Looking for help to taper off Ativan (lorazepam)
Hi my name is pamee. I need help as I have a rare disorder from Ativan. It's horrific excruciating pain 24/7 with minimal sleep so I'm also sleep deprived. The pain is killing me at times I want to die. I take 2 mg 4x a day fir 13-14 yrs and recently been having blackouts. I'm scared. Can anyone please give me suggestions whether I taper one dose at a time or should I taper all 4 doses in a day at about 1/4 of the pill. Thank you for any help you can give. Kind regards, pamee
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@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. 😫🥺
Thanks for the positive encouragement. Can you please re-share that taper schedule here, and given that the lowest available dose of Ativan/Lorazepam is .5mg, how did you get it into very very small doses? Thanks.
It stopped working (brought on depression, insomnia, and far worse anxiety than that originally prescribed for, also I can see some cognitive impact, and I feel 'crappy' all the time). After some pretty thorough research from trusted pharmacological sources, I also have a good understanding now what this drug does to the body and brain. Unfortunately neither my GP nor psychiatrist gave me any of this information, and 'weren't concerned' with continuing to take this for the foreseeable future, and continuing to up the dose (I am no longer seeing either of those practitioners).
Here is my weaning schedule and full disclosure: not a medical professional. I used a pill cutter to cut pills in half, then quarters. Good luck!
Click on the schedule to enlarge
Can you or someone share experience or suggest tapering from .5m Ativan. A family member has been on for about a year, starting with 1m and just .5 for past few months and wants to suggest a schedule to Dr, perhaps 25% less every week or two (.5 to .375 to .25 to .125). Would that be reasonable, or would you suggest the staggered and longer taper schedule shared by Kawanhee above? So much info out there is for tapering from much higher doses. Looking for some guidance and experience. Family member also takes melatonin, sometimes valerian spray, and ramelteon for sleep. She used to just take melatonin, and I believe other stressors contributed to insomnia so they started to take (too) many meds/supplements. Any advise on stoping or weaning from the others first or ok to taper Ativan. They'd like to just get back to the melatonin and some camomile/lavender tea;) Thanks for sharing.
I am at the end of a taper of Klonopin - not sure how it compares to Ativan. My psychiatrist had me decreasing every 6-8 months - that is slow, but the actual reduction was more than the recommended 10%. 1mg - .75 for 6 weeks went well; to .5mg for a month went well, Then to .375mg for a month, then .25mg (this is where it got tough and I had horrible insomnia and anxious feelings). I went a full 6 weeks and then to .125mg. Here is where it felt like I was taking nothing. Still bad insomnia and anxious/jittery/irritable. The total process has been 9 months now. I have no refills left and my doctor discharged me because I was going to be 65. I still have a little stash of .25 and .125 and I will take occasionally at bedtime. I never knew this would be so difficult and I wonder sometimes if I will ever have a great night's sleep again. 1mg at bedtime gave me the assurance I would sleep at least 8 hours, maybe 9. For over a decade and now I can't have it. But I know it will be best in the long run, or so they tell me.
So sorry - I tried to edit but not able to do so. I meant to say 6-8 weeks, not months. Yikes but that would be super slow!
You may be in trouble when your stash runs out. Be careful here.