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Looking for help to taper off Ativan (lorazepam)
Depression & Anxiety | Last Active: Mar 20 8:37pm | Replies (68)Comment receiving replies
This is a request for simply encouragement from others who are going or have gone through this. I have taken Lorazepam for a little over a year, and am now on my third attempt at tapering off. In both cases, I had a 'stressful event' occur toward the end of the taper, and my Dr. upped the dose right back up to 1.5mg daily the first time, then 2.5mg the second time. I wish I never would have allowed that, but one can't go back in time. I'm seeing a really good neurologist now, who immediately dropped the 2.5 back to 1.5 because it wasn't doing anything other than making me sick. And to say the last 6 weeks have been hard would be an understatement (I've had almost every withdrawal symptom listed). I'm holding at 1.5 for another week, then will drop in much smaller increments, next is .25mg off the current morning dose of .5. And we will go much slower going forward. I'm just feeling pretty low (I feel like this drug has made my life miserable for the last 9 months), and would appreciate hearing a few 'you can do this' and 'it's so worth it' from a few who are also much more sensitive to this drug and a painful withdrawal. Thanks in advance.
Replies to "This is a request for simply encouragement from others who are going or have gone through..."
@ljob I am currently working on getting myself off of 2mg of Xanax 3x/day! Thats 6 mg a day. Doctor renewed my script at .25 mg 3x/day 😳😳😳😳😳. I FREAKED OUT. I couldn't get in touch with her. I tried insurance company intervention (I've been on pill for ELEVEN YEARS!) she finally called me back - I was half crazed to go from 6 mg/day to 3/4mgday!!!! I said to her if you give me the 2 mg I can just snap off a 1/4 pc and that will be 1-3/4. No. She had to give me 1 mg and 1/4 mg. So I have to cut the 1 mg in half so I take 1-1/2 1 mg and. 1/4 mg!! So now I am taking 9 pills a day instead of 3! It would have been so easy to just keep snapping off pieces! And she would know I was cutting back because I wouldn't be renewing them once a month but maybe every 6 weeks!!! Now I am out of the .25 mg so I have to cut a small pill into 4 pieces!!! I'm already down 3/4 of a pill every day so that's maybe 4-1/2 pills a week which is great considering the length of time I was on them. A CDC brochure given to me in another group said people in meds over a year should not do more than 10% less A MONTH as it could cause seizures and/or possible death!! Aaannd she wanted to put me on another pill which I started and raised my BP to extreme heights and got me nauseous! I stopped that. Why start another pill when I don't need it, it's getting me sick, and who wants to have to go off another pill in the future????
I hope this hasn't been too confusing. 😳😳 just a nightmare for me.
@ljob per the DEC booklet, not more than decrease of 10% a month if taking over a year!!! I've been taking for 11 years 😳😳😮 and doing my best to work with what she's given me. She will be the death of me. 😫🥺
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You can do this! I posted my taper from being on .5 mg Ativan for over two years. I did a VERY slow taper, (posted on another thread here) slower than doctor recommended and am happy to say I’ve been free since early June.
Best wishes!!