@mmussak
What percentage is your reduction with each taper?
Dose and length are important when titrating. Maybe after being on It for so long you need to taper even slower.
Good luck,
Jake

Mary,
As I understand it, the prolonged use of benzodiazepines can lead to many other health problems down the road. Also there is the connection to increased risk of dementia. Personally I don’t think i ever should have been put on it. I had no real problems with anxiety or depression until I was put on the YAS birth control pill. Which is now well known to cause psychological problems ie: anxiety, panic, depression as well as potentially fatal blood clots. My issues with depression and anxiety began several months after being prescribed that birth control pill. I didn’t put 2 & 2 together.
So after 11 years I wanted off and my dr thought I was nuts to try. He also didn’t have a real clue about how to taper safely. He wanted me to stay on it! 11 years at .75 mg at bedtime, no problems so why stop he said.
No medication should be this hard to stop, this stuff is poison and the manufacturers have never been honest with the medical community about the dangers of withdrawal and discontinuation. That’s why drs don’t know how to safely get a patient off it. My pcp is horrified at what I am having to go thru, and yet a different dr in his office told me I should have been off it years ago. Opinions differ wildly I’m afraid, but younger drs are more clued in on the dangers. Sadly they don’t teach benzo withdrawal in med school.!
The medical communities in Europe and Australia are much knowledgeable about benzo withdrawal. They have laws restricting the time a patient can be prescribed benzos.
I’m so sorry yur dr is being so hard on you with this taper. The rate at which you are cutting is scary, especially given how long you have been on it. I’m praying for u every day. Stay strong.
Hugs
Ann