Help splitting ativan doses

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I take 3mg Ativan every night. I would like to split this into two doses for now for the next 4 weeks so that it doesn't affect my sleep.

What's the best way to achieve this? Symptomatically, mornings are okay so far. Lightheadedness comes up second half of the afternoon.

Dr Horowitz asked me to slowly move 1mg to the afternoons.

I hope the remaining  nightly 2mg allows me my sleep 

Edited May 1 by [...]

[[Li...]]

@[...] There are several ways to split doses. One way would be to take 1mg of your dose 1 hour earlier each day until you reach the target time for the afternoon dose.  For example:

2mg at 9pm
1mg at 8pm

2mg at 9pm
1mg at 7pm

2mg at 9pm
1mg at 6pm

etc.

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Alright,  thanks @[Li...]!

Can I make the shift with just a day's gap?

[[Li...]]

The amount you move and the pacing of the move is totally up to you.  It all depends on how you respond to these changes.   If you have not already done so, I strongly encourage you to set up a taper log so you can track dates, doses, symptoms, and functionality.

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I will, thanks 

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@[Li...]

I do not think there is a liquid lorezepam available. My husband is still waiting to hear from another source on this.

 

From what I read on here, many have issues moving to liquid from a pill.

 

Is it better to do a cut and hold vs. a daily micro taper especially from lorezepam? Is a daily microtaper possible from lorezepam in pill form?

 

And should I be on 3 'equal' doses a day? For me, that will be 1mg each morning, afternoon, night. Or can I have a bit more at night?

 

When I spilt it this way, guess my sleep will get affected.

[[Li...]]

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I'm at 0.5mg afternoon dose and 2.5mg nightly dose. 

I had some international travel and just got back. Once I'm over the jetlag in a few days, how best should I split the total 3mg ativan dose?

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@[Br...], @[ns...]

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@[El...], can you help me?

[[El...]]

@[...] I would be very glad to help if I am able. I guess I need a little more detail. Do you want to start moving to 3 doses per day before you have fully moved to a 1 mg afternoon dose as recommended by Dr. Horowitz? Are you experiencing interdose withdrawal? Are you sleeping OK on your present dosing (0.5 and 2.5)?

I do want to say that a daily microtaper using pills is entirely possible as long as you have a reliable scale to weigh your doses. And you can also always decide for yourself what doses you want at each dosing time. I was doing a cut and hold until it was just taking too long to recover between larger cuts. I am now microtapering for 10-12 days in a row, then holding for 2-3 days to let my system “catch up”. I try to keep my doses fairly even, but if you are concerned about sleep, I see no problem with a slight increase in your evening dose.

Looking forward to hearing from you!

 

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Hi EllieM

I'm sleeping well at 2.5mg nightly.

My dosing was 3mg nightly until about 3 weeks ago.

About interdose withdrawals, some new symptoms appear in the afternoons relieved by the afternoon dose.

Sleep is precious.

What do you suggest?

[[El...]]

After reading some of your other posts, it seems that you are quite frightened of tapering. It can be difficult, of course. But everyone does not experience difficulty. For example, my husband stopped taking 0.5 mg of Xanax (which he had taken for several years) and did not experience one day of discomfort. The journey has been slightly more difficult for me. But it is not impossible!

Anyway, you indicate that you experience some relief from your symptoms when you take your afternoon dose. That is certainly a significant indication of interdose withdrawal. I guess if I were you, I would slowly move more of my evening dose to the afternoon as Dr. Horowitz indicated you should do. I suggest you do this in small increments to see how it affects your sleep. If you have a scale you could weigh out your incremental changes in the afternoon and evening doses. If not, you will have to “eyeball” the changes by breaking up your tablets. I think the ultimate ideal situation would be to have 2 evenly weighted doses as well as having them evenly spaced in time to reduce the effects of peaks and valleys in your blood serum levels (which would result in interdose withdrawal). Once you are stable, this would then be a good place to begin your taper. I personally would not begin my taper until I reached that point. I would gladly share my story and how I am currently tapering. But, I think, and it is only my opinion, you need to stabilize your 2 doses before then.

Hope you are doing well today!

 

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Thanks for your reply @[El...]

I will work on this. I just returned from a long international trip, am jetlagged and my sleep times are all messed up.

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At 0.5mg ativan noon and 2.5mg ativan pm , my sleep is all messed up after my long travel. In two weeks, there was only 1 night that I slept well with just ativan. Have been using melatonin 1.5mg or 3mg to support sleep if ativan does not have me sleeping by 1am.

Last night, I didn't sleep well at all even with 1.5mg of melatonin and I'm a mess today.

Should I continue balancing my sleep some more before i split my ativan doses further?

Also, the lightheadedness is getting persistent all day with some relief with noon dose. 

I'm confused and distressed by all of this 😐 

 

 

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The combination of lightheadedness and sleeplessness is just so scary.  😞 😓 😩