Liquid Valium tastes HORRIBLE

Because I'm on an MAOI which is stimulating (but is also the only antidepressant that ever worked for me) when I get manic I need to have something to counter that. For years one of the options has been valium which has typically been something I could take, fall asleep 30 minutes later and wake up 8 hours later refreshed.

This time around my body isn't handling the valium the same. 1.25 mg does't work until I'm completely exhausted and then doesn't keep me asleep. 2.5 mg knocks me out so much that I am not tired the next night.

So my psychiatrist and I agreed to try liquid diazepam and that way I can fine tune to the exact millileter I need in a way that I can't do with breaking tablets. It was supposed to have a prior authorization from my insurance but I couldn't take waiting and found out it only cost $13 so I bought it last night.

My pharmacy (CVS) will only flavor antibiotics for some weird reason. I didn't know that until it was too late to take it somewhere else. So I have the genuine flavor of the stuff. And it is nasty, nasty stuff. I'm following it with chocolate milk and it even makes that taste bitter.

So far it is also not helping exactly. It took hours to work last night but when it did work I slept better than I have in quite a while. Tonight I tried the starting dose again and if that doesn't work then Monday (can't take it Sunday because I have to wake up for therapy) I'll increase by a mL.

I really wish that I could get it flavored. I'm going to see if another pharmacy will flavor it now but I'm pretty sure they aren't going to be willing to do that since I could have anything in that bottle.

My pharmacy staff seem to be assuming that I'm addicted to valium. That's the most common reason to use the liquid. They can think whatever they want but really I don't think adding flavor would affect my "addiction" that I don't have one bit. Not sure why everywhere else flavors anything and they only do antibiotics. I remember Walmart used to sell home flavoring kits but nobody does anymore.

I just hope this actually works. Just one night of sleep helped a lot. I can't imagine what a week of sleep would feel like.

*Trigger* (and I thought I read some way I was supposed to do that and I can't find it so my apologies and if someone knows what I am talking about please tell me!)

My mood is more down tonight anyway. I had a kind of sad conversation with my brother about our abusive, undiagnosed but very mentally ill father and it was a hard one. There is just so much attached to that which I can't go into but my brother has changed a lot in the last year and become more insightful and it's sad to see him coming to terms with his past and seeing how very angry he still is and wondering if that has affected the horrible, huge thing I can't talk about. I think he maybe is finally feeling Ok about not having our father in his life and it's been 17 years since that happened. It's also hard because he talks about how my father abused him and I have no idea if he realizes that the female children (we're much younger) were also sexually abused and how that would affect him. It's such a mess.

Thanks for this JustMeJen

I've never been on the liquid form so it's good to know that this is what some think.

Liquid lithium is also HORRIBLE! It tastes like sour raspberry!

Yeah that's very interesting.

Is the liquid form as effective as the tablets.

I agree, Hallie, liquid lithium is horrible - blech.. But, something I've been doing is mixing it with raspberry flavored water, so that it's better.

JustMeJen, my pharmacy won't flavor my liquid xanax for me, and it takes beyond disgusting as well. I haven't really found anything that helps that much... Juice can sometimes help, but even then, it still tastes pretty awful...

I hate raspberry so every dose was a challenge! Lol

Are you still on it?

Nope I'm off it

\

I don't know yet. My psychiatrist didn't seem to think there would be much difference. So far it is working the same----not much. I take it when I start feeling tired (because until we find the right dose it won't put me to sleep without being tired) and about 4 hours later I am about to give up on ever sleeping again (4-5 AM) and then suddenly I'm out but I do stay asleep for a long time. Staying asleep is better than nothing but it just messes with sleeping the next night and makes me not feel like doing anything.

I can't take it tonight because I can't sleep through therapy tomorrow but tomorrow I'll up the dose a little bit. Hopefully we'll find a dose that works better than what I get breaking tablets. I'm not feeling extremely confident about that right now but I'm also tired and mixed and icky in general.

I'm really hoping that I can find a way to get this flavored. I'd even throw this bottle out and pay for a new one if it works and I could get it to taste better. I gag easily on meds and don't want to start that with this. Back when I was on Lamictal a long time ago the taste would make me gag and often vomit and it was horrible. Eventually my dr tried putting me on chewables that were supposed to be black currant flavored. They were awful too. She tried to find a compounding pharmacy that would make it into a liquid and flavor it but couldn't find anyone to do that. So every night I had to take 7 nasty little pills hidden in something and be very careful to not bite down on one of them (the chewables were at least easier to swallow than the whole pill). Ever since bad tasting meds have been a challenge.

