anxiety ridden

[[wa...]]

Hello

I'm almost 45 and have been on lorazepam for almost 10 years.  My anxiety is the worst it's ever been now.  I had an accident in April where my cornea was sliced in half by a bungee cord.  I've been put on zoloft, paxil, celexa, prozac and I am currently taking remeron.  I'm taking 30 mg but my doc is increasing it tonight to 45mg.  I take up to 1.5 mg of lorazepam a day just to get through on top of the remeron. None of the others have been able to take care of my anxiety.

I am freaking out because I just read an article in my local paper about the withdrawals of benzos.  I know I've been on this way too long, I'm probably addicted, I have never really tried to stop taking to see if it helps.  I suffer from sever panic attacks almost every day recently.  I don't know what to do.  The lorazepam works for me.  Any thoughts?

[[Tr...]]

Water,

 

It could be that you are in tolerance withdrawal, meaning the dosage of lorazepam that once worked for you no longer does, your body would require more lorazepam to be effective or you need to start slowly tapering off. 

 

TRY

[[Ch...]]

Hi and welcome, water13.

 

Lorazepam (Ativan) is a short-acting and powerful benzodiazepine.  It is quite effective for stopping panic attacks quickly but does cause dependence and tends to lead to interdose (between dose) withdrawal if the dosages are not increased over time.  One symptom of interdose withdrawal is panic/ anxiety.  So eventually benzodiazepines cause anxiety themselves and can trigger panic attacks.

 

After ten years it's a good guess you're dependent and need to taper slowly off.  We recommend reading the  Ashton Manual and we follow the general guidelines in the manual of cutting no more than 5 to 10% of the dose every ten days or so.

 

Please include your benzodiazepine information in your posts.  To make that easier by adding it to each post automatically, you can go up to Profile, choose Forum Profile, write the information in the text box and click Change Profile.

 

Here's a good place to start posting tapering questions to the general membership: General Taper Plans.

 

Take care...let us know via the Helpdesk if you need any help navigating the forum.

 

Challis

[[wa...]]

thank you.  I'm not sure what to try.  My doc thought if the remeron worked, we would taper the lorazepam but that seems to be the only thing that works for me in increased amounts.  Am I the type of person who can handle an anti depressant for a certain time then my body rejects it?  Does that make sense?

Because that is what happened with the others.  I also am not the type that can calm down enough to relax.  I have a job, husband, and 4 very busy kids.

I'm always on the go.  But since the accident, it's been worse.  I've always handled it before, but this time it's different.  i'm unglued all the time.

[[wa...]]

thank you, thank you.  I'm so glad I came across this.  I do believe taking more ativan sometimes makes it worse.  If I could only learn to deal with them. 

 

[[Ch...]]

Since you're a working mom with kids, you may want to consider crossing over to a longer acting benzodiazepine rather than increase the Ativan dose or begin tapering from it when you're already not stable on it.  It doesn't sound like you're in a good place to start a taper.

 

Let me send you here:  Substitution Taper Plans if you want to get some opinions about going to a long acting benzodiazepine.  The benefits would be that the blood serum levels would be more stable rather than having them be up and down all the time as tends to be the case in short acting benzos like Ativan/Lorazepam.

 

[[Tr...]]

Water,

 

I was on Ativan for 4 yrs.  I was suddenly super stressed over the slightest thing, everything in my mind was catastrophic.  I had every medical test known to man.  Turned out I was in tolerance.  I thought I was losing my mind.  I was becoming less social, felt miserable, missing days from work.  I can relate to your situation.

 

I never took an anti-depressant, for me my body doesn't do well with them. 

 

There is lots of support here at BB.   

 

TRY