I have been taking lorazepam 1-3mg for 3-4 months and am now tapering off. The land of Google is a terrifying place for info on this subject. Please could anyone share any positive experiences coming off of this drug. Please no negative ones I've seen too many.
You may not get any replies because you only want good experiences. What I can say that's positive is you have only been taking them for a few months, the longer you take benzos the worse things get. So thats a positive if you get off now and dont try to wait to hear positive experiences. Just taper slowly (if you have that luxury) and you have only a couple months that you've been taking them. Wishing you the best of luck! BTW wish I was able to give you the answer you desire.
i just logged in after a month or two away and saw this.
dont worry if you can get to 1 its relatively painless to go to ½. get the little blue pills that can b broken in half, ask the dr for some diazepam 2 mg and substitute the ½ for 1 mg diazepam (½ a pill) gradualy over a few 2-3 weeks.
do it at your own pace, 1 mg is a very low almost subclinical dose so once your on half your almost there. a lot of the "withdrawel" is psychological because you have been relying on the lorazepam as a pick me up to get you through the day
dont let the dr put you under any pressure and ration the prescription so you are short, just go at your own pace. i found just having them in the draw and knowing they are there a great comfort and sometimes that was enough to not take them so i now keep a dozen in the draw for occasional use when i realy need 1 or ½
good luck and best wishes lionel
i just logged in after a month or two away and saw this.
dont worry if you can get to 1 its relatively painless to go to ½. get the little blue pills that can b broken in half, ask the dr for some diazepam 2 mg and substitute the ½ for 1 mg diazepam (½ a pill) gradualy over a few 2-3 weeks. the reason for substituting wiyh diazepam is it has a much weaker effect and the half life is longer so it stays in your body and gradually dissipates over a few days so you dont get the rebound that lorazepam can give you.
do it at your own pace, 1 mg is a very low almost subclinical dose so once your on half your almost there. a lot of the "withdrawel" is psychological because you have been relying on the lorazepam as a pick me up to get you through the day
dont let the dr put you under any pressure and ration the prescription so you are short, just go at your own pace. i found just having them in the draw and knowing they are there a great comfort and sometimes that was enough to not take them so i now keep a dozen in the draw for occasional use when i realy need 1 or ½
good luck and best wishes lionel
Hi
please do not worry too much and don't read all the horror stories people only tend to write if they've had a bad experience but there are many thousands of people that have withdrawn with very few problems myself included. I was on 30mg of Diazepam for over a year. I dropped straight down to 20 mg with no problems then dropped 2mg every 5 days so I was off them in 7 weeks with no problems. I had also been on them before for about 6 months and stopped cold turkey with just a couple of sleepless nights. if I had listened to all the horror stories I would never have come off them. I know it's hard but try not to over think it because as Is12 said so much of it is psychological. If you make a cut and feel rotten stick with that dose until you feel better then cut again. People may recommend Benzo Buddies but that forum scared me silly because everyone there is having a hard time. You will be fine. Message me if you need to. Jo x
Thank you, I am down to 1.5 a day starting on 1 tomorrow. It's the end game I'm scared of I was on diazepam for quite some time and found it does not suit me at all. So was hoping to do it without using them but if I need to I need to
Thank you Jo it's more the fear than anything else holding me back so your message helps greatly x
thats fine if your happier not trying the diazepam taper, trust your own insticts and feelings. if youve been on any more than 5-10 mg diazepam its probably best to not take them again. just gradually reduce the lorazepam at your own pace, and dont be worried if you have to take an extra ½ if you feel youve reduced too soon. eventually youll just be on 3-5 ½ mg a week and you can taper off to zero.
I'm going for 0.5 twice tomorrow and will see how that goes. The horror stories have so fuelled my anxieties that it's definitely the psychological part I'll struggle with. Thank you for your support
Hi Lionel,
My plan was to decrease do half in the morning and half at night but I failed badly my anxiety hit the roof after halving morning dose. Any tips please?
dont worry its largely psychological anxiety,
stop reading the benzo forums, some of the people on there were on serious amounts of for years like 4-8 lorazapam a day or 70 mg valium a day and youd probably need a hospital stay for this.
i'm gonna do this in two stages, diet and taper, so it might take a while to read through.
diet, vitamins and minerals, take a multivitamin and mineral with food 2-3 times a week ( get these from lloyds chemist 60 bottle their the best ).
make sure your getting plenty of vitamin c, my dentist told me this after i was having slight gum problems as a result of poor diet for many months. ½ dozen oranges a week if you dont have citrus allergy or pills otherwise. this vitamin is needed in many maintenance and repair functions in the body.
as well as vitamin pills you can increase the natural intake of these mutrients by the following.
b vitamins take spoonful of marmite on toast 4-6 days a week or get b complex if you cant take yeast ( 2 a week but not on the same day you take the vitamins + minerals ).
