Three months of occasional lorazepam. This has to stop

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Hello everybody, after surgery last July I panicked because I gave myself bad chronic neuropathy trough the use of an antidepressant. To calm down I got lorazepam. Used it sparingly over the last three months as I knew about the risks. Alas, here I am having zero sleep on nights without it. Plus all the electricity and palpitations. What would you do? If I order the tapering strips from the pharmacy it will take a while to get it and I will have to take the lorazepam daily to avoid going crazy from sleep deprivation. I am on 1 mlg now. 0,5 doesn’t work anymore. Thank you so much for your opinion. 

 

 

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Hello @[...] and welcome to Benzo Buddies!

I am glad you are aware of the risks of long term benzo use. However, these drugs and tricky and it doesn’t take long for a physical dependency to develop. It appears this happened to you.

Let me as you a few questions. Did you stop taking the lorazepam suddenly? Was it after the cold turkey that the insomnia became severe? When did you reinstate the lorazepam?

I see you have tapering strips ordered. If you feel stable you can start a slow taper and when they arrive, continue with the taper strips. I am not an expert at tapering, mine was rough because both I and my doctor were learning together. 

We generally recommend reducing no more than 5-10% every 10-14 days. 

Once we hear back from you we can go into more detail about your tapering goals.

pianogirl 

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Hi pianogirl, thank you for responding. 
I hoped I could get away with taking it twice a week. But now I don’t sleep on the nights I don’t take it so I am now increasing the intake. Horribly enough. Only because I am desperate to sleep. So the coming nights I will probably take 1 m. 
I have chronic nerve pain in my feet so the nights are very uncomfortable anyway. I drive my gp crazy probably with all my questions these times but I hope she will write the recipe for the tapering. I will go as slow as possible? 

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Hi Colin, I didn’t take it daily in September October but now it looks like I am taking it daily 

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No this type of pain is not treatable. Except with anti depressants!!! Which I don’t want to use 

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