Let me just start by saying this drug is sent straight from the devil. First off, its not even very effective, you have to take like 4 of the .5 mgs to do anything. Try not taking it the next day, and you'll feel like you want to die. DONT TAKE THIS DRUG. Anyways, I just started experiencing anxiety badly about a month ago. It was so bad one day I went to urgent care, I told him what I was feeling and that I had an appt. with a psych in 3 weeks. He put me on ativan until then. I needed to take 3 .5 mgs for this med to work. I thought I could just take it when I needed, then on my days off from work when I was not anxious, not take it, I was very wrong. I would get extremely dizzy and feel depressed. Somedays I would take 4, somedays one, but now I am consistently taking 2 .5 mgs a day and am still anxious. I went to the psych, he said all my anxiety is from ADD, that I guess I've had my whole life. So he put me on Concerta, and said to get off the ativan by taking 1 .5 mg a day for 4 days, and then .25 for 4 days, this is way too quick. So I am still taking 2 .5s a days. I take them in the morning and feel ok, but come night time I feel anxious as all hell. Before concerta I didn't really feel this, but still am curious how quick withdrawal sets in? Also, I've been taking ativan for a month, how quick should I taper off? I'm going to the doc on Thursday, hopefully things will be better then. Sorry for the long post, any ativan withdrawal tips or stories would be vastly appreciated, thank you.

What your therapist suggested is what we see long term care facilities a lot actually.

ps Ativan is not a PRN med your doctor should have informed you better.

And it is slightly addictive so you will see some withdrawal symptoms. Just stick with your therapist's suggestion and don't deviate or you'll set yourself up for a worse trip.

Keep us posted.

pss I didn't care much for Ativan myself either.

The only problem I had w/ Ativan was that when I didn't need it anymore and went off it, I got very very bad tics. It was mainly because I had what's called Tic Disorder No'S (Something Like Torrette's).

topballer! I know how you feel. ativan is actually the easiest benzo to get off of. ots actually used as a replacement for other drugs of the same class during tapering because of its longer halflife. go to www.benzo.uk.org (http://www.benzo.uk.org) there is a very good suggested plan there.

Not to step in Ihavekeys? toes, but the website address is actually http://www.benzo.org.uk/. furthermore I would like to correct the statement on the ativan having a longer half life and being easier to get off of. Ativan has a half-life of ten to twenty hours. This means that after about ten through twenty hours after dosage, the plasma levels of the drug in the body are half of the peak amount. This means that Ativan withdrawal effects will be felt much sooner and be alot more intense than a drug that slowly tapers out of the body.

1mg of Ativan(lorazepam) is equal in dosage to 10mg of Valium(diazepam). although you are most likely asking yourself why i made this statement, please follow me as I explain the difference between the half-lifes of the aforementioned medications. As mentioned earlier, lorazepam has a half-life of ten to twenty hours, diazepam on the other hand has a half-life of twenty to one hundred hours. The importance of half-life is quickly noted in that lorazepam is short acting in compairison to diazepam, this means that the user gets the power of 10mg of diazepam over a shorter period of time which means that the effects of lorazepam are alot more potent than that of diazepam.

The statement where Ihavekeys? said that it is easier to taper off of is incorrect. Lorazepam, due to the short lasting but more potent effects of its action is quite hard to taper off of. Many psychiatrists will actually switch someone on Lorazepam to diazepam to help make the slow tapering of the benzo-class medication easier to deal with in regards to side-effects. The slower the reduction of the medication, the more time the body has to adjust to function without it. Tapering can not be done overnight and missing any dose or not listening to a professionals reconmendation will actually cause more problems than one needs.

I would also like to make it clear that there are even shorter acting benzo's such as xanax which are even harder to taper off of. there also are longer acting benzo's which i failed to mention due to the lack of common usage. I used Valium as my compairison since you will most likely go to the website address given and using what i said, you can understand the compairison chart.

Always go to a professional who knows what they are doing. If you doubt that your current professional is educated enough, it is your job to educate yourself and either find a different professional, or try to educate the one you have.

although this was a old posting, I wanted to add this information in hopes that it will help put things under the right light for someone having the same problem.

Sorry if I hurt anyones feelings with this post!

