Benzos Liquid Valium Advice (Tapering Off Benzos)

[DaftPunkFan]

Hey everyone,

Just a brief background, I used Xanax for 2 years, then switched to Klonopin to start taper off, then I moved to Valium 10mg a day. From there, I went down to 4mg where I'm at now, and finally got my doctor to prescribe me Liquid Diazepam to help me the rest of the way...
I was getting a lot of support from thetrap.org.uk, but as some of you know they have shut down.

I'm using 5mg/5mL liquid Diazepam, and I just have a few questions for people who have successfully tapered off Benzos using this method, and really just liquid medication in general:

1.) I'm going to get a few 1mL Oral Syringes to measure out my dose, and I'm wondering what's the best way to carry around this stuff? I currently am taking 2mg twice a day, so say if I'm going to be gone before I take my 2nd dose, what's a good way to bring it with me? I was either thinking of measuring a dose into a small vial or something like that (keep in mind it's only 2mL), or mixing into a drink to carry around with me?
2.) For those of you who have tapered off Valium, how small of cuts were you making towards the end of your taper? Like .25mg every 2 weeks, or smaller?

It's so much more convenient to carry around pills, but I really want to get off this crap and I'm feeling good about how small of cuts I can make now with the Liquid.

Thanks! :D

 

[Tommyboy]

I have personal experience tapering with valium, although I was using the pill form so can't answer how to carry around the liquid.

I had been prescribed 3mg of xanax a day for 3 years or so before deciding to taper. I tapered down to 1mg of xanax a day before switching over to 10mg of valium a day. I used the 2mg pills once I got below 10mg of valium.

I had been tapering the valium down 2mg a month before getting down to 4mg, which is when I slowed the taper down to decreasing by 1mg a month. I was very busy with school at the time and under a lot of stress, which is why I was taking it slow. When I lowered my doses I would alternate the 1mg drop every other day before stabilizing at the lower dose. I would alternate for about 2 weeks, and then stabilize at the lower dose for 2 weeks before dropping again.

So 4mg Sun, 3mg Mon, 4mg Tues, 3mg Wed, etc... for up to two weeks, and then 3mg for the remaining 2 weeks of the month, and repeating the process the next month. Once I got down to 2mg (I was using the 2mg pills) I dropped by .5mg a month. So from 2mg down to 1.5 I would still alternate like before, but on the days of the lower dose I would take 1mg usually around noon (I usually tried to see how long I could wait before dosing it), and then .5 at night.

From there [1.5mg] I would take the 1mg dose during the day, and at night I took the .5 (if I felt I didn't need the full .5 at night I would try to get by with .25). I did this until I got down to 1mg, and then alternated days between 1mg and .5mg [days that I took the 1mg I had been taking it in split doses (.5 in the morning, and the other .5 at night unless I could get by with .25 at night)]. Once I was down to .5mg a day, I began to dose every other day, and sometimes just took .25mg on the days that I was trying to skip but needed it to get some sleep.

Once I stabilized at .5mg every other day, I started to replace the .5mg doses with .25mg, while keeping the dosing schedule of alternating days. I eventually got down to taking little pieces (between .25 and .5) for 1 day, then skipping 2 days, so basically 1 dose every 3 days. I got close to completely getting off of it a few times, making it to day 4, but I ended up going back to 1mg a day after some unexpected personal problems arose. I was very close to being off of it though, so my tapering schedule should work for you.

The same dosing should apply with the liquid valium, so since you are now taking 2mg twice a day, I recommend taking the 2mg in the morning, and then 1mg at night, and alternating days between the 4mg and 3mg dose until you stabilize at 3mg, staying at the 3mg dose for a few weeks, and then repeating the process.

Why don't you get the 2mg pills instead of the liquid? I don't see much of a benefit for using the liquid until you get below 1mg, and even then you can still 1/4 the 2mg pill to get 4 .5mg doses per pill. Once you get down to that low of a dose of valium you dealing with such a low dose of one of the less potent benzos, so dosing does not have to be that precise since you really can't be off by that much if you happen to break it unevenly. If you are content on using the liquid valium I don't know about it so someone else will hopefully know what the best way to store it and dose it.

 

[DaftPunkFan]

Thanks for detailing your taper plan, that was really helpful! I've never thought about alternating doses between days like you did, then stabilizing for the last 2 weeks of the month. Good idea, I'll give it a go.

