My pdoc had that policy before reducing meds when one was probably redundant. Is that what you mean? I started doing much better when Seroquel XR came out vs. regular Seroquel and felt I no longer needed Depakote. She told me that we'd taper the Depakote in a year if I felt that I was ok on my other meds (and there were several). Then 6 months later I had a high blood sugar and she agreed to very, very slowly wean the Depakote. We did that over 8 months and I did fine and my blood sugar returned to normal. I don't think I would have done as well with a faster taper (and she timed it so that I was off the depakote at one year from responding the XR. I was never stable, just overly drugged). It was nice to get rid of a drug for a good reason for once.

But I am glad she waited because it would have been really, really hard to have to go back on it after I had gotten partially off and had lost weight and generally was feeling more like myself than the drugged version I always was on Depakote.