bubbles

[Rabe]

Hi Bubbles,

I just wanted to say how encouraging and humbling it is to look at your taper timeline and see how far you have come.  It sure gives me hope and strength and Im sure so many others as well.   To be able to even be talking about the endgame is so remarkable and speaks to your perseverance and strength and determination.  Thank you for sharing.

There are many times when the desire to just stop the meds seems easier (mind games of mine) but what you said@ChessieCat really hit home to me....I dont need the drug, my brain does. Thank you for that.

And thank you @brassmonkeyfor what you said about listening to our bodies as well.  The wisdom found here seems so 'simple' but is so profound and so helps me come back to a grounded place.  Thank you again.

I hope things continue to go well Bubbles!!  I am excited for you!  💜

 

 

[bubbles]

@brassmonkey, thank you, much appreciated. It sounds like a final month at 0.05mg is a good idea.

 

@Rabe, thank you. It's been a long ride, but the end is in sight, albeit a year and a half away. Hope you're doing well.

[bubbles]

Just parking this here - next drop is due 27/12.

[ChessieCat]

Please condense your drug signature so that it doesn't take up so much room.  Since the software upgrade, some of the topics appear on the left side of the screen and long drug signatures make it difficult to read posts.

 

I suggest that you post your current drug signature into a post so you still have access to the information.  Once that is done you can copy the link location and include that in your drug signature if you want to do that.

 

And please reduce the font size.

 

Anything from 2005 to 2019 only need to be a summary. 

 

Thank you.

 

 

 

My thread here at SA: https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/topic/1775-bubbles/page/14/

2005 St John's Wort / 2006-2012 Lexapro 20mg, 2 failed attempts to stop, tapered over 4.5 months in early 2012

January 2013 started Sertraline, over time worked up to 100mg / July 2014 dropped from 100mg to 75mg, held for six months

2015 tapered to 50mg over several months, held for several months, some more drops

2016 Feb 35mg, 6 Mar 33mg, more drops (note big drop (calc error) & up to 25mg), more drops (about 2mg at a time)

2017 - more small drops, more long holds

2018 March at 11mg;  April 20 9mg; June 11 8.1mg; (July 10 7.7mg / July 18 7.3mg); ( Sept 2 7.2mg, Sept 5 7.1mg, Sept 9 7mg); 30 Sept 6.5mg, ? 6mg, 23 Nov 5.5mg) 19 Dec 5mg

2019 (micro drops over two weeks 24 Mar 4.9mg, 28 Mar 4.8mg, 31 Mar 4.7mg, 4 Apr 4.6mg, 7 Apr 4.5mg / 22 April 4.4mg, 26 April 4.3mg, 2 May 4.2mg, 5 May 4.1mg, 9 May 4mg), 3 Oct 3.9mg, (20 Oct 3.8mg, 27 Oct 3.7mg, 3 Nov 3.6mg), 24 Nov 3.5mg, 8 Dec 3.4mg, 15 Dec 3.3mg, 22 Dec 3.2mg

2020 19 Jan 3.1mg, 26 Jan 3.0mg; 1 Mar 2.9, 7 Mar 2.8, May (some drops here) 24 May 2.5, May 29 2.4, June 21 2.3, June 28 2.2mg,  July 4 2.1mg, July 24 (or maybe a bit before) 2mg, early Nov switched to home made suspension; 29 Nov 1.8mg)

Current:  Sertraline: 29 Nov 1.8 mg / Armour Thyroid / endless allergy meds, erg

[bubbles]

@ChessieCat yes I saw that on someone else's thread, but haven't been home long enough to sit at my computer and do it. Will do so today.

Handy to include this link, which takes us directly to change our own signatures. https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/index.php?/settings/signature/

 

Update: done. I find the med history difficult to read at this small size, though I think I've only gone down to 11 font size. I guess it doesn't really matter if I can't read it as long as others can.

 

Second update: I've taken the font size up to 12 so I can read it a little better. (I think the default size is 14.) I can see the reason for having it smaller than the regular font used, but sadly my middle aged eyes don't like little fonts.

