1. < Depression & Anxiety

Looking for help to taper off Ativan (lorazepam)

Posted by pamee @pamee, Jan 8, 2023

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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kawanhee | @kawanhee | Aug 9, 2023
In reply to @karlarocha "I am on .5 mg and taking it three times a day. It has really helped..." + (show)
@karlarocha

I am on .5 mg and taking it three times a day. It has really helped me. May I ask why you are tapering off the medicine?

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I was originally prescribed it for anxiety due to a health threat. I then began relying on it for sleep and both my gp and sleep Dr recommended getting off it. Benzodiazepines wreak havoc with your brain long term. I wanted to be off it.
I now take a very low dose of mirtazapine which has addressed my sleeping issues.

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kawanhee | @kawanhee | Aug 9, 2023
In reply to @benzossuck "Congratulations where do we find your taper on the other thread? Thanks" + (show)
@benzossuck

Congratulations where do we find your taper on the other thread? Thanks

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There are several threads on Ativan/lorazepam and I can’t remember! It may be the one about weaning from .5 mg.
If you can’t find it, let me know and I’ll repost here.
Full disclosure that I am NOT a medical professional and that the weaning schedule I used worked for me

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jerrysgirl3 | @jerrysgirl3 | Aug 9, 2023
In reply to @ljob "This is a request for simply encouragement from others who are going or have gone through..." + (show)
@ljob

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.

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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.

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jerrysgirl3 | @jerrysgirl3 | Aug 9, 2023
In reply to @ljob "This is a request for simply encouragement from others who are going or have gone through..." + (show)
@ljob

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.

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@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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ljob | @ljob | Aug 14, 2023
In reply to @kawanhee "You can do this! I posted my taper from being on .5 mg Ativan for over..." + (show)
@kawanhee

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!!

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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.

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2 replies
ljob | @ljob | Aug 14, 2023
In reply to @karlarocha "I am on .5 mg and taking it three times a day. It has really helped..." + (show)
@karlarocha

I am on .5 mg and taking it three times a day. It has really helped me. May I ask why you are tapering off the medicine?

Jump to this post

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).

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kawanhee | @kawanhee | Aug 16, 2023
In reply to @ljob "Thanks for the positive encouragement. Can you please re-share that taper schedule here, and given that..." + (show)
@ljob

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.

Jump to this post

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!
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1 reply
kawanhee | @kawanhee | Aug 16, 2023
In reply to @kawanhee "Here is my weaning schedule and full disclosure: not a medical professional. I used a pill..." + (show)
@kawanhee

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!

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Click on the schedule to enlarge

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kylastar | @kylastar | Oct 9, 2023

Has anyone weaned off lorazepam and if so how did you do it?

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6 replies
cactuswilli | @cactuswilli | Oct 10, 2023
In reply to @kylastar "Has anyone weaned off lorazepam and if so how did you do it?" + (show)
@kylastar

Has anyone weaned off lorazepam and if so how did you do it?

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I’m currently trying to wean off of lorazepam 1.0 mg, last night was my first attempt at halving one tab and tonight I’ll take the full dose and so on. I might add it was a difficult night of sleep for me so good luck!

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