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Need Help with Ativan Taper / NAD+?


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Hello all,

I am 23 years old and have been through some hard things in life, and I understand this will likely be the hardest.

 

I was prescribed .5mg Ativan for sleep during Covid (~3 years ago) and then up to 1mg about two years ago for sleep.

 

Wasn't aware of what I was taking and have been dealing with serious mental health and physical problems as of late, now understanding that this was due to trying to "taper" off of my medication. I would go to .5, to .25, etc and experience horrible bouts of depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts, horrible brain fog, etc.

 

Anyways - I am looking to get some questions answered.

 

1. I have been taking .75 for sleep, should I stay at this dose for a little bit to begin the disciplined taper?

2. I have only ever taken it for sleep (aside from days I have been hungover, which I know isn't a good idea anymore) , should I continue only to take it at night?

3. What would be a good taper plan?

4. I have access to IV Ketamine and NAD+, and am wondering if this is a good idea as I taper?

 

Trying my best to keep everything in order, but man is it difficult. Any help and advice would be much appreciated.

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Hi BigDawgMac2000,

Your story about how you started taking Ativan sounds similar to mine.  I am currently tapering off a starting dose of 1.5mg Ativan.  I'm a little past the halfway point.  When I realized there was a problem, I was waking up with morning terrors and knew something was wrong.  That was when I started researching about benzos & figured out I needed to get off of it. 

I hope others who have more knowledge about the best way to stabilize will weigh in.  I can tell you that in my case, when I started tapering I changed my dosing from 3x/day to 4x/day, and that made a difference in how I felt.  Since Ativan is a shorter-acting benzo, splitting the dose & taking it more often helps many people with their symptoms, because they aren't having as much interdose withdrawal.  I think there are good resources on this thread as far as how to do a taper plan.  The guideline I have read is to not cut more than 5-10% of your previous dose every 2-4 weeks.  I have been cutting around 5% of my previous dose every 2 weeks. I do a dry cut & weigh taper, so I use a scale to weigh my cuts.  Others have success with a water taper. 

I hope this helps somewhat. 

BW

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4. I have access to IV Ketamine and NAD+, and am wondering if this is a good idea as I taper?

 

 

Ketamine, no. I'm not aware of ketamine helping with benzos tapering or detox. There's limited information that it may help for people in PAWS or Protracted. Some here on BB tried it, didn't work for all.

 

NAD+ maybe. It would be better if you could get to .5, it's the equivalent of 5 mg Valium, which Dr Ken Starr of Ken Starr Wellness prefers people to taper down to. There is one person on BB who used NAD+ to detox from 1.5 mg NAD+, and it was very difficult after. It does throw you into acute, but if you can wait out the first couple weeks, things start improving, a lot of recovery happens after a month.

 

I recently did iontophoresis NAD+ to jump from 2.75 mg of diazepam. I have been journaling my experience here: http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=277207.0 There are links on page 2 of that thread, to discussions involving several who used NAD+ IV's to jump off their benzo. I did a lot of reading and researching prior to trying iontophoresis NAD+. Took me about 4 months to take the plunge and do it. I am at the end of 3 weeks post-jump, and 2 weeks post initial treatment. In acute hell, but starting to improve more and more each day. It is definitely not a walk in the park. But I feel it was probably worth it. Plus, iontophoresis NAD+ is far cheaper, though I don't know how available it is outside the US.

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