Half-way point

As most of you know I’m doing a Klonopin/Valium crossover. I got to the half-way point last night. I started with 2 mg of Klonopin and the goal is to switch to the equivalent dose of Valium which is 40 mg in order to then withdraw from Valium which has a much smoother withdrawal process because of the 200 hour half-life of the drug.

Even though this is supposed to make things easier in the long run it’s a major bitch to do even this. It’s painful and exhausting. Each time I make the crossover I go through several days of acute pain in my spine and I’ve felt flu-like during the whole process so far.

So last night by cutting another .125 mg of Klonopin and adding another 2.5 mg of Valium I got to 1 mg of Klonopin and 20 mg of Valium. Half-way.

I started on January 14th at which point I began by crossing over .25 mg of Klonopin for 5 mg of Valium every couple of days.  I found out that was way too fast and made me horribly ill. I had to stop for a couple of weeks to regain relative equilibrium. Emphasis on the word relative. I’m still mighty messed-up.

In any case I resumed after a couple of weeks and have been trading out .125 mg of Klonopin for 2.5 mg Valium every 8 to 10 days. A few of those days starting after about 24 hours of the crossover I move into living hell. I’m moving into that phase now but not quite there yet. By tomorrow I imagine it will be really nasty again, though I keep hoping it might get easier the further along I go.

But I’m half-way through. The thing is it will take longer to finish it than it did to get here because I switched to the 10 mg of Valium in just a matter of about 4 or 5 days and have taken over a month to do the next 10 mg of Valium. However, since I looked back and figured out how long I’ve been doing this I actually felt great relief, because it feels like forever and really it’s not been so long. I guess it will probably take another 2 months or so to complete the crossover.

People I’ve talked to about the crossover say it took them about another month to stop feeling like a zombie. I definitely feel like a zombie. So tired all the time if I’m not also in pain. So the idea is to complete the crossover and then wait a month for the Valium to reach full blood levels and then I can finally resume withdrawal again. And then it will be over. Last of all those multiple drugs to go!

Man, this is a pain in the ass.