Gratuitous Grace
Bluelighter
I haven't seen a discussion of this before, and I can't find anything in a cursory search. So, I want to share the following in case it might be of benefit to someone here.
I've been taking a benzo regularly (not recreationally) for nearly 15 years. For the first 7 years, it was Xanax. For the last 8 years, it's been Klonopin. (The immediate switch from Xanax to Klonopin in '07, done under a doctor's care, was hell on earth. But, that's a different story.) I never intended to be on Klonopin this long -- obviously? The idea was to taper from 6 or 8 mg (I can't remember precisely) to zero over the course of a year or so. Well ... that never happened! It's been years of up and down doses, better and worse intentions, different docs, different goals. Some quick math tells me that I've eaten something like 20,000 little pills over the last decade and a half. What a nightmare.
Finally, I started seeing a psychiatrist who very aggressively pushed an agenda of complete liberation from benzos. (I understand that this is not what everyone wants or needs. After discussing the issue with me and seeing my distress, this doctor came to understand that this is what I want and need.) We had some disagreements in the initial phases. I subscribe to Ashton-esque ideas and wanted to switch over to Valium; we couldn't agree on the equivalence, however. So, we gave up on that. (I didn't mind. Even with "my" equivalence, it was unpleasant.) I then suggested a 1% per day "titration," but he thought that sounded ridiculously tedious. So, we were stuck -- until I came down with pneumonia about a month ago.
I was out of work and taking a fairly strong (very sedating) antihistamine called Promethazine. When I noticed just how sedating it was (and given that I was going to be home for a week or two and feeling like crap anyway), I decided to make an aggressive Klonopin cut. I went from 2 mg to 1-1/2 mg. This is not a reduction that I could have tolerated under normal circumstances; but, with the strong antihistamine ... well ... let's just say that it wasn't a disaster. I got through it. I reported back to my psychiatrist, and he said that he would much rather have me on cough syrup than on Klonopin, but that he might be able to do better for me. He gave me a prescription for Remeron (generic = Mirtazapine) and said "this will knock you on your ass at night ... make another cut."
I discovered that Remeron is used to treat major depression (which I do not have) and that it's incredibly sedating -- more like total-mental-fog-inducing (at least at first). So, I made the cut. I went from 1-1/2 mg to 1 mg along with Remeron. Pretty tolerable. WUT?! Yeah ... I was so sedated that the withdrawal effects were minimal. It's almost as though I knew mentally that I was experiencing them; but, physically, they were not showing through. I was worried that the initial "fog" of Remeron wouldn't sustain, so I wanted to get very aggressive. With permission, I made another cut from 1 mg to 1/2 mg. Now, a 50% reduction like this would have been totally unthinkable to me before -- some form of insanity, not to mention torture. But, I did it without too much unpleasantness. A little bit of teeth grinding, a little bit of twitchiness, a little bit of "oh, I don't like this feeling." Anyone who knows, knows. But, I mean, c'mon -- that's about 10% as bad as it would otherwise have been.
2 mg to 1/2 mg in about a month? I would have called you nuts if you had suggested that a reduction like that could have been made in comfort. But, there it is. I'm getting close. And, mostly, I have hope that I can finish this off once and for all. I'm not sure exactly where to go from here. That's a discussion to be had shortly with my psychiatrist. But, it's not too early to pass this along to anyone who might be suffering through this stage of a taper. It can be made so much smoother in a bunch of ways; this is the way that has seemed to work best for me. And maybe it's something for others to try if they're stuck.
I've been taking a benzo regularly (not recreationally) for nearly 15 years. For the first 7 years, it was Xanax. For the last 8 years, it's been Klonopin. (The immediate switch from Xanax to Klonopin in '07, done under a doctor's care, was hell on earth. But, that's a different story.) I never intended to be on Klonopin this long -- obviously? The idea was to taper from 6 or 8 mg (I can't remember precisely) to zero over the course of a year or so. Well ... that never happened! It's been years of up and down doses, better and worse intentions, different docs, different goals. Some quick math tells me that I've eaten something like 20,000 little pills over the last decade and a half. What a nightmare.
Finally, I started seeing a psychiatrist who very aggressively pushed an agenda of complete liberation from benzos. (I understand that this is not what everyone wants or needs. After discussing the issue with me and seeing my distress, this doctor came to understand that this is what I want and need.) We had some disagreements in the initial phases. I subscribe to Ashton-esque ideas and wanted to switch over to Valium; we couldn't agree on the equivalence, however. So, we gave up on that. (I didn't mind. Even with "my" equivalence, it was unpleasant.) I then suggested a 1% per day "titration," but he thought that sounded ridiculously tedious. So, we were stuck -- until I came down with pneumonia about a month ago.
I was out of work and taking a fairly strong (very sedating) antihistamine called Promethazine. When I noticed just how sedating it was (and given that I was going to be home for a week or two and feeling like crap anyway), I decided to make an aggressive Klonopin cut. I went from 2 mg to 1-1/2 mg. This is not a reduction that I could have tolerated under normal circumstances; but, with the strong antihistamine ... well ... let's just say that it wasn't a disaster. I got through it. I reported back to my psychiatrist, and he said that he would much rather have me on cough syrup than on Klonopin, but that he might be able to do better for me. He gave me a prescription for Remeron (generic = Mirtazapine) and said "this will knock you on your ass at night ... make another cut."
I discovered that Remeron is used to treat major depression (which I do not have) and that it's incredibly sedating -- more like total-mental-fog-inducing (at least at first). So, I made the cut. I went from 1-1/2 mg to 1 mg along with Remeron. Pretty tolerable. WUT?! Yeah ... I was so sedated that the withdrawal effects were minimal. It's almost as though I knew mentally that I was experiencing them; but, physically, they were not showing through. I was worried that the initial "fog" of Remeron wouldn't sustain, so I wanted to get very aggressive. With permission, I made another cut from 1 mg to 1/2 mg. Now, a 50% reduction like this would have been totally unthinkable to me before -- some form of insanity, not to mention torture. But, I did it without too much unpleasantness. A little bit of teeth grinding, a little bit of twitchiness, a little bit of "oh, I don't like this feeling." Anyone who knows, knows. But, I mean, c'mon -- that's about 10% as bad as it would otherwise have been.
2 mg to 1/2 mg in about a month? I would have called you nuts if you had suggested that a reduction like that could have been made in comfort. But, there it is. I'm getting close. And, mostly, I have hope that I can finish this off once and for all. I'm not sure exactly where to go from here. That's a discussion to be had shortly with my psychiatrist. But, it's not too early to pass this along to anyone who might be suffering through this stage of a taper. It can be made so much smoother in a bunch of ways; this is the way that has seemed to work best for me. And maybe it's something for others to try if they're stuck.
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