cutting ten mg's of Valium at one time. Maybe I'm over thinking this and that's not a concern but if that's the case then I don't know what to do. Do I need to taper off the benzo even though it was used in substitution of a dose of Klonopin and not an updose? I feel awful and can't stop the ruminating thoughts that all these changes have totally screwed with my already horribly sensitive CNS.

 

[dearie23]

I tapered off both xanax and valium at the same time. I started on 0.5mg xanax, then 1mg xanax, and then I switched to 10mg valium and then 15mg. Always once a day, at night.

I kind of went back and forth and alternated, but when I made the choice to stop, I actually started taking both together, and I tapered back down to 0.5mg xanax while keeping the 15mg valium dose the same. One week on this dose.

Then I tapered down to 10mg valium while keeping the 0.5mg the same. One week on this dose.

Then I went to 0.25mg xanax and kept the 10mg of valium. Another week of this.

Then I was just on the valium. After another week, I went down to 5mg of valium and kept this dose for a few weeks. Going down further to 2mg a night has been ok, but I do find it hard to resist the 5mg some days. I'm getting there slowly, and it hasn't been bad. None of the hideous benzo withdrawals.

The more potent of the two was the xanax so I reduced this one down first while maintaining more steady the higher dose of the longer lasting valium. You should be able to do the same thing.

Oh! And also, to mitigate my natural return to partial insomnia (that benzos fixed while they worked), I started adding an antihistamine taken before bed. While my total benzo dose was still a bit high, I would take a quarter of an over the counter 25mg Doxylamine pill (Unisom, Restavit) and as my benzos reduced, I increased to half a pill, which I still take.

Good luck!