A peer support community, independent and not for sale. Since February 2024.

GLP CircleA peer support community

Slow titrators

Staying on a lower dose for eight months and being fine

Started 15 June 2025 · 13 replies · 130 hearts · read 2.2k times

DoraUtrecht, NL · 15 June 2025
about a year ago

Starting a thread on this because it keeps coming up in ones and twos: Staying on a lower dose for eight months and being fine

Long one, sorry. I have been chewing on this for a fortnight.

My experience of this stage has not matched any account I have read, which I assume means the accounts are tidier than the reality rather than that something is wrong.

My prescriber has been fine, genuinely. The problem is that I get nine minutes twice a year and there is no version of nine minutes that covers a whole stage of this.

The thing that has surprised me most about this stage is how much of it is about other people rather than about me.

The figure in the title is not rhetorical: eight months is what my own notes actually say, counted back through them this evening rather than estimated.

Not looking for a plan. Just company, and whatever anybody found at the same stage.

43

BrammyBelfast, NI
#1

I would gently add that slow is not the same as stalled. I moved twice this year, both times deliberately, both times after a conversation. That is progress with a handbrake, not no progress.

11

FlorrieBlackburn, UK
#2

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

Going slowly did not stop things changing for me. It just meant the changes arrived one at a time and I could see each one.

10me too 4

GwendaEbbw Vale, UK
#3

Nine months at one step here and my prescriber has never once suggested moving. She said the schedule is a scaffold and I am not obliged to climb it.

10

TomásFacilitatorLisbon, Portugal
#4

Adding a note rather than an answer: the guides cover the practical side of this stage well, and the thing this thread is doing that the guides cannot is keeping somebody company.

16

BevanSwansea, UK
#5

Building on what Florrie wrote rather than answering the original question.

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.

7me too 8

HeddaCopenhagen, DK
#6

Here, reading, and glad you posted.

11

BroganCumbernauld, UK
#7

I was surprised how much better my reviews went once I arrived with a clear account of why I wanted to stay put. It turned a negotiation into a plan.

5

HalCambridge, UK
#8

Bevan said something I want to sit with for a second.

Somebody asked me whether slow titration is just fear management, and honestly, partly. It is also symptom management and life management, and I have stopped ranking those.

8

IdrisCardiff, UK
#9

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

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.

7

GwennoPwllheli, UK
#10

I do not think going slowly is universally better. I think it was better for me, and I am very cautious about turning my experience into anybody's rule.

10

DoraUtrecht, NL
#11

What Gwenno described happened to me too, in a slightly different order.

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.

8

TomásFacilitatorLisbon, Portugal
#12

What I would add is that this circle has a long archive of people at exactly this stage, and reading the older threads is often more use than a new one.

17me too 7

FlorrieBlackburn, UK
#13

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.

10