 

Final update: for clarity, this is my history pre-editing:

 

My thread here at SA: https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/topic/1775-bubbles/page/14/

2005 St John's Wort / 2006-2012 Lexapro 20mg, 2 failed attempts to stop, tapered over 4.5 months in early 2012

January 2013 started Sertraline, over time worked up to 100mg / July 2014 dropped from 100mg to 75mg, held for six months

2015 tapered to 50mg over several months, held for several months, some more drops

2016 Feb 35mg, 6 Mar 33mg, more drops (note big drop (calc error) & up to 25mg), more drops (about 2mg at a time)

2017 - more small drops, more long holds

2018 March at 11mg;  April 20 9mg; June 11 8.1mg; (July 10 7.7mg / July 18 7.3mg); ( Sept 2 7.2mg, Sept 5 7.1mg, Sept 9 7mg); 30 Sept 6.5mg, ? 6mg, 23 Nov 5.5mg) 19 Dec 5mg

2019 (micro drops over two weeks 24 Mar 4.9mg, 28 Mar 4.8mg, 31 Mar 4.7mg, 4 Apr 4.6mg, 7 Apr 4.5mg / 22 April 4.4mg, 26 April 4.3mg, 2 May 4.2mg, 5 May 4.1mg, 9 May 4mg), 3 Oct 3.9mg, (20 Oct 3.8mg, 27 Oct 3.7mg, 3 Nov 3.6mg), 24 Nov 3.5mg, 8 Dec 3.4mg, 15 Dec 3.3mg, 22 Dec 3.2mg

2020 19 Jan 3.1mg, 26 Jan 3.0mg; 1 Mar 2.9, 7 Mar 2.8, May (some drops here) 24 May 2.5, May 29 2.4, June 21 2.3, June 28 2.2mg,  July 4 2.1mg, July 24 (or maybe a bit before) 2mg, early Nov switched to home made suspension; 29 Nov 1.8mg)

Current:  Sertraline: 29 Nov 1.8 mg / Armour Thyroid / endless allergy meds, erg

[ChessieCat]

Thanks bubbles.  That's much better.

 

Once we start 2021 then you could remove 2019.

 

The idea of the drug signature is to have it readily available.  If a person cannot read it they can always increase the magnification to view the details.  Or it can be copied and pasted into a text document.

 

I would suggest to put these as the bottom:

 

My thread here at SA: https://www.survivingantidepressants.org/topic/1775-bubbles/page/14/

Current:  Sertraline: 29 Nov 1.8 mg / Armour Thyroid / endless allergy meds, erg

[bubbles]

Summary as at today - at 1.6mg, down 98.4%; feeling fine; still allergic; 6.5 years into my taper; 15 months to go. Anything below this point is mostly me talking to myself; you can stop reading now.

I went to 1.6mg a few days early as I changed bottle. It's been about 10 days now but I neglected to write down the exact date. The sertraline half lives have worked out, the active metabolite has a couple more days to go as it has a long half life, but basically I'm there and feeling fine.

 

The next drop will be due on 21/1 and technically down to 1.44. I can theoretically do that dosing as my 1ml syringe has adequate graduations, however, I get bubbles throughout the suspension each time. Sometimes I reject a syringe load due to a large bubble at the top, sometimes it's not so bad. It's inconsistent though, so I suspect trying to take the dose to that fine a point is going to be inaccurate. I think I'm inclined to be pragmatic and only calculate to one decimal place, so I'll adjust my spreadsheet. (Fiddling with that doesn't do very much to the timing, it maybe adds/deletes a month from the whole rest of my taper and given that I'm likely to have a long hold somewhere I'm not sure it makes much difference. I'm about 15 months away if all goes well; currently 6.5 years into my taper.)

[Cruizer]

Great work Bubbles. Im so happy for you that things are going smoothly. 

