I feel great, can I jump at 0.10 ativan?

Hi,

 

I was at 1mg Ativan for almost 20 years and started tapering 10 months ago. Except for the tinnitus and some memory problems that persist, I'm feeling very well as I approach the 0.10mg mark. Could I just quit taking the Ativan completely? The amount of powder I'm taking seems so ridiculously small! And I'd like to concentrate on the Effexor taper I still have ahead as it won't be a piece of cake

 

What do you guys think?

Have you reached 0.10mg already, meaning, have you been on 0.10mg for some time?

Ginger, I'm at 0.11mg and will reach the 0.10 in two days. But I'm feeling better and better for a long time. I don't think it makes sense to hold at 0.10, instead of continuing to reduce, because I'm already feeling well.

I'm at 0.11mg and will reach the 0.10 in two days. But I'm feeling better and better for a long time.

 

It's a personal judgment call.  If you feel you're ready, then you probably are, especially since you've been feeling better and better for a long time, you know your body best.  I would. 

For me, I am just taking it slow all the way till the end.  I have not had a single cut that did not make me feel somewhat ill.  It's a personal decision, but I have seen many people jump at such a low dose, and get right back on it the next week, while others just jump off. 

Good luck whatever you decide to do. Holding a little longer wouldnt hurt but if you feel well enough to do it then Good Luck!!! Please keep us posted. It gives me hope as I am tapering from ativan too. Did you only take it once a day or divided doses?? I’m a little stuck right now.. .... wishing you well!!

Bella

Thank you for the encouragement guys, the idea of jumping scares me so much I'm afraid I'll go back to those horrible first months when I couldn't even move a finger...

 

Bella, I always took it once a day, before going to bed. Yes, I'm all in favor of holding. I held several times, once for more than three months, and it helped me a lot. Always. I think it's the main reason why I was able to reach the point where I'm now. Good luck for you too

 

.1 ativan is equal to 1mg valium, a dose that ashton says most people can jump at.  You could technically jump from here safely, or you could break your current dose in half for a few says, just to "cushion" the drop.  I hope you continue to get relief once the medication is out of your system!  Good luck!

.1 ativan is equal to 1mg valium, a dose that ashton says most people can jump at.  You could technically jump from here safely, or you could break your current dose in half for a few says, just to "cushion" the drop.  I hope you continue to get relief once the medication is out of your system!  Good luck!

 

Thanks Dolphinator, it helps a lot to know that Ashoton thinks it's OK to jump at 1mg valium! And it's a good idea to "cushion" the drop! So, after I reach the 0.10 mg ativan, I'll accelerate my taper and start cutting 5% per day. Then, if all goes well, I'll jump at 0.05mg.

.1 ativan is equal to 1mg valium, a dose that ashton says most people can jump at.  You could technically jump from here safely, or you could break your current dose in half for a few says, just to "cushion" the drop.  I hope you continue to get relief once the medication is out of your system!  Good luck!

 

I agree with D78, cut it in half a few days and if you feel good, jump.  I'm just very cautious  . Good luck 🍀

I’m so glad to see some success with Ativan tapering.  I’m still at the beginning of my journey and it just seems like Ativan is a really tough one.  I am still trying to decide if I should cut up my daily dose and take it four times daily ...

• Hi Freedom,
  It's no big deal if you do it carefully. Here's what I found important:
  
  • Taper slowly and always cut a percentage of previous dose (and not a fixed amount). I typically cut 1% of previous dose per day. Only now I'm accelerating to 2% per day. People often do a lot of confusion and say that their scale hasn't enough resolution or so, but what happens is that at the lower doses you'll be, for example, four days at 0.15, then three at 0.14, etc.
     
