Help with drug tapering with limited dosages

[bizbugz]

Hi everyone. I am looking for advice onhelping my wife taper from her current Bipolar drugs, she want to gocold turkey and I am advising to taper. She feels that the drugs aredoing more harm than good. We have been tapering for 2 months. Shewas manic and is now depressed but getting better over the last 2months. She has been on these drugs for 8 months. She was previouslyon other drugs for 20 years. Over the last 2 months we have went fromthe following, all are daily totals.


Geodon 80mg x2 to 40mg x2
Gabapentin 400mg x3 to 200mg x2
Depakote DR 500mg x2 to 750mg totaldaily
Ativan 2mg for sleep


We had a falling out with ourPsychiatrist due to us pushing too hard on bringing down the DepakoteDR. He wanted to hold firm at 1000mg so we have taken matters intoour own hands and have managed to split pills into small groups andspread them through the day as to get the effect of delayed release.We do not have access to small mg doses of Depakote yet, only 500 mg.1000mg of Depakote was totally wiping her out and it had becomeobvious through trial and error that the Depakote level is was toohigh. She is doing better every day and thinking more clearly.


Any advice would be awesome. We wenttoday for a consult for a new Psychiatrist and they said we could seea Dr in June. We do not have that kind of time. We believe we will beable to continue to get these dosages until then through our PrimaryCare Dr. Dosages we have are Gabapentin 100mg, Depakote DR 500mg,Geodon 40mg, Ativan 2mg. Gabapentin and Ativan dosage sizes are finebut we need Depakote DR and Geodon in a reduced size. These are theonly dosages we have so it is becoming harder to taper withoutsmaller size dosages. It's a shame it is so hard for someone to getoff drugs, kind of backwards but with all the $$$$ they stand to gainwriting scripts it is understandable.


Any suggestions on taper schedule orbreaking dosages would be helpful.
Thank you

 

[Keif' Richards]

Could you tell me specifically why the Depakote cannot be sliced into smaller and smaller pieces? It's not perfect, as nothing truly is, but if you take a given pill, any pill, provided it's not specifically designed to be different, the concentration of active drug should be uniform throughout the mass. If you break off a random chuck of a given size, any other random chuck should be almost exactly the same in terms of active drug.

Tell me about the Gabapentin (Neurontin) and Lorazepam (Ativan). How often is she taking them? Neither of these should be fucked with. Truthfully, you shouldn't fuck too hard with the Depakote either, which I don't think you are, I just want you to be aware that you are dealing with a cocktail of drugs that has the potential to cause death by abrupt cessation. That's a reality.

With that in mind, what's the status of the Gabapentin and Benzodiazepine intake?

 

[bizbugz]

Hello and thank you for the reply, Lorazepam (Ativan) is only for night to help sleep which we will be lowering soon to 1.5 and then 1. Tried Ambien for sleep 1 night and that was a horror story, scariest shit out there. No one should ever take that shit unless they are chained down to a bed.

The Depakote is DR, delayed release, since we only have 500mg pills and the Depakote is DR we need to Delay release manually, Therefor we have to cut the Depakote into smaller doses and take throughout the day. I need Depakote 250 and 125 to prevent from having to do this. We are doing 250mg during the day, half a pill divided 4 times and given every 3 hours. At night we are still doing a 500mg DR. We could lower the dose at night but then my wife would have to get up many times during the night and that may effect sleep.

Gabapentin (Neurontin) 200mg in the morning (11am) and 200mg at night (11:00pm). 400 daily total, she was on 1200mg daily about 2 1/2 months ago and we have tappered to current dose.

Geodon 40mg in the morning (11am) and 40mg at night (11pm). 80mg daily total, she was at 160 mg daily about 2 1/2 months ago.

Her current condition is improving every day. She is sleeping well. I have noticed her thinking and brain activity gets better at night 8-11pm. It seems the further she gets away from her morning dose the better she gets after 8pm. I can tell that when her morning meds kick in (1pm - 4pm) she gets drowsy and brain activity is diminished.

Keep in mind, we are tappering off of these drugs because she wanted to go cold turkey on them all, she is tired of being on drugs. She has never not been on drugs for 24 years.

All of the above meds have been taken for 8 months. The only reason for change is because Toledo Hospital took her off her Lithium because of a double kidney infection. Toledo Hospital never offered to replace her 1200mg of daily lithium and basically sent her home to go crazy from withdrawal and it landed her in ER for a 6 day Vacation on the psych floor. Shame on Toledo Hospital. That was before I had a clue about these meds. I now have a very good grasp of them but just need a little help from someone that knows more than me.

I need 20mg Geodon pills, 125mg Depakote DR and 250mg Depakote DR. I know you can buy them online and we may have to as we progress through the taper. Her current Psychiatrist dumped us because we were too persistent for him and he loves to write med$. We are waiting to see a new one in April and should be done tapering by then.

What are your thoughts?
Thank you