I am about to start my tapering again tomorrow. Only dropping a very small amount as a test from 4.5 to 4.4 for 2 weeks. I still feel quite crappy but am not sure whether it is withdrawal, poopout or just side effects from the meds so trying it out. Good luck on the rest of your journey. These things are bastards. Ive Been tapering for almost 5 years myself. 

[bubbles]

@Cruizer You're also a long way down in your taper. Hope you feel better soon.

 

[bubbles]

My last batch of home made suspension didn't last as long as I thought it would. I should have had about 31 doses in there, though allowing for some wastage (what's on the outside of the syringe which is rinsed off, and later I've had to pour into a cup to draw some up, ditto rinsed off) I'd certainly expected to not get the full 31 doses, but I've had about 23, which seems on the low side, though I think I had to discard one dose one day.

 

So I've either wasted more suspension than anticipated, or I've accidentally mixed up a stronger concentration than intended last time, though I was careful. Impossible to know.

 

The reason for needing to pour the suspension into a cup for the last week or so is that I couldn't get the same syringe when all of the markings wore off, and I was too nervous to put tape over it due to the glue, since I generally put the syringe directly into the bottle. When I went to replace it, I was only able to get a 3ml syringe, and it's too short to reach the bottom of the bottle I'm using.

 

I'm going to continue the 1.6mg on this new bottle and current syringe until Sunday week. 28 days is up on the Tuesday before that, so this gives me a few more days. I'll see if I can feel anything different. If not, I'll probably decide that I've wasted more than expected and drop again.

 

Will try to source some 1ml syringes since they allow finer dosing.

 

Goodness me, what a ride. There's always something. I'm now getting a bit fatigued with all this and will be very glad when it's just all over.

[ChessieCat]

This is where I got mine from.  I bought 5 of each size (1mL, 3mL, 5mL, 10mL) and it only cost about $17 in total.  No affiliation.  Seller is in Brisbane.  I got the slip tip.

 

https://www.ebay.com.au/itm/Syringes-1ml-3ml-5ml-10ml-20ml-30ml-50ml-Nipro-Suit-Luer-Slip-Lock-Syringe

[bubbles]

Ordered, thanks @Chessiecat

 

[bubbles]

I also got the slip top. Just the 1ml, that's all I need at this stage

[bubbles]

Syringes came today so I've now got supplies for several months.

 

I'm still at 1.6mg/ml. I didn't notice any difference with this bottle, but I decided to have another week before dropping. I'm worrying a bit. Not uncommon, and not really bad, but my policy for the most part has been not to drop if I'm not feeling fine and my policy has stood me in good stead so far.

 

This bottle is also going down more quickly than I'd expected, so I think I'm losing more in rinsing off the syringe/cup than I'd anticipated.

 

 

[bubbles]

Friday now and I think I'm okay so I'll drop today. I used to do my drops on Sundays as that worked out with my weekly pillboxes but now that I'm using the suspension it's irrelevant.

 

I'll have to see how accurately I can get the dose, but theoretically this should be possible:

 

Current       1.6mg/ml

February     1.44 mg/ml

March          1.30 mg/ml

April             1.17 mg/ml

May              1.05mg/ml

 

If I decide I can't get that degree of accuracy, this is how it rounds:

 

Current       1.6mg/ml

February     1.4 mg/ml

March          1.3 mg/ml

April             1.2 mg/ml

May              1g/ml

 

So it more or less comes out in the wash there. I'm stable and not noticing any variability from my previous capsules to any of the three bottles of suspension I've made, so I suspect either option would be just fine.

 

At that point I'm going to round the 1.05mg/ml to 1, and start going down by 0.1mg/ml increments.

 

June             0.9mg/ml

July               0.8mg/ml

August          0.7mg/ml

September   0.6mg/ml

October        0.5mg/ml

November    0.4mg/ml

December    0.3mg/ml

 

2022

January        0.2mg/ml

February       0.1mg/ml

March            0.05mg/ml? That's a decision for another day.

 

The end is in sight.