    
  • Listen to your body - I can't stress this enough! I.e. when you start feeling bad, hold the dose until you feel better. Simply stop cutting and wait for as long as necessary. Don't listen to stuff like "holding for too long is bad" or "I never stabilized so I had to C/T" (). Forget it, you'll get better! Stay in bed if you have too, but resist the urge to change you dose. Be prepared to hold for months, if needed. By holding you are giving your body time to heal and you have to give it as much time it needs to catch up.
    
  • Accept that you'll have symptoms for a long time. Don't think too much about those symptoms. Adjust your life and don't expect too much from yourself in this period.
    
  • Exercise. If you don't feel good, do a lighter type of exercise, but keep moving.
    
  • This one is personal and I imagine it could be done otherwise but I decided from the beginning that I would not add further confusion to the process by splitting the dose or trying to cross over to a different benzo (as my doctor wanted me to at a certain point).
    

 

And good luck!

Magnesi

I’m so glad you are doing well with your taper. I read in your signature that at a certain point you did a cut and then wrote (by doctor, don’t do it). Is that what the doctor wanted you to do? Did you have medical guidance with your cuts? I am still figuring all this out and am seeing my psychiatrist this week and want to discuss my tapering with him but don’t know how much help he will be.

I am quite symptomatic but keep blaming it on worsening of fibro and CFS. My not sure what is coming from what anymore. I have been experiencing more muscle weakness. Especially in my thighs with debilitating fatigue. Tension headaches I have always had but where extremely worse when I did a big cut 3 months the ago. I do have arthritis in my neck and herniated cervical discs which give me daily pain and headaches and am trying to address that. It’s the lightheadedness and muscle weakness which have me scared. Some vestibular migraine that I experience will give me vertigo and odd balance. It this is different. I am totally exhausted from this and sometimes wonder if it’s just progression of disease rather than the Ativan taper. I am so confused. How long does it take to heal from Ativan. I read about PAWS and get so frightened. I am presently at .5 mg at bedtime only.

Bella

• Hi Freedom,
  It's no big deal if you do it carefully. Here's what I found important:
  
  • Taper slowly and always cut a percentage of previous dose (and not a fixed amount). I typically cut 1% of previous dose per day. Only now I'm accelerating to 2% per day. People often do a lot of confusion and say that their scale hasn't enough resolution or so, but what happens is that at the lower doses you'll be, for example, four days at 0.15, then three at 0.14, etc.
     
    
  • Listen to your body - I can't stress this enough! I.e. when you start feeling bad, hold the dose until you feel better. Simply stop cutting and wait for as long as necessary. Don't listen to stuff like "holding for too long is bad" or "I never stabilized so I had to C/T" (). Forget it, you'll get better! Stay in bed if you have too, but resist the urge to change you dose. Be prepared to hold for months, if needed. By holding you are giving your body time to heal and you have to give it as much time it needs to catch up.
    
  • Accept that you'll have symptoms for a long time. Don't think too much about those symptoms. Adjust your life and don't expect too much from yourself in this period.
    
  • Exercise. If you don't feel good, do a lighter type of exercise, but keep moving.
    
  • This one is personal and I imagine it could be done otherwise but I decided from the beginning that I would not add further confusion to the process by splitting the dose or trying to cross over to a different benzo (as my doctor wanted me to at a certain point).
    

 

And good luck!

Hey Mag..

What a great post..!!

 

You know I will say "low n slow"..!! But really, if you feel truly ready, go for it..!!

I wish you all the best, and with future tapering too..

Well done getting to here..!!

 

Dear Bella,

 

Other than prescribing the meds you need I don't see how your psychiatrist can help with the taper. Because what you need to do is very simple: reduce the dose slowly and hold when you feel bad. Psychiatrists tend to recommend too large cuts and complicate the process with other meds, benzo cross-overs and dose splittings. You don't need any of that. So, don't be scared, it's perfectly doable!

 

I'm really sorry you are feeling bad. But on your story I see you've been making 50% cuts, which are huge. So, it's normal you feel bad! My psychiatrist also made me cut my dose by 50% at the beginning and I felt so bad I eventually had to reinstate and begin a slower taper. But, of course, psychiatrists' idea of "slow" is a bit weird. He made me cut the dose by 25% in alternate days which also didn't give good results (this is what I say you shouldn't do).