I had the 2mg pills. I used the 5mg pills when I started with Valium at 10mg, then I switched to the 2mg pills once I got to 6mg. The problem I had with them is I can pretty accurately cut them into quarters, but that only leaves me with 0.5mg being the smallest cut. Although you seemed to do alright cutting in 0.5mg increments, so maybe it would be doable for me...

I just noticed it starting to get rough once I got below 5mg a day (cutting at 0.5mg at a time before), and with the liquid Valium I could accurately cut in 0.10mg increments if I wanted to, using a 1mL syringe.

 

[Tommyboy]

There was someone on here that had tapered down to 0.5mg and been at that dose for a while, and they finally stopped and got off of it just fine. They had been on benzos for a long time, so if anyone were to experience problems coming off that dose, they would have.

Here's how I thought about .5mg valium as a suitable dose to come off at. Lets say that .5 xanax = 5mg valium (I know a lot of charts have .5 xanax = 10mg valium, but my example works either way). That would mean that coming off at .5 of diazepam would be like coming off of xanax or klonopin at .05mg if using the lower conversion, or .025mg of xanax or klonopin if using the more common conversion chart. If you went down to .25mg valium before stopping, it would be like coming off of xanax or klonopin at like non-existent doses (.025mg-.0125mg depending on conversion chart).

 

[The.Ghost]

Why not dry the pre-measured liquid out on a mirror / glass plate, scrape up the residue, and load it into a gelcap? If it doesn't dry all the way (I don't know what's in it) a little bit of some fine powder (flour?) should make it manageable. Just one idea.

 

[DaftPunkFan]

There was someone on here that had tapered down to 0.5mg and been at that dose for a while, and they finally stopped and got off of it just fine. They had been on benzos for a long time, so if anyone were to experience problems coming off that dose, they would have.

Here's how I thought about .5mg valium as a suitable dose to come off at. Lets say that .5 xanax = 5mg valium (I know a lot of charts have .5 xanax = 10mg valium, but my example works either way). That would mean that coming off at .5 of diazepam would be like coming off of xanax or klonopin at .05mg if using the lower conversion, or .025mg of xanax or klonopin if using the more common conversion chart. If you went down to .25mg valium before stopping, it would be like coming off of xanax or klonopin at like non-existent doses (.025mg-.0125mg depending on conversion chart).

Yeah man, I totally know what you mean. I've definitely thought about that before, how ridiculously small the Valium cuts are when I compare them with what that would be with Xanax. It seems ridiculous because 0.125mg of Xanax is 2.5mg of Valium, but looking back at when I took Xanax, cutting 0.125mg would be literally nothing. Even cutting back a whole 0.25mg Xanax pill seemed like nothing, so yeah it's kind of weird to think about how small it becomes when you convert it to Valium.

I think I'm going to cut 0.25mg every week or 2 weeks (just because I can with the liquid), so I'm gonna try to pretty much do what you did, maybe a little slower.

Also just curious, were you drinking any alcohol or caffeine towards the end? I'm trying to completely avoid both, but it's hard sometimes. I notice caffeine messes with me a little bit, but alcohol really leaves me feeling fucked up the next day...

 

[DaftPunkFan]

Why not dry the pre-measured liquid out on a mirror / glass plate, scrape up the residue, and load it into a gelcap? If it doesn't dry all the way (I don't know what's in it) a little bit of some fine powder (flour?) should make it manageable. Just one idea.

I'll give this a try, I never thought about measuring out gelcaps. Thanks!

 

[ErgicMergic]

Also just curious, were you drinking any alcohol or caffeine towards the end? I'm trying to completely avoid both, but it's hard sometimes. I notice caffeine messes with me a little bit, but alcohol really leaves me feeling fucked up the next day...

Alcohol is the absolute last thing you want to take when you're tapering benzos. Even in benzo PAWS, alcohol tends to give horrible anxiety for the next 2 days.

 

[Tommyboy]

Also just curious, were you drinking any alcohol or caffeine towards the end? I'm trying to completely avoid both, but it's hard sometimes. I notice caffeine messes with me a little bit, but alcohol really leaves me feeling fucked up the next day...

Avoid both. I would get "the shakes" after just one night of drinking when I was tapering off of benzos, making the hangover even worse.
Caffeine just made me more anxious and would sometimes set me back a day since I would have to take a little bit more valium to even it out.