 

I know my GP will consider all this messing around below 1mg to be far too much, but I'm not going to destabilise myself at this late stage. At a tablet a month(ish), I've got enough to get me through my taper. The tablets technically expire later this year, but they've been kept mostly in the fridge (and in an insulated bag other than that) and I think they'll be fine for longer.

 

Summary, as of when I take tonight's dose I will be at 1.4mg, 98.6% down from my highest dose. (Or, 1.44mg and 98.56% down.)

 

 

[ChessieCat]

15 minutes ago, bubbles said:

May              1g/ml

 

So you are going to updose at the end??? 🤣

[Cruizer]

1 hour ago, bubbles said:

Friday now and I think I'm okay so I'll drop today. I used to do my drops on Sundays as that worked out with my weekly pillboxes but now that I'm using the suspension it's irrelevant.

 

I'll have to see how accurately I can get the dose, but theoretically this should be possible:

 

Current       1.6mg/ml

February     1.44 mg/ml

March          1.30 mg/ml

April             1.17 mg/ml

May              1.05mg/ml

 

If I decide I can't get that degree of accuracy, this is how it rounds:

 

Current       1.6mg/ml

February     1.4 mg/ml

March          1.3 mg/ml

April             1.2 mg/ml

May              1g/ml

 

So it more or less comes out in the wash there. I'm stable and not noticing any variability from my previous capsules to any of the three bottles of suspension I've made, so I suspect either option would be just fine.

 

At that point I'm going to round the 1.05mg/ml to 1, and start going down by 0.1mg/ml increments.

 

June             0.9mg/ml

July               0.8mg/ml

August          0.7mg/ml

September   0.6mg/ml

October        0.5mg/ml

November    0.4mg/ml

December    0.3mg/ml

 

2022

January        0.2mg/ml

February       0.1mg/ml

March            0.05mg/ml? That's a decision for another day.

 

The end is in sight.

 

I know my GP will consider all this messing around below 1mg to be far too much, but I'm not going to destabilise myself at this late stage. At a tablet a month(ish), I've got enough to get me through my taper. The tablets technically expire later this year, but they've been kept mostly in the fridge (and in an insulated bag other than that) and I think they'll be fine for longer.

 

Summary, as of when I take tonight's dose I will be at 1.4mg, 98.6% down from my highest dose. (Or, 1.44mg and 98.56% down.)

 

 

Hi Bubbles. Fantastic work! 

Don't rush anything!!! I can tell you first hand that going too quick at the lower doses quickly catches up with you and i have and still am destabilized after 10 months of holding, granted some things happened during that 10 months, but im still stuck. In 14 months time to be near jumping off would be a dream for me at the moment so take your time. 

I too think i will change to liquid when I'm closer to beginning my taper again. Seems it would be far more accurate than 0.1mg compounded tablets with filler. 

All the best

[bubbles]

On 1/29/2021 at 9:31 AM, ChessieCat said:

 

So you are going to updose at the end??? 🤣

 

No, that's this May coming up. The previous dose will be 1.2mg or 1.17mg.

 

23 hours ago, Cruizer said:

Hi Bubbles. Fantastic work! 

Don't rush anything!!!

 

No, I'm not, don't worry. Having discussed this in the endgame taper thread, it seems that the last 1% of my taper (1mg) is the time to switch from 10% approx drops to 0.1mg drops - there is a time where we can't keep doing 10% drops as 10% drops of the previous dose get smaller and smaller but you never get to zero. It seems prudent to have an extra month of 0.05mg at the end, because why not. Or I might spend a week at a time on the last 0.1mg instead - 0.09, 0.08 etc. I'll see how I feel at the time and how many supplies I still have then.

 

My taper started in mid 2014, so the whole thing will have been a bit under 8 years from then, if all goes well and 8 years if I do the extra week at at time thing. I'll have been tapering for about half of the time since I started the first tablet in 2006.

 

10% drops until about 1mg might be hard to accurately measure, though I'll try it. I did 1.5mg last night and will try 1.44 today. If that seems achievable enough I'll do 10% until 1mgish, otherwise rounding adds no time overall until the 1mgish point, but is a less smooth line. I've got some 1mg syringes now so it might be manageable, I'm just not sure how accurate it all gets once we're talking about those tiny amounts.

