Need Advise on Lorazepam Taper

Greetings. Chanced upon this group when researching on how to withdraw from Lorazepam.

I was having serious chronic insomnia 4 months ago. Finally decided to see a sleep psychiatrist in Feb 2021 who immediately diagnosed me with anxiety. I never knew all those physical symptoms that I'm having were due to anxiety. I simply thought I just did not have enough sleep. My symptoms were chest discomfort (very difficult to put in words), dizziness, a general sense of weakness, numbness in the arms and legs and digestive issues. I was prescribed lorazepam at 0.5mg and mirtazapine at 15mg. The psychiatrist told me that the lorazepam is for short term use until the effects of the mirtazapine kick in in 4-6 weeks time. I was reluctant to take the meds as I've heard horror stories about them but relented as I'm really in very very bad shape.

Fast forward 8 weeks later and I'm now in a quandary. My conditions had improved tremendously and was nearly symptom free at week 6. Thinking that the "effect" of the mirtazapine has kicked in, I happily started to taper the lorazepam at 10-15% (estimate as its impossible to cut them) for 5 days then followed by another 10% for 2 days. Bad mistake. I started to have serious rebound symptoms at week 7 and it persisted ever since. Now at week 8, I'm feeling as bad as before taking the meds. I've now went back to the initial dose of 0.5mg lorazepam but condition has only improved slightly. I'm just hoping these are withdrawal symptoms and not some new side effects from mirtazapine/lorazepam. So much for waiting for the mirtazapine to kick in. Maybe it kicked in with bad side effects rather then render any help. Anyway, I can't be sure.

I'm hoping for my condition to stabilize before I restart my taper. I probably went too fast on the lorazepam taper thinking that 6 weeks of taking lorazepam is not a long time. But my real question is how to dry taper a 0.5mg lorazepam? Even the Gemini 20 scale mentioned extensively in this forum can only go down to 0.001g, ie 1mg. I've consulted my local pharmacist and the smallest dose of lorazepam that they carry is 1mg. (Yes, I'm actually cutting the 1mg tablet in half currently). I'm not located in the US where there are more options available. So liquid taper, etc are out. The only other alternative is convert to valium (diazepam) and taper from there.

Any advise will be appreciated. And stay strong everyone.

Hello Iamsc,

Welcome to BenzoBuddies, it is nice to have you join our community.  I am sorry you are having withdrawl symptoms even at the slow taper rate we support here.  I used a liquid taper plan for the last 0.5mg of my clonazepam taper so am not familiar with dry cuts at low doses so I will leave you this link where you can post your question:  Planning Your Withdrawal (Taper Plans)

I'll give you this link for withdrawl support also:  Withdrawal Support (during your taper)

Although this process can be discouraging, most of our members do let benzos go from their lives and move on.  We are here to support you, please let us know how we can help.

Best and again, welcome,

Kate

Hi Iamsc,

Welcome to the community!

I also took lorazepam, and then my psychiatrist put me on mirtazapine when I started the taper. I can't tell if the mirtazapine helps or not because the withdrawal symptoms can be so bad. I'm hoping that once I'm off the benzo, the mirtazapine will start to make a difference.

When I dropped from 0.5mg to 0.25mg, it was rough. I definitely would have made a smaller cut had I known. Some people make their own liquid titration (I'm not sure if you can do that with lorazepam or not). There is a lot of information in the titration forum: http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?board=164.0. That might be the best option since the smallest tablet you can get is 1mg.

You will get through this!