Can you safely use Propylene Glycol to Liquid Taper Mirtazapine while also in Benzo Recovery???

Posted , 4 users are following.

Hey guys,

So I am benzo free since July 1st 2019. I am at a point now where I feel ready to taper off the Mirtazapine. I tried before just dry cutting and the withdrawal was too intense kept going multiple days in a row without sleep. I should also mention that I also quit using medical Cannabis 3 months ago after using it for sleep during my benzo taper. It wasn't easy to quit either at any rate I'm now at a place where I feel ready to taper off the Mirtazapine again this time liquid tapering.

I had heard that using alcohol as a solvent may not be the best idea for liquid tapering as alcohol is GABAergic and could harm recovery and had read for this reason Propylene Glycol maybe a better alternative as there is supposedly no alcohol content in Propylene Glycol however what's confusing is when you google Propylene Glycol and look it up on Wikipedia it says " .. Containing two alcohol groups, it is classed as a diol. It is miscible with a broad range of solvents, including water, acetone, and chloroform."

So is Propylene Glycol an alcohol or not just like the type we can't touch while in recovery(ethanol/methanol) Is it even safe

to use on a liquid taper? Does it even work for Mirtazapine? I'm confused I thought that if anything has alcohol content it had to be listed on the bottle itself and on Amazon itself it says " This is not alcohol" but Wikipedia says otherwise??

I'm confused and just wanna make sure I'm not gonna have a bad reaction using it to taper off the Mirtazapine while also in benzo recovery. I ordered a litre bottle to start my taper off Mirtazapine and now I'm worried it may not be safe to use as a solvent as it's just basically like using drinking alcohol??

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  • Posted

    how fast did you get off the benzo and how fast have you tried to taoer the mirt ?

    i have done it the other way round. off mirt 9 weeks now with benzo still to taper.

    • Posted

      It took me 2.5 years to totally taper off the benzos which inclused a 5 week crossover from Clonazepam to Diazepam and then a month hold to stabilize. For the second half of my taper i switched from dry cutting to a daily micro taper as things got so hard and challenging. And this method is definitely the better method to go. i basically dropped a 10mg Diazepam tablet in 100mls homo milk and used that to taper.

      When i first tried cutting the Mirtazapine my first cut was 7.5mgs and it was hell for a solid three weeks or so. So now im thinking it would be best to try liquid tapering the Mirtazapine as well which sucks because i thought my days of notebooks/calculations/oral syringes were over once i beat the benzos but i guess I was wrong.

    • Posted

      join out support group there are many doing liquid taoers who could help you.

      look up Gretel Milling and send fb friend request.

      any oroblems get back to me they are a wealth of informatiob

    • Posted

      how much clonazepam were you on that took 2.5 years to get off of? oh mu gosh that scares me because i am on alprazolam (xsnax) & dont want to be on it forever

    • Posted

      last i heard it was Gretel who was dealing with letting people in.

    • Posted

      benzodiazepines/benzodiazepine withdrawal is notoriously known to be the hardest of all medications to beat. Im sorry to say the withdrawal from them can at times be total agony anytime i tried to rush my taper the hell withdrawal would kick me in the ass. it may not be as bad for you though if youve only be on them once. I had been out on and off a few times causing what is called kindling which makes subsequent bouts of withdrawal exponentially worse. It was the hardest thing i ever had or ever will have to go through.

    • Posted

      hey well done, thats awesome, hopefully not long until you settle now x

    • Posted

      Wow. Thank you for your response & info. I have been on Xanax (Alprazolam) for about 8 months now. I am allowed to take them every 8 hours. .50 milligrams I dont always meed 3 a day.Lately it's been 2 a day. NEVER more than 3.

      They really do help my anxiety so if I have to be be on them the rest of my life....????

      I'm 61 years old.

      I'm so sorry you've been thru hell.

    • Edited

      I think you need to really understand the risks of benzodiazepines. Because what pretty much always seems to happen is the eventually you will become tolerant to them and the only solution will be to updose causing further gaba receptor down regulation/destruction once this happens withdrawal will set in.

      You should probably read what is often considered to be the bible concerning benzodiazepines that being the Ashton manual written by Professor Heather Ashton who ran a recovery center for people struggling to get off benzos and with severe withdrawal symptoms.

      Also benzobuddies is another good website which has thousands of members going through benzo withdrawal. You likely wont get as many responses though as the Facebook group.

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