I wonder if they think flavoring this will encourage people to start consuming it freely or something. Because I think if I had the intention of drinking this stuff I would do so bad taste or not. I should have asked more questions.

I did read about using those drops you can put in water to flavor it to add to meds but I'm hesitant because there's no way of knowing if that's ok to mix with the meds and because artificial sweeteners give me migraines and I don't know if a tiny bit of artificial sweetener daily would be too much or not (I just avoid them completely).

I don't use flavoring drops. I use Raspberry Lemonade Crystal Light.

Also, as a suggestion, I take Doxepin for sleep, as a liquid, so that I can edit the dose as needed. I'm prescribed enough for .6mL per night (6mg), but tend to do better with about .25mL (2.5mg) or .3mL (3mg) a night, and it puts me to sleep really quickly - usually within fifteen to twenty minutes, and I stay asleep for eight hours without a problem. And it doesn't taste that bad...

Something to think about

I am confused. They are giving you liquid lithium because they think you are addicted to valium?

I think just the tablet xanax tastes awful, like when it gets stuck in your throat. The thought of a liquid version makes me cringe.

No, we were just commiserating together about how horrible liquid meds taste, and an example was that liquid lithium is horrible.

It is absolutely horrible. It has no flavor, so it tastes as though you chewed up a pill and swallowed that. *shudders* I barely ever take it because of the taste...

I can just imagine.

Xanax is seriously the worse tasting pill I have ever had. When it gets stuck, or you taste it when you swallow it, it's just bitter and nasty and nothing gets rid of the taste. Just yucky.

I was referring to this part:

"My pharmacy staff seem to be assuming that I'm addicted to valium. That's the most common reason to use the liquid. They can think whatever they want but really I don't think adding flavor would affect my "addiction" that I don't have one bit. Not sure why everywhere else flavors anything and they only do antibiotics. I remember Walmart used to sell home flavoring kits but nobody does anymore."

I was just confused about liquid med and addiction.

Crystal light is still artificial sweetener.

I can't take Doxepin or any antidepressants because I'm on an MAOI and they interact. But thanks for the ideas.

When people are addicted to valium and are tapering down they use the liquid so that they are going down evenly and in very tiny increments. From what I could find online it's about the only reason it is used although I'm sure I'm not the first person to need incrementally larger doses. But the pharmacy staff have not been the people I normally deal with for some reason and they have all treated me a little weirdly, especially the pharmacist who took the first prescription. They can think whatever they want but I hate when they make assumptions.

The first time I filled a script for lithium I also filled a script for Valtrex. That got me some interesting looks but really I had seen a woman on the dementia unit where I worked stick a bead she'd broken off a necklace in her mouth and didn't have time to get a glove before fishing it out. I caught a herpes infection of the skin that was on my thumb and required a month of valtrex so I didn't infect others from the blisters on my thumb. This is similar.

But I think I get paranoid about pharmacists. Too many weird interactions have left me feeling judged and for some reason in the years that I was much more likely to manically lose my temper pharmacists often were the people who triggered it. So it may be totally in my head.

I'm not the one on liquid lithium and very glad of that. We discussed that at one point because I had several toxicities and needed tighter dosing but my psychiatrist said it was awful stuff and I would have trouble keeping it down. Guess she was right.

I use liquid meds because I can't take pills.

I am so sorry to hear that. I had a big fight to learn to take pills and keep them down, complete with so much vomiting that I had to have some extensive dental work on my front teeth and for a while pill time was pill half and hour or more, TV required, pills taken in baby food fruits because I'd associate applesauce or pudding with the pills after a few days and gag when I saw it but the baby food fruits had enough variety to allow me to not associate any one with problems. It was a really rough 2 years (?) but I'm glad I went through it because liquid meds are harder for me now than the pills were. This liquid valium is fortunately a tiny amount of liquid compared to cough syrup and I just shoot it in with syringe and then drink chocolate milk until it doesn't taste so awful. It will be interesting as I start adding more because I'll need to syringe in 2 different doses in 2 syringes with the 2nd one having only drops of medication in it. Maybe I can do both at once? We'll see but not until tomorrow. Tonight I'm on my own with my usual meds for sleep because I have to get up for therapy.