How I asked my GP about a slower schedule and what she said

Started 27 December 2025 · 17 replies · 130 hearts · read 1.9k times

GwennoPwllheli, UK · 27 December 2025

7 months ago

A question rather than an update: How I asked my GP about a slower schedule and what she said

I do not know if this belongs in this circle. Move me if not.

I am aware some of this may simply be what this stage is like. I would still like to hear from people who have been through it, because I have spent a fortnight assuming I am the only one.

What I am trying to work out is whether this is a phase with an end to it or the shape of things now, and I do not think I can tell that from inside it.

I will report back either way, because other people's follow-ups have helped me more than their questions.

IdrisCardiff, UK

The thing that changed my mind about pace was noticing that my worst fortnights all followed a step-up I had not really been ready for. That pattern was in my own notes.

BrammyBelfast, NI

Gwenno, answering your question directly rather than going round the houses.

My prescriber and I settled on longer gaps between steps and shorter gaps between conversations, which I would recommend to anybody who finds the schedule stressful.

GwynethAberdare, UK

Idris, thank you for that. It gives me somewhere to start from.

Coming back a year later to say the slow route held. I am still on treatment, still comfortable, still having ordinary weeks. That was the entire point of going slowly.

TomásFacilitatorLisbon, Portugal

Facilitator note: if this thread has landed close to home for you while reading, our support resources page lists the kinds of service worth finding. No obligation and no drama.

9me too 9

HalCambridge, UK

I went back down a step once, deliberately, and it was not a failure. It was the most sensible fortnight of the year and my prescriber agreed without hesitation.

HeddaCopenhagen, DK

The thing that finally let me relax was realising that staying put is an active choice with a reason behind it, not a lack of a decision.

GwendaEbbw Vale, UK

Slow titration is not the cautious version of this. For some of us it is simply the version that works, and I have stopped framing it as a hedge.

9me too 5

BroganCumbernauld, UK

Here, reading, and glad you posted.

FlorrieBlackburn, UK

I hold at a step for as long as it is still teaching me something. When a step gets boring, that is usually my sign to talk about the next one.

BevanSwansea, UK

#10

A practical note: I keep a single line per step with the date I started it and the date anything settled. It is the most useful piece of paper I own for these conversations.

9me too 1

GwennoPwllheli, UK

#11

I found I needed about three weeks at each step before I knew what that step was like. Two weeks always gave me a half-formed impression that I then acted on.

IdrisCardiff, UK

#12

Reading Gwenno, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

Somebody in this circle described their pace as "geological" and I have thought about that phrase very fondly ever since. Mine is similar and nobody minds.

7me too 8

BrammyBelfast, NI

#13

What worked for me was agreeing a review point rather than a step-up date. We would look at it in eight weeks and decide then, which took the whole thing out of my head in the meantime.

GwynethAberdare, UK

#14

I stayed where I was for four months because it suited me there, and the only pressure to move came from me. Not from my prescriber, and certainly not from anybody here.

DoraUtrecht, NL

#15

Gwyneth has already said most of this and I want to add the one part that was different for me.

Going up slowly meant I could actually tell what each change did. When I moved faster at the start, everything happened at once and I could not attribute anything to anything.

TomásFacilitatorLisbon, Portugal

#16

Something worth noticing whenever it happens in a thread like this: somebody puts down the difficult version rather than the tidy one, and nobody flinches. That is not automatic and it is most of what we are for.

HeddaCopenhagen, DK

#17

No wisdom, just: I am sorry. That sounds genuinely hard.

11me too 4