 

So, in your case, I'd reinstate the dose to a level I'd feel comfortable with. I think I'd try going back to the 1mg per day. Then I'd start a really slow taper, cutting a maximum of 1% of previous dose per day (1% per day corresponds to Ashton's fastest route).

 

Hi magnesi

 

always cut a percentage of previous dose (and not a fixed amount)

There is no doubt in my mind that this is one of the most illuminated answers I happened to read since I joined. Hat off magnesi!

 

Hey Mag..

What a great post..!!

 

You know I will say "low n slow"..!! But really, if you feel truly ready, go for it..!!

I wish you all the best, and with future tapering too..

Well done getting to here..!!

 

Hi Cant! Thank you, good luck to you too

 

And how are you doing?

Hey Mag..

What a great post..!!

 

You know I will say "low n slow"..!! But really, if you feel truly ready, go for it..!!

I wish you all the best, and with future tapering too..

Well done getting to here..!!

 

Hi Cant! Thank you, good luck to you too

 

And how are you doing?

Im Good Mate,

-am right behind you at 0.25v -Just letting the last of some SX cycle through...

0.5v was a too high for ME..

 

Well, bed time...

All the best..

 

Magnesi

Thank you for the response. I am in tears in bed again right now. My thigh muscles won’t support me. They feel so weak and they also hurt. It’s weird. I am physically wiped out. I keep thinking what if this is something else. I can’t do anything physical. I get so exhausted. Much more lately. I start to feel

Like I am going to faint and my heart rate increases. I’ve been noticing it more and more. I can’t go up a flight of stairs without it wiping me out or even come out of a long shower. I get exhausted and weak and again fast heart rate so I always have to lay down afterwards for about 20 minutes. Forget about a hot bath. That puts me over the edge. Maybe I have POTS? Anyway, I am having all cardio testing done in the next few weeks and we’ll see what that shows. In the meantime I am going to increase today and going forward for a bit and see if this muscle weakness gets better. If it does I have my answer....as much as I don’t want to hear it or believe it. I guess I am so angry. Everything fell apart this past winter after prolonged steroid use and he need for more Ativan!

I had a talk therapy appointment this past Friday and expressed these concerns to my therapist who feels I am making myself crazy thinking about the symtpoms coming from Ativan. She said I have a lot of health conditions and it could be part of my health syndromes. She said I go back and forth in my thinking process too...with regards to blaming it in Ativan. She even suggests that I shouldn’t visit the online benzo sites anymore. Nobody seems to get it. Nobody  seems to be helping me. I know I have a lot of health issues but this is something that has gotten so frightening and so bad so quickly that it really scares me.

Tuesday I will also talk to my psychiatrist and see what he says. If I feel that he is not taking me seriously then I will go somewhere else. I’m nit that crazy about him anyway and only started working with him about 10 months ago because my previous shrink retired.

Oh well...I know that’s a lot of information but I am so scared right now and so uncertain of everything.

Bella

Bella,

 

All the symptoms you describe can be due to withdrawal. I had them. Muscle weakness was one of the first and I found out that physical exercise helps a lot in the medium/long term. It could be walking, Pilates, yoga, aerobics, running, whatever you like. Fast heart rate, I also had. I even discussed it with my gym instructor. What I used to do was just to stop until the heart rate settled down and them resumed whatever I was doing. Muscle tightness, also, was one of my most debilitating symptoms. I had it for a long time and at around halfway my taper I had to stay in bed several weeks and could not move one finger for more than one week. I even lost my senses once because the pain was excruciating. I took an anti-inflammatory and had to hold the Ativan dose for two months or so.

 

Lately I've been feeling good but during most of my taper I spent a lot of time in bed and that helped. But it got better! And it will for you too. It just takes time, patience and determination.

