Posted by fachad on December 8, 2010, at 19:54:32
In reply to Tapering off problems - what to do?, posted by hansi555 on December 4, 2010, at 13:19:14
My method in a nutshell:
1. determine the smallest increment you can reduce your dose by;
2. determine the half-life of your med;
3. drop one increment; wait 5 half-lives (to reach steady state); then wait 5 more half-lives to see if discontinuation symptoms develop;
4. if you are fine after 10 half lives, drop another increment.
**********
Here's what I wrote to someone else who asked about d/c clonazapam:
Discontinuation, just like iniation, is best done by the "start low, go slow" method.
Clonazapam is supplied in 0.25 mg tablets. I'd try to get those (#60 instead of #30 0.5mg tabs);
then I'd try to quarter them (that would give you 0.0625 chips);
then I'd reduce by one chip per 10 half lives...ok, clonazapam has a half life of 50 hours;
it takes 5 half-lives to reach a steady state concentration;
so after 10 days at 7 (seven) 0.0625 mg chips you are at steady state;
stay at steady state another 10 days to see if you have any problems;
then go down to 6 (six) 0.0625 mg chips for 10 days, wait 10 days...etc.
Since there are 8 increments, and 20 days at each increment; thats 160 days or about 5 months.
If you do it this way, you won't likely feel ANYTHING in the way of unpleasantness.
The faster you decrease the dose, the more likely you are to suffer from severe rebound effects (insomnia, anxiety) and this may cause you to decide to stay on the drug to avoid this nastiness.
Which is why I think it's worth it to go very slow.
It reduces unpleasantness, AND it increases your chances of successfully quitting clonazapam forever..
poster:fachad
thread:972459
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20101203/msgs/972960.html