Coming off Lorazepam

i have a new phych doc and he is taking me off of lorazapam after being on it for over a year maybe longer i dont remember. i have been taking 2mg for at least a year. I dont abuse it. i take what i am suposed to take and when to take. once in a while i will have a huge (and i mean huge) melt down and take a whole mg to calm down but that was on rare occasions.
anyways. i have never been on any med or drug that had withdrawal effects and im finding it really hard. I went down to 1mg and by the 3rd day it was so uncomfortable. i hadnt slept, i couldnt eat, i felt sick, my stomach hurt, every withdrawal symptom listed i probably was feeling. i didnt put 2 and 2 together until that 3rd day. I immediately went back to 2mg and felt almost 100% better by the next day. so i continued to take the 2mg for 2 more days just to get back to normal and today i tapered to 1.5 mg. its mid day and im starting to feel really bad again. i took .5 this morning and i was planning to take the 1mg at night. but the way im feeling now i dont know if that is the best thing to do.
I am posting here because i need help and support. I dont know what to do or what to expect. does anyone have any experience coming off of this and have any advice for me? should i taper differently? i was thinking of changing it to .25 in the morning then .25 mid day. then 1mg at night. what do you think of that?

I do know the benzo's are really hard to come off of. Didn't your Dr. suggest a tapering schedule to you? This is something I would discuss with your Dr.

splitimage

My doc gave me this scheduel and didn't say
Anything about withdrawal. Or anything for that matter.
(I have been on 2mg for over a year)
2mg for 2 weeks.
1mg for 1 week.
Then .5 for 1 week
then stop
I don't really like him. -_- but I don't have a choice in the matter

Like I said in my first post, going from 2mg down to 1 hit me hard and is not doable.

((((Stacy))))) First off, know you're going to feel terrible while you're going through withdrawal, but it will not be forever and it'll be better afterwards. The way I get passed things like this is that i get mad at the drug/addiction, and get mad that it's made me it's slave. I make myself suffer through the withdrawal as a way to spite that dependancy. Idk if it'll help you, but I thought i'd put that out there.

If his plan isn't working, make one for yourself where you go down by .5/week. That might help. Whatever the plan, continually reduce the levels, and don't let yourself add more.

The symptoms suck, but they will pass if you can last them out. Promise. Until then, b**** as much as you want about how horrible it is on PC. That's what we're here for Most of all, stay safe.

Benzo withdrawal is real unpleasant. What you were initially doing was a real steep taper, and going down .5/week will be better. You may very well need to go down every 2 weeks instead. Were you taking it as needed or every day? Every day for more than a year is a very long time to be on any benzo, so it's no suprise your new pdoc wants to take you off it.

I'd taper .5 every two weeks or even every three weeks. A gradual taper is easier on the body, especially dealing with benzo's.

rapid withdrawal from benzodiazepines can cause seizures and even death. yes, i said it. I cannot advise you of a proper taper schedule because it may be harmful to you. It took me about a year to taper off 1 mg of klonopin per day, and i did have what felt like a brain seizure when i went too fast. i went to an out patient addiction medicine treatment center to get off it, even though i never abused the medication. The problem is you need to make sure you have enough on hand in case they try to make you cold turkey. don't ever do that unless youre in a hospital setting. good luck.... and take it sllllloooooooooooowwwwwww.

Is your doc insane?! I was on JUST .5 and he gave me 6 weeks (to my next appt) to taper off, maybe even 12, I don't remember. He said I did good, hardly anybody succeeds. but I just took it real slow. at the end, I was doing .25 every other day, then every 3 days.

Benzos have anti-seizure effects, thus seizures are a very real, possible withdrawal effect. Don't don't don't go cold turkey...oh, does that hurt bad! And I'm super difficult to medicate, so, yeah...

Stacy, tell your doctor about the trouble you're having with the rapid taper plan. For longterm benzo users, it is not uncommon for docs to reduce the benzo dose by only 10% each week. There is a seizure risk for reducing the dose too quickly. If your doc won't give you a better taper plan, a last resort is going inpatient at a hospital to detox under medical supervision. They would keep a close watch on you and give you other meds to help you get off the benzo and deal with your withdrawal symptoms. Not fun, but safer than doing this too rapidly on your own.

i was on 12 to 14 mg larozapam a day before a breakdown. I was only scripted 28 a month but the repeat script was 10year old so i had hundreds stocked. I shrink stopped my 28 script cold, an i ran out of stock pile . That ment i had a 14mg a day habit to withdraw from cold. The shrink said i was lying about my massive stock pile . 3 days later i was in mental hospital with massive withdrawl but the still didnt believe me. gave me 5mg of valium not even the same has half a loz. Got by by drinking vodka staight down from the bottle bought into hospital for me from a smackhead day patient in evian bottles. Bluffed way out after 2 weeks GP put me back on 4mg a day which to this day i still take. So i actually detoxed cold 8 to 10mg cold , locked in my bedroom for months, banging my head against the wall, so dont tell me about 1mg detoxing.