max your magnesium intake, eat any salad, green veg, beans or peas. there is evidence that this metal is good for anxiety, depression and is involved in brain chemical synthesis.
youve only dropped the dose by a 1/3. it might be better to do it more gradually like this
first week assuming youre starting on a sunday
1 + ½, ½ + ½. 1 + ½, 1 + ½, ½ + ½, 1 + ½, 1 + ½
second week and third week
½ + ½, 1 + ½, ½ + ½, 1 + ½, ½ + ½, 1 + ½, ½ + ½
fourth week
½ + ½, just a ½, ½ + ½, ½ + ½, just a ½, 1 + ½, ½ + ½
fifth week and sixth week
½, ½ + ½, ½, ½ + ½, ½, ½ + ½, ½
seventh week
½, 0, ½, ½, 0, ½, ½
eigth week and ninth week
0, ½, 0, ½, 0, ½, 0
you can take the occasional ½ or stop now
youve only dropped the dose by 1/3. it might be better to do it more gradually like this
first week assuming youre starting on a sunday
1 + ½, ½ + ½. 1 + ½, 1 + ½, ½ + ½, 1 + ½, 1 + ½
second week and third week
½ + ½, 1 + ½, ½ + ½, 1 + ½, ½ + ½, 1 + ½, ½ + ½
fourth week
½ + ½, just a ½, ½ + ½, ½ + ½, just a ½, 1 + ½, ½ + ½
fifth week and sixth week
½, ½ + ½, ½, ½ + ½, ½, ½ + ½, ½
seventh week
½, 0, ½, ½, 0, ½, ½
eigth week and ninth week
0, ½, 0, ½, 0, ½, 0
you can take the occasional ½ or stop now
take a look at the ashton manual, written by dr heather ashton of the institute of nueroscience at newcastle university. she could be called the authoruty in benzo's. it's a long read but you can look through the contents and dip into the bits that look interesting. http://www.benzo.org.uk/manual/
google heather ashton benzodiazepine withdrawal manual
a good read but once again dont be intimidated by it there is lots of positive information in it.
I'm down to a half been dropping half every few days. I can't eat or barely swallow tablets I feel so weak. Just managing to work my partner so unhappy with me as I'm no fun etc it's been really tough on him my being ill. Not sure what to do
i think maybe youve done that a little too quickly although i can understand if you want to get off them asap, do you mean youve actually cut to just ½ a day?if so dont be afraid to go back up to ½ + ½ and try it a little slower say from week four on the taper i posted, you might find that easier.
i tried to taper off from 1 a day, ½ + ½ quickly over about 5 days the first time i had the white pills that you can break up and when i took the last ¼ i had a really hard 3 days. a few weeks later i was back on them and got off with the last few weeks of the taper but i took 3 mg of diazapam nearly every day which made it much easier. if you do decide to go with the ½ you'll probably have a tough day or two before your body adjusts to the lower dose, once you take the last ½ it takes about 36 hours for the lorazepam to get to an undetectable level in your body, but you you'll feel rough for a day or two longer.
i know its hard just take it at your own pace and trust your feelings dont feel guilty whatever you do and you must try and eat, it will make you feel better. i misunderstood exactly what you meant , if your working you need to take some days off as well. stay positive once its gone from your body you will begin to feel better.
hi jo i have just come of 10mg of valium after being on them for over a year and i am really worried , i came across your positive withdrawal story and it has giving me some hope that i can do this , but i am frightened of the withdrawal symptoms to come and have become a bit obsessed by teading all the horror stories have you any afvice for me please?
I hope my story can be somewhat positive. I was taking Xanax .5 x 4 a day. ON MY OWN, I reduced to 3 pills a day over about a year. I started by skipping doses and in a year I was down to only 3 a day. Then I started skipping another dose here and there. I did not have any ill side effects. The tricky part came when I got to only two a day. Other than ringing in my ears, a couple of episodes of racing heart, I did not have any other symptoms. I started searching the internet for help with lowering my dose because my pills are so small. THATS where I found out about tolerance, withdrawal, half life, the Ashton Manual. So some of the panic has probably been self induced. But I have learned to limit my interactions with all those sites and this one as well. I am now down to .125mg every 12 to 15 hours. The only reason I haven't dropped them completely is probably in my head. The wonderful thing is that I feel much more clarity and have more energy. I thought I was functioning fine at the full dose, but it was only til I got down to this miniscule dose that I realized what a fog I was walking around in. I thought all my memory problems were just age. At 54 I should know better!! Good luck and I would be glad to swap positive stories with you anytime!! P.S. I frequently watch videos of meditation, healing, anything with a positive outcome. I have found that all the stuff I used to watch does not appeal to me anymore. My digestive issues are few and far between, thankfully. I think I could have avoided a lot of medical expense and a surgery if I had never taken any benzos.