 

Reading at BB also helped me a lot. Health care professionals don't like it but I don't #"$%&#"$ care! It's my health, not theirs! And I find it simply shocking the idea that I can't read or watch something. I'm an adult and I have the right to get all the information I want, to form my own opinion. And it's not like health care professionals are experts on benzo-related stuff. They do HUGE mistakes all the time! So, don't pay too much attention to what they say! Learn all you can, by reading here and on other places, and don't let health professionals complicate your life.

 

 

Thanks Mag

I actually was able to make it out to my brother BBQ I spite of how awful I felt this morning. I did however updose because of the debilitating symtpoms recently. I took a morning dose of .25 and a late afternoon dose of .25 which is how the dr originally wanted me to do it. I feel better this evening. Not great but was able to function without collapsing. I had a nice afternoon. I will talk to my shrink on Tuesday and let him know I jumped ahead of the taper and theses are my symtpoms. If my muscles feel better just by updosing then it can’t be coincidental. It happened at the end of May when I just went C/T for three days during a hospital admission for migraines.  My dear friend was at the BBQ and she had to taper down from Xanax. She said she did it in three months. She was not on as long as me and she has a different make up then me. I have a lot of other health issues and am very sensitive. She’s the opposite. In all honesty she said I may need to do tiny cuts and it might take a year or longer. Especially since I get so symptomatic. She even said “you may just have to stay on it because of all Your health issues.....maybe you need it. “

I guess she was trying to be soothing so I don’t beat myself up and just take it slow. We’ve known each other forever and knows the before me when we were young and we’re out all the time and now so many health issues, accidents, surgeries and changes.

Oh well tomorrow is another day. I’ll repeat what I did today and see how it goes. I would love to feel

Well enough to get back to exercising.

Thanks for the help and support.

Take good care of yourself.

Bella

Hi Bella,

You seem to have a pretty good grasp of everything.. Now you have to make it all work for You..

Give it the time it needs, you can do this...

Best wishes..

 

Hi Magnesi,  thank you for responding. I’m sorry I just now saw this. I would love to just cut 1% Daily. However I don’t think my doctor is going to go for that. He already cut me 25% on my first cut.  It has now been almost 2 months. I still managed to go work for a few hours and cook and clean a few days a week but I am extremely tired. I also tried to do yoga a few times a week which helps. I go back to doctor on Monday and will be asking to do a much much slower taper.  I am now on day six of changing from .5 mg  at lunchtime and 1 mg in the afternoon to .50 3x daily .  This seem to have helped a little . 

 

I also cannot stop thinking about the Ashton manual and wanting to switch to V,  my doctor does not wish to do that either.  He does not want to prescribe 2 benzo’s .  It is encouraging to see that you did not switch over.  So we shall see

Freedom I am taperibg from Ativan also and having some bad times. I’m at 1 mg a day now in 3 divided doses. Two weeks ago I Eliminated the 2 day time doses...one at a time for a a week or two each and then suddenly it hit me bad. So now I am back to the three doses....which at times I feel

Is not enough but don’t want to updose any more. i was at 2 mg also and without knowing about tapering went to 1.5 and then stopped the other .5 and ran into trouble there  too. This was before I even knew what I was experiencing was w/d. I wanted off so badly that I went against my drs orders and tapered very quickly. I dropped 50% in 2 weeks and after a few days I couldn’t walk. My muscles were so weak that my thighs would not support me. I was also extremely lightheaded headed and had a rapid heart rate All the time. I was forced to go back up and start again at 1 mg a day and slowly taper down. I’m learning  as I go. Yesterday I made the mistake of having a few ounces of wine with dinner and it hit me hard. I have had anything in 7-8 months. Was up all night with symtpoms. Today I was non functional. Praying for better days for all of us.

I never knew this was going to be so hard or that I would become so affected.

Y'all are splitting hairs.