 

[DaftPunkFan]

Avoid both. I would get "the shakes" after just one night of drinking when I was tapering off of benzos, making the hangover even worse.
Caffeine just made me more anxious and would sometimes set me back a day since I would have to take a little bit more valium to even it out.

Cool thanks, yeah I'll stay clear of both. I used to be able to get away with a few drinks, but it just messes up the level of Valium so much it's really not worth it.

Yeah I feel like an idiot even asking about Caffeine, but I finally quit yesterday. I guess I really only drank 1 coffee or so a day just because of feeling tired/spaced out from the Valium, but then it ends up making me feel worse later on, so yeah no more Caffeine either 8(

Thanks everyone

 

[DaftPunkFan]

Alcohol is the absolute last thing you want to take when you're tapering benzos. Even in benzo PAWS, alcohol tends to give horrible anxiety for the next 2 days.

Yeah no more alcohol, otherwise I'll never get off this shit...
And I didn't think about PAWS but yeah I probably can't drink for quite a while.
Thanks for the input!

 

[DaftPunkFan]

Anybody else got some advice? I'm having a super hard time getting below 4mg a day, I feel so spaced out and I've been in the 4-4.5mg range for about 3 months now, so I know I have to cut as soon as possible.

I guess what I don't get is this: At some point you become adjusted to the dose you're at, then you make another small cut and suffer for a little bit, etc. But at some point you have to be getting a tolerance to the dose you're at, right? So then what do you do?

Say in my case I've been at 4mg for so long, and now I'd say I'm tolerant to this dose (4.5mg makes me feel a lot better), but now I have to cut down to like 3.5mg and I know I'll feel even worse...

Damn I hate this stuff. Thanks everyone

 

[easy as]

How did you get prescribed liquid Valium? I abused the shit out of that with liquid Demerol but never scribed. I think if you went to pills it might be easier to taper. They have 1 mg Valium. Cutting .5 should be negligible. I would try Tommyboy's reduction plan. Thing is, if you don't quit drinking alcohol, caffeine, or doing other things that would usually bring you to hit the benzos I would expect a long hard taper. Possibly a year. But, take it slow those things are hell esp the liquid. It's just too easy to shoot more than needed.

 

[DaftPunkFan]

How did you get prescribed liquid Valium? I abused the shit out of that with liquid Demerol but never scribed. I think if you went to pills it might be easier to taper. They have 1 mg Valium. Cutting .5 should be negligible. I would try Tommyboy's reduction plan. Thing is, if you don't quit drinking alcohol, caffeine, or doing other things that would usually bring you to hit the benzos I would expect a long hard taper. Possibly a year. But, take it slow those things are hell esp the liquid. It's just too easy to shoot more than needed.

I actually asked my doctor to switch me from 2mg Valium pills to 5mg/5mL liquid Valium cause he said 2mg pills were the smallest (although I swear I've heard of 1mg pills like you said). So anyways, that was my doing.

I think the main reason I switched is because I can cut 0.25mg if I wanted to, but I'll probably just suck it up and cut 0.5mg. I guess I just feel like hell and I really don't want to cut, if anything I want to take more but that's not really an option.

I've haven't had a problem with taking more because it's liquid, but yeah I see what you mean. If I had this stuff back when I actually was abusing benzos... my God lol

 

[DaftPunkFan]

3.5mg Daily

Hey everyone,

I'm down to 3.5mg Valium a day, and I'm just wondering if anyone that's finished a benzo taper could give me some advice.
Just wondering if you could suggest some tips for the final parts of tapering, maybe things that helped you transition into life after stopping completely?

Honestly I feel pretty good right now, but I am quite frightened that I'm going to feel pretty bad once I'm down to like 1mg a day, etc.
Any suggestions from experience are greatly appreciated. Thanks!

 

[phatass]

strange you have liquid diazepam coz they make 2mg pills that cut n half. so normallyyou can taper down to 1mg with just pills

 

[PeacePipeChief]

I stumbled across some liquid Valium that was made for IV/IM injection , and it was really good , had a bit of a rush too , just felt like sharing that .. Anyone else ever had IV/IM Valium ?

 

[DaftPunkFan]

strange you have liquid diazepam coz they make 2mg pills that cut n half. so normallyyou can taper down to 1mg with just pills

Yeah I had 2mg pills for a while, then switched to liquid so I could make accurate 0.25mg cuts.
Probably could have stuck with the pills and cut them into quarters, but the liquid seems easier...