[ChessieCat]

31 minutes ago, bubbles said:

No, that's this May coming up. The previous dose will be 1.2mg or 1.17mg.

 

On 1/29/2021 at 12:15 PM, bubbles said:

May              1g/ml

 

You wrote "g" not "mg". 🤪

[bubbles]

3 hours ago, ChessieCat said:

 

 

You wrote "g" not "mg". 🤪

Ah, oops. Don't mind me.

[bubbles]

So I'm not sure how accurately I've been measuring using my syringe. I suspect I was fairly accurate when using the 3ml syringe and now that I'm using the 1mll syringe am actually taking a higher dose than anticipated due to poor technique. I stopped using the 3ml syringe about 10 days ago and started to drop in dose about 6 days ago, though I did it in a few stages.

 

https://withdrawal.theinnercompass.org/taper/using-syringes. If that's accurate, I've been lining up the wrong part of the syringe. It probably doesn't matter as long as I'm consistent, but I'll try to work out what I am actually on. Sigh.

[bubbles]

Update, I think I've probably been on about 1.75ish before dropping. I've taken it to an accurate 1.6 which is probably about the same as I was heading down towards. 

[bubbles]

I think there is one more day of dose in the bottle, so I made up another bottle two nights ago. I like to do that with a few days to spare, partly in case the tablet will dissolve a bit into the suspension, partly because I'm never really sure how much is left. I wasted a dose yesterday by adding water too forcefully and losing some off the side of the medicine measure.

 

I made this new batch up with 100% Ora Plus, which wasn't my intention, I just got carried away with measuring. Sigh. It is okay, I'm just trying to make the very expensive Ora Plus last as long as possible. I often dilute it further at point of taking (to loosen it up in the medicine cup, so as to get it all), so I'm unlikely to notice any difference when taking. That said, I'm going on a trip a bit later in the year and I was planning to do a bottle with just a tablet and Ora Plus, just in case it keeps a little bit better than when the suspension is diluted 50% with water.

This time I did this:

• Disinfected tablet and measuring cup.
• Ground up a tablet and put it into the bottle.
• Added 50ml of Ora Plus using a 20ml syringe.
• Ignored whatever volume the tablet makes up. This will make a very slightly weaker suspension than 1:1, but it's negligible.

Just now I'm slightly worrying that I didn't measure the Ora Plus out correctly as I'm suddenly thinking I did 20, 20, 5, rather than 20, 20, 10. Hmm. I can measure it out using that same 20ml syringe out of the bottle and into another bottle to see how much I have. If it is less than 50ml I'll assume I did in fact do 20, 20, 5 and add another 5.

 

I have no idea why I seem to be having trouble with this!!! I need to make up a written procedure that I tick off each time.

 

[bubbles]

Update, I need to update my signature to include the dosing mess up. I'm at about 9 days past the drop to (accurate) 1.6ml/mg. Ish. We'll just call all the mess up as a crawling down in dose and hope it was all in the right direction/range. I'm okay, either way.

 

I have another month on my previous calculations, since I was on a slightly higher dose than I thought, so it will be April 2022 at the earliest. I'm seriously ready for this all to be over. It's absolutely nuts that it can take so long.

[bubbles]

Further update, I guess I should say that this taper could have been faster, and faster still if I'd had any tolerance for not feeling fine. Sometimes it was hard to overcome the inertia of a long hold.

[bubbles]

I'm happy that my suspension is 50ml. I've discarded the rest (not much) of the previous batch.

 

Just bookmarking today (9 Feb) as the day of starting this new batch.

[bubbles]

Will still have to update my sig, but need a bit of time - which I currently don't have - to figure out what to say about the measuring issue.

 

Whatever has gone before, I am confident that I have a 1:1 50ml:50mg (ish) suspension. I should have got the 25ml syringe sooner, no idea why I didn't.

