Considering switch midstream

I have been tapering from Ativan .5mg for about a month. Two days ago, I took a double dose of Ativan and I feel like I made a mistake and drifted backwards, also worried about kindling. I felt fabulous the day I had .2mg on board. Today I dosed to 1.5 mg (SUPER sensitive to any changes, worried about a huge crash from the day before) and started having what felt like withdrawal within the day (shakes, headaches, vision problems, nausea, lack of appetite, diarrhea).

I was wondering about switching to Valium midstream. My dr is not very helpful and I’m getting most of my info here. I have reached out to her. I’m so tired of the daily withdrawals. I only take the Ativan once a day.

Any words of wisdom would be really appreciated.

I suggest reading the Ashton Manual; she crossed her patients over to diazepam using gradual, step-wise substitutions and her benzo equivalency chart. The crossover process took about a month or so, did not involve any reduction in equivalent dosage during that time, and she has example crossover/taper schedules laid out in her manual. Going slowly and step-wise is very important to minimize the difficulties of a crossover; diazepam is low potency, but with a potentially very long half-life, so it works up to full strength over a series of a week or so of regular use. If you decided to go this route, I suggest doing it patient-led, and really slow and step-wise; so many buddies have suffered immensely by being switched suddenly to diazepam, or an insufficient equivalency.

You can download a copy of the manual here or read it online as well:

https://www.benzoinfo.com/ashtonmanual/