Taper plan to avoid severe withdrawal symptoms

[thebige]

For those of you that either find themselves in trouble,or just want to stop their drug use for whatever reason,and don't want to go the cold turkey route,this may help.
Now doctors seem to ramp people up on the meds pretty quick,and will take them off of them just as quickly,but this is the recomended method to taper off of medication properly,without suffering severe withdrawal symptoms(acording to a old doctor swim used to see).This method worked great for swim,once or twice when he stuck to it.
This should work for opiates,methadone and antidepressants,etc.But check with your Doctor first.

This is pretty simple,because all you are going to do is decrease your drug by one third every fourth day.You need to stay with the one third formula or it will not work properly.If you have to, round up to the next highest mg.Because some meds just cant be split.One thing you don't want to do is take extra meds one day because it will spike your blood plasma level and screw up the whole formula.And also you need that fourth day for your body to stablize on that amount of mg.

So just say you take 240mg of your doc.
On days 1-3 take your 240mg.But on day four decrese your mg by 1/3, 240/3=80mg So your dose for days 4-6 will be 160mg

Days 4-6 160mg til day 7 when you reduce by another 1/3. 160/3=53mg.=107mg

Days 7-9 your at 107mg....till day ten, 107mg/3=36mg =71mg

Days 10-12 71mg and on day 13-1/3 again....71mg/3=24=47mg

Days 13-15 47mg...till day16...again 1/3.......and keep going till you reach zero.Always round up to the nearest mg.

This has worked for swim and provided the least discomfort,swim is the type if he has drugs he is gonna use em all.And has always had a hard time trying to taper.But if your at a point where if you don't stop your drug use,things look very scary(like c/t in jail,family problems,work issues). Then, if you can stick to this, you should be able to get to zero mg a day and still be able to show up for work.And still function fairly well.Remember stick to the 1/3 formula.and it will work.

Please post you successes or failures.And remember,these things have a way of working themselves out in the end anyway...........

[JaWill88]

thanks. swim is going to jail in about 3 weeks for a few months, probably till january. he is on buprenorphine (suboxone). swim may try this out and do the best he can.

[thebige]

Sorry to hear about your legal problems,I don't know if you can stay on Subs while in jail,but if you can taper it might make a bad situation a little better.