Need Help to Titrate Ativan Pills from a 15 Yr Long Addiction

[[Cu...]]

I have been prescribed 1.5 mg Ativan for 15 years for insomnia. My doctor said he just found out it causes Alzheimer's, so wants me to get off it. He didn't tell me what to expect and cut my dose from 1.5 mg to 1 over a month. I did ok , actually.

 

Then the next month he cut the dose from 1 mg to .5. I started having withdrawals, pretty awful, so I cut the pills in half so was taking .75, I think.  Then I eliminated that cut pill, and that's when the SH..T started to hit the fan, when I was at a straight .5 mg ...from .75.

 

I'm curious as to why the drop from .75 to .5 was so bad for the first time in my taper.

 

The first few days weren't that bad, and then BANG...I thought I was having some sort of allergic reaction to another drug I'm on, as my symptoms were so severe and bizarre. (BTW, my psychiatrist never informed me to expect any withdrawal symptoms.)

 

Loud ringing in the ears, when I got up I felt like I was going to faint, severe dizziness and light-headedness, muscles tightening, headache, lethargy to the point where I needed to stay laying down, face, hands and feet went numb, nausea, sweats...I could go on and on.

 

So I go to the internet and try and figure out what kind of allergic reaction I'm having...and find out the Ativan withdrawal is causing every single classic symptom I was experiencing!  So, I said, I need to ride it out. Well, I thought that would last a couple of weeks, but NO, it went ON and ON. I'd feel slightly better one day, then WORSE the next.

 

And then after the 3rd week, when I was sure it would be better, it got even WORSE. Then after the 5th week, I started to feel a bit better and by the 6th week, all I'm left with is just ringing in my ears, nausea, and a little fatigue, and muscle tightening, but not bad.

 

So I read about the Ashton method and went in to my doctor this week to propose that, and he blew up in my face when I mentioned the substitution with Valium method. He got out of his chair and started yelling, "I am NOT going to give you something else in place! You are addicted!

 

You are going to get 15 more (.25) pills and take them and be done with this! I take people off of 1 mg to 0 in one week in the hospital all the time! If you don't get off of them now, you'll end up in the hospital getting off of them! I put you on a slow taper method, and this is how it's going to go!" He scribbles the prescription on the paper and stomps out of the room.

 

He was really losing it. I had never seen him even upset before. It's not like I was ever an addict or ever asked for more pills or anything. So I was really upset and now I am left on my own to figure out a taper. Luckily, I have about 60 saved 1 mg. pills...but I don't know anything about how to titrate.

 

Please tell me what to do, what to buy, how to do it. Thank you so much!

 

[[bu...]]

There are 2 ways to do s low taper.  1)  Cut/sand your tablets and use a precision scale to measure the dose, or 2) dissolve tablets in a tiny amount of vodka or propylene glycol, and dilute with water.  Then you use an inexpensive oral syringe to measure your dose.

 

For high potency benzos like ativan, the liquid method probably works best.

 

[[Cu...]]

Thank you so much. My doctor has left me to hang out and dry. This is criminal what we have to go through.

[[Wi...]]

Hey cupcake

I read ur prior posts and what you should do STAT is make an appointment with a new Dr. and tell him your situation to see if he will switch you over to a valium taper. Keep doing that until you find a dr. who WILL do that for you. A 15 hear ativan habit with a quick taper is really gonna be rough so..... I think a psychiatrist would be your best bet but research "benzo prescibing Drs. in your area" until you find one who will work for you. Your current Dr. sounds like a real clown but there are some who have empathy and will work with you so again-if i were in your shoes i would be doing all i can to find one. You wont want to fool with it when you are out of ativan in the midst of horrendous withdrawal. Good luck.