Posted by bleauberry on October 10, 2008, at 15:00:01
In reply to Want to taper down on my valium- Advice, posted by thinkingitover on October 9, 2008, at 15:57:12
Gradual non-hurried weaning is what you want, along with tiny steps down in dosage along the way. This can be done by quartering pills, or cutting chunks off pills, or dividing up capsule powder, or getting liquid versions. Basically, reduce dose in a very small increment, for example 1/2mg perhaps, stay there for 4 days, then reduce again. If at any time it is intolerable, go back to the previous dose you were last at, stay there 4 days to stabilize, then reduce again.
Tiny steps, no hurry. You'll get there with the least amount of discomfort this way. For me coming off of 8 years of the antipsychotic zyprexa, the journey from 5mg to 0mg in tiny chunks was about 3 months. Each step down was roughly .25mg (tiny chunks or slivers). Even after that, there was still another month of mild withdrawal and another 2 months of adjustment until I settled into a stable baseline. The moral of the story is, you will reach your goal, just take your time, don't be in a hurry to get there, it is a marathon not a sprint, give the nervous system plenty of time to adjust with each step along the way, avoid traumatic shock to your system which happens when decreasing dose in large steps. And as you already pointed out, there will be some discomfort and adjustment along the way. The goal is to minimize it so you can continue with each day, and to stay focused on the ultimate goal of getting down to just a bedtime dose.
Oh, and if you don't have liquid, don't worry about the doses not being exact. For example if you are cutting or chunking pills, one dose might be .25mg, anothe maybe .33mg, another maybe .20mg. That's ok, small variation like that won't matter, and is actually a good thing because it helps train the brain to become more able to respond quickly and adapt.
poster:bleauberry
thread:856627
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20081006/msgs/856768.html