In a personal light, Ativan has been good and bad to me, if I miss a dose I am in for a world of emotional downs. I have made the mistake of trying to go cold turkey on it, can't be done without serious negative emotional side effects, not to mention not being able to sleep. I have been able to taper down in .25 increments every week or longer depending on how well i handle the shift. So it isn't something that one should feel trapped into having to be on, because it is very possible to cut down slowly.
I have also made the mistake of waiting last minute on calling in the refill, bad idea to do that, nothing is worse than abrupt benzo withdrawal, I can't begin to imagine what xanax users go through if they run out.(Xanax has a shorter half life than Ativan)

What am I popping?
-60mg Adderall XR - am :cool: (I want to learn something new!)
-10mg Adderall IR - 5pm :p (Let's focus on eating something!)
-225mg Effexor XR - am :eyebrow: (The face says it all!)
-2mg Ativan - split am & pm :rolleyes: (Everything is ok!)
-400mg Spironolactone :eek: (Never have I drank so much water!)
-400mg Prometrium :mad: (Lets get *****y!)
-8mg Estrace :D (Flowers are soo pretty!)

There is liver damage:), then there is LIVER damage.:faint:

Just my 2C, but I have always had an extremely morbid fear of benzo addiction, in fact the thought of addiction can cause me some degree of anxiety (no kidding).

I have had, over the years, Xanax and Ativan Rx'ed PRN and never ever had difficulties taking them as directed. I was once on Klonopin at regular doses (geez that was so long ago though, I apologise for not remembering the doses) and cannot recall having a hard time withdrawing from it.

I do remember that at one time I was RX'ed 25 mgs Mellaril, which is a MAJOR tranq, and an antipsychotic at higher dosages (in excess of 300 mgs, I believe) and that did wonders for persistent anxiety AT THE VERY LOW DOSE. Naturally some ridiculous, non-believing doc saw "Mellaril" on my chart at one point and upped me to the antipsychotic dose :rolleyes: while hospitalised and caused me some serious problems.

I dunno, maybe it is just me since all people are different but I have never had any issues using benzos PRN or with withdrawal/addiction. I think they can be very beneficial when used by a person who can manage it.

That being said, I do know that benzo withdrawal is one of the single most painful withdrawals in existence and I am so sorry to hear that you have suffered topballer :(:(:( anxiety is a real horror show for those of us who have it. I hope you find what you need to feel better!!

Hey everyone, it's odd to see this post up and running again, I remember starting this last summer. Those were some rough times with Ativan, it's weird because even though ativan has a longer half-life, I don't suffer the horrific withdrawl symptoms with xanax. Anyways, 1 year later and my anxiety is still bad, even though I am seeing a therapist which is helping. I just started zoloft yesterday and am now on 1 mg xanax xr everyday, right now the zoloft is making me very tired, I'm gonna give it 1 week and see if it passes.

I"m sorry you had a bad expierience with Ativan. I have to say that I have found Ativan very useful. I don't use it gor general anxiety but I take it at night (whehever I need it) to help me sleep. I tried it during the day when I was realy stressed but that did in fact screw me up a little bit. I became physically ill. Maybe it was because I took the medicine and I didn't go to sleep afterowrd. I take 1mg wheever I need too.

Do EXACTLY as your doctor says. Don't mess around with addiction to ativan.
Whatever you do don't go off of it cold turkey. Taper off just like your doctor says.
You will be fine.

ME :D


Let me just start by saying this drug is sent straight from the devil. First off, its not even very effective, you have to take like 4 of the .5 mgs to do anything. Try not taking it the next day, and you'll feel like you want to die. DONT TAKE THIS DRUG. Anyways, I just started experiencing anxiety badly about a month ago. It was so bad one day I went to urgent care, I told him what I was feeling and that I had an appt. with a psych in 3 weeks. He put me on ativan until then. I needed to take 3 .5 mgs for this med to work. I thought I could just take it when I needed, then on my days off from work when I was not anxious, not take it, I was very wrong. I would get extremely dizzy and feel depressed. Somedays I would take 4, somedays one, but now I am consistently taking 2 .5 mgs a day and am still anxious. I went to the psych, he said all my anxiety is from ADD, that I guess I've had my whole life. So he put me on Concerta, and said to get off the ativan by taking 1 .5 mg a day for 4 days, and then .25 for 4 days, this is way too quick. So I am still taking 2 .5s a days. I take them in the morning and feel ok, but come night time I feel anxious as all hell. Before concerta I didn't really feel this, but still am curious how quick withdrawal sets in? Also, I've been taking ativan for a month, how quick should I taper off? I'm going to the doc on Thursday, hopefully things will be better then. Sorry for the long post, any ativan withdrawal tips or stories would be vastly appreciated, thank you.