 

Next issue, is that the 1ml syringes that I have aren't lasting as long as I think they should. The little black "stopper" in the syringe comes off after a few uses. I get several days or so from them, but the ones I had first (and which were unused and still in sealed packaging, but leftover from a pet's meds so I can't get more from that source) were more sturdy and lasted several weeks before the marks wore off. I'll try a different brand next time if I can.

[bubbles]

So far so good with the change to the new bottle, but it's only been two doses so it's a bit soon!

 

I have been having headaches all week (started the day before I started the new bottle). We have a strange few weeks at work and for several reasons that's causing headaches. (Long story, I won't go into it. It's fine, nothing wrong with the job or workplace, just a time for all of us there to get through.) Friday is my day off and that will help - I will have a sleep in, if nothing else!

[bubbles]

Update - it's now been 9 days on new bottle. So far so good. I'll hold it up to 4 weeks. With the 25ml syringe I'm happier that I'll get accurate dosing.

 

I had to switch to a 3ml syringe after a couple of days of this new bottle because of the falling apart issue with the syringes. I have managed to source a couple of 1ml syringes of a different brand which I will switch to at another time. For now the 3ml syringe is fine.

 

Work has settled down again. It was a very stressful time for a couple of weeks, but it's back to normal now (and we've all collectively heaved a sigh of relief).

[Rosetta]

I’m glad to see you are doing well. Rosetta

[bubbles]

Hello @Rosetta. Thank you, yes doing well. How are you?

 

Today I'll drop to 1.4mg/ml. I had an extra month at 1.6mg because of the doubt as to my dose. All has been fine so it probably wasn't necessary, but my default is to hold when in doubt so there we go.

 

Still need to fix up my signature, but it will take some thinking.

[bubbles]

So far so good. My mood is fine. I'm exhausted but we've just wound up a huge important project at work and I've been sleeping poorly (my mind keeps racing with work things). Hopefully now that's finished my sleep will improve. It's also been hideously hot, which doesn't help sleep. Roll on cool weather - another month and it will be more comfortable.

[bubbles]

Signature updated, hopefully it makes sense.

[bubbles]

Still ticking over. It's now been 2 weeks on 1.4mg and so far so good.

 

I've had to go back to a 3ml syringe as the 1ml syringes I had have continued to fail. They're sold as single use, and I had much more than one use out of them before they failed so I can't complain. Nevertheless, I had a brand that lasted about 2-3 weeks and the thing that failed was the division marks coming off, so I will try to get more of them.

 

Allergies still bad, am taking 1-2 different antihistamines on work days but trying to get through on non work days. Not sure if I am having dental issues or a sinus infection, but something is going on.

 

Next change is due 4 April and it will be to go to 1.25ml/mg if I can get 1ml syringes, otherwise it will need to be the nearest tenth of a ml. I am positive that I messed up my doses a while back without noticing so I might get away with 1.2ml/mg. That's a debate for another day.

 

[ChessieCat]

12 hours ago, bubbles said:

Nevertheless, I had a brand that lasted about 2-3 weeks and the thing that failed was the division marks coming off, so I will try to get more of them.

 

This is not unusual.  I put sticky tape over mine (Officeworks, 18mm wide).  I cut off a strip and place it diagonally and wind it on.  If there is any area that is still uncovered then I stick some more on.  I put it in the water and when finished measuring I just dry it with a towel.

 

[bubbles]

On 3/22/2021 at 5:57 AM, ChessieCat said:

 

This is not unusual.  I put sticky tape over mine (Officeworks, 18mm wide).  I cut off a strip and place it diagonally and wind it on.  If there is any area that is still uncovered then I stick some more on.  I put it in the water and when finished measuring I just dry it with a towel.

 

 

Oh that was the good syringe. I was happy really with 3 weeks use! The other ones only  lasted 2-3 uses/days before the little stopper came off and I couldn't draw up the dose any more.

 

If I can go down in 1/10 of a mg/ml increments for a while (and with the bubbles situation it's probably more realistic), the 3ml syringes (that last well) will do fine. I'll try to source some better ones.