Should I start tapering now?

I started taking antidepressants 16 years ago for severe anxiety and panic attacks they added in the benzo Ativan 4 years ago I take 3mg a day. Well 5 months ago almost I was cold turkey off my antidepressant due to possible serotonin syndrome which they now are not sure I even had go figure. So I have been in severe withdrawals from that for almost 5 months. Right now my anxiety is so bad from sun up till sun down I can figure out if it’s the withdrawals, my original condition, or interdose withdrawals from the Ativan. I feel better only for a couple of hours after I take my Ativan and sometimes not even that long. So my questions are what is the probable cause if this severe anxiety?Should I get off Ativan now or when I’m through the antidepressant withdrawals? What if it is the Ativan causing the anxiety should I start coming off now? Should I cross taper to Valium, if so how do I do it? Will I get withdrawals from going from Ativan to Valium? Help I’m so lost confused and don’t know where to turn my doctors are all clueless.

Only a knowledgeable doctor could differentiate between

an anxiety disorder, antidepressant withdrawal or inter-dose withdrawal,

which by the way aren't necessarily mutually exclusive.

To me inter-dose withdrawal seems likelier than antidepressant withdrawal,

which in turn seems likelier than an anxiety disorder.

The reason for this is that Ativan does help but only for a little while.

 

In any case, I think 5 months is long enough to wait.

Regarding the tapering method, I'd opt for Valium substitution,

since I believe inter-dose withdrawal to be the likeliest culprit.

If you use the correct equivalency and do it gradually,

there's no actual withdrawal during the crossover, only Valium substitution.

 

I too was in tolerance and experiencing inter-dose withdrawal before switching.

As you can see from my signature, I was on 1.5mg Xanax = 3mg Ativan much like you.

There's also a schedule in my signature which I devised based on Ashton's guidelines.

The schedule is for doses up to 2mg Xanax = 4mg Ativan but can be easily adjusted.

All you'd have to do, should you wish to follow it, is multiply Xanax doses by 2

to get the Ativan equivalent and disregard the 2nd of 4 doses

to end up with 3 doses of 1mg Ativan, assuming that's how you divide your dosage.