I am extremely impressed that topballer actually received my response. The post was so backdated that I thought I would never get to hear from the person who started this thread.

Topballer, I am glad that you have had a more enjoyable experiance taking xanax, Ativan is a nasty med to take, but it does do it's job quite well as long as one does their job in following strict dirrections and educating themself. I am very sorry to hear that you do not feel dramaticly different. I know that having a therapist is a nice thing to have, but alot of the time they only listen as if your talking to a wall, when they finally do talk, most of them are just as stumped as you.
As for taking zoloft, although I wasn't able to gain anything from the drug, there is the chance that you will be that lucky person who feels better with it. the whole being tired thing is common and is actually made worse from Xanax's CNS depressant effects. (remember that the central nervous system is your brain and spine) so if you suppress the activity in the CNS you are going to feel tired, the fact that you are shifting chemicals around while in this depressed mode requires extra energy that simply has been robbed by the depressant. I am not saying that Xanax or any other benzo is bad, I am simply saying that you are going to feel the change more than you would had you not been taking a CNS depressant.

I know that when I have everything running without a depressant, I can barely feel hormone shifts or chemical shifts, but when on a depressant i feel it much more. The use of a CNS depressant in someone diagnosed ADD is something that is debated about due to the fact that ADD is known to be caused by a lack of activity in the CNS, so being on a depressant does not make things at all better in regards to ADD treatment.

Since speedo already repeated what i said in my last post, I will just like you to know that I can not stress enough over being religious with meds, all it takes is one day to create a horrible wave effect. although the wave isn't felt, you will find yourself falling into the cycle of forgetting to take the meds, eventually leading to a worse off state than before.

I wish you the greatest of luck in life, I will be tossing my next penny down the well with a wish for your contentment in life.

SweetNicole,
Thank you so much for your kind response. I'm glad I decided to hop back on this board, because prior to coming across that post again I hadn't been on this board for about 3 months because my therapist told me not too (he thinks I'm a hypochondriac, which I probly am). But I had to look into Zoloft and check people's experiences with it. Anyways the information you provided me with was very informative. For instance someone was telling me that the combination of Zoloft and Xanax would make me more tired as you were explaining, but I had to keep taking the xanax because I was still anxious. Anyways, after 3 days the Zoloft just became too unbearable and I stopped (having no withdrawal). Right now I am just taking the 1 mg xanax xr but still having trouble w/ anxiety. It's weird, at the beginning of work I'll be anxious for the first 2 hours, then I'll be fine, it's like I have to ease myself into things. Then when I go out to a social event, it's hit or miss. Sometimes I'll be anxious, sometimes not. I've tried just about every medication and want to move on without it, but my anxious self always thinks "I wonder if this medication will help?" I'm going to try being medication free for the next 2 months except for taking the xanax, and go from there. I've read a lot about positive thinking and my therapist has told me a lot about it, so I'm gonna give that shot. I'm going to Jersey on Memorial day to see some friends I haven't seen in a while and go to some concerts. As excited as I am, I'm anxious about how anxious I'm gonna be during that vacation if that makes any sense, but I'm going to stay positive and look forward to it. As far as you and therapists, I'm sorry to hear it sounds like you got a therapist that wasn't responsive. I really like my therapist, I feel totally comfortable with him and can talk to him about anything, plus he is extremely helpful. And as far as the Ativan goes, sorry I didn't mean to bash it in my first post, it was just I was going through some rough times then and the Ativan withdrawl was the worst withdrawal I've ever had. I realize that everyone reacts differently to different medications and I'm glad you have had success with it. In closing sorry for the long scattered response, I typically don't post on message boards, but people like you make me want to communicate my problems and listen to others. It's not only helpful but very informative also. Thank you for your support and I wish you the best of luck in the future.

Ativan works just fine if you can control yourself. The medications don't make you addicted, you yourself form the addictional habit of taking them.

I have been on many different benzos over the years for my schizoaffective disorder. I am sorry you are having such a hard time stopping the ativan but I am really suprised you are having any withdrawal symptoms at such a ridiculously low dosage. Ativan is a great drug and yes it is used prn in psych hospitals...its the one they mainly use. I am not doubting your experience was hard for you but you should not be having any physical problem...they are prolly psychological. I have stopped and started several different benzodiazepines over the years and never experienced any symptoms other than slight edginess and/or insomnia. Again, I am sorry you are having such a rought time with this.:)