I've have a Tonic Clonic(Gran Mal) Seizure from stopping simply .5MG of xanax daily(maybe 3 months of taking it). Be very careful, and if your DR has ANY sense at all, they would realize Ativan/Lorazepam has a short half life, repeated doses are NEEDED more frequently. You need to be moved to 5MG of Valium/Diazepam, and taper off slowly from there. Valium has an extremely long half life, and will prevent the seizures, it has a lingering effect, you won't take it and 4 hours later feel insane panic from Withdrawal. I don't think most DRs know a damn thing about benzo dosing, or benzos in general. However, withdrawal will be unpleasant in any case, but to be safer, your DR needs to move you to a benzo with a longer half life to stabalize the benzos in your blood stream. Klonopin or Valium work well for this. Wish you all the best. Those short acting benzos can be devestating.

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I would try going down by 0.25 every week or every other week. The half-life is around 12 hours, so I would take one dose in the morning and one dose in the evening. I think part of the problem is you are taking too little during the day, and that's why you feel crappy. So start by taking 1 mg in the morning and 1 mg at night. Then the next week do 0.75 mg in the morning and 1 mg at night, then the the next week do 0.75 mg in the morning and 0.75 at night, and so on...

If even that is too fast, here is an even gentler taper schedule you could try:

Week 1:
Mon AM: 0.75 mg
Mon PM: 1 mg
Tue AM: 1 mg
Tue PM: 1 mg
Wed AM: 0.75 mg
Wed PM: 1 mg
Thu AM: 1 mg
Thu PM: 1 mg
Fri AM: 0.75 mg
Fri PM: 1 mg
Sat AM: 1 mg
Sat PM: 1 mg
Sun AM: 0.75 mg
Sun PM: 1 mg

Week 2:
Mon AM: 0.75 mg
Mon PM: 1 mg
Tue AM: 0.75
Tue PM: 1 mg
Wed AM: 0.75 mg
Wed PM: 1 mg
Thu AM: 0.75 mg
Thu PM: 1 mg
Fri AM: 0.75 mg
Fri PM: 1 mg
Sat AM 0.75 mg
Sat PM: 1 mg
Sun AM: 0.75 mg
Sun PM 1 mg

Week 3
Mon AM: 0.75 mg
Mon PM: 0.75 mg
Tue AM: 0.75 mg
Tue PM: 1 mg
Wed AM: 0.75 mg
Wed PM: 0.75 mg
Thu AM: 0.75 mg
Thu PM: 1 mg
Fri AM: 0.75 mg
Fri PM: 0.75 mg
Sat AM: 0.75 mg
Sat PM: 1 mg
Sun AM: 0.75 mg
Sun PM: 0.75 mg

.....and so on......

Another thought -- you could ask your pharmacist to give you the smallest pills possible, to make it easier. I don't know what the smallest amount of lorazepam available is.

Either way, you need to call your pdoc and tell him that you are experiencing major withdrawal, and work out a different taper schedule with him. You could find a taper schedule that works for you, and then call him and tell him that 'hey, I've found that I can't taper as fast as you wanted, so I decided to taper this way, and it's working much better for me'. Coming to him with a taper plan of your own shows him that you really are serious about tapering, and you're not just complaining because you want to stay on the drug.

Hope that helped.

Bipolar, I've dealt with many DRs and most of them don't grasp how slow you need to taper off of benzos, not only are the acute WD symptoms life threatening, the lingering symptoms(from long term use) are also devestating. If this person must take the Ativan to wean off, I also do suggest asking for the .25MG tablets(smallest dose available), but strongly recommend asking your DR to consider moving you to Klonopin or Valium, I promise it will make your detox more pleasant than it will be with Ativan. Someone mentioned that 1MG of Ativan equals 20MG Valium? If I'm correct, its 10MG of valium, over my years of benzo usage and DR visits, I find that alprazolam/xanax and lorazepam/ativan are somewhat exactly 10x stronger than valium MG for MG, so 1MG Ativan is 10MG Valium, guess I could be wrong... I am currently taking Valium and Xanax, I dread the day where I have to stop. Benzodiazepines and Alcohol are THE worst things to detox from, they can be life threatening, I know this firsthand. Please be careful.

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Yes, you are correct. 1 mg ativan = 10 mg valium

Stacy, if your doctor doesn't listen to you, print out the following and bring them with you to your next appointment:

https://docs.google.com/viewer?a=v&q...Kxd4usY6haOv2A

http://nationalpaincentre.mcmaster.c...b_app_b06.html

"The approach to benzodiazepine discontinuation also involves a slow and gradual tapering of dose [I]. Withdrawal symptoms and symptomatic rebound are commonly seen with benzodiazepine discontinuation, can occur throughout the taper, and may be especially severe toward the end of the taper. This argues for tapering benzodiazepines very slowly for patients with panic disorder, probably over 2–4 months and at rates no higher than 10% of the dose per week [I]. Cognitive-behavioral therapy may be added to facilitate withdrawal from benzodiazepines [I]."

The above is from:

http://www.guidelines.gov/content.as...per#Section420

Also:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov.proxy2.l...ubmed/19062773