lorazepam/ativan

Post Reply New Topic

Hey all,

So since my mental breakdown I have been doing fine this past week taking my Citalopram and Lorazepam. The Lorazepam chills me the hell out, but allows me to function, and I don't get any side effects from the 40mg of Citalopram as I've been on them a while now.

But, the doctor has prescribed pregabalin which he plans to keep me on and take me off the lorazepam. He said the lorazepam is short term use only. I am in total disagreement with him here because I've spoken to a number of people who have been taking them years. Yes, granted they are probably dependant on them both physically and mentally, but they take them daily to maintain a balance and function in life - and it works!

I discussed this with my doctor who said it wasn't ideal to keep me on them.

I have explained I struggle to swallow tablets, and the Citalopram and Lorazepam are both very small. But the pregabalin is huge and I've choked and vomited on them every time I've taken them. He wants to try and get me a liquid form.

I just feel it's pointless. The lorazepam works. I don't care about the physical addiction to them, because they make me feel so normal.

I don't get why some doctors are happy to keep patients on lorazepam, and others not.

The pregabalin is pointless, because I can't take them. I don't want to try other meds when I have a working combination here. So I'd rather stay on them until I've gone through my 1-2-1 therapy, and then when I've learnt to cope I'd rather come off the lorazepam and remain on Citalopram.

What is so wrong with this?

I just feel like if he's going to take me off them I'll end up buying them illegally because this is the best I have ever felt in the 12 years of battling anxiety and depression.

Any advice or help here?

Don't mess about with Lorazepam. I know it's great--it has ended panic attacks for me, but benzodiazepines have hellish withdrawal symptoms.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7841856

People who get hooked are every bit as desperate as junkies. Don't do this to yourself.

Hi Adamantium.

Yes I've read the withdrawal symptoms from these, but if taken for a long amount of time, and you come off them slowly - as advised - then I don't understand the problem. I would much rather continue on these medications than go through hell again.

It's a safe drug to take in terms of it's effects on the body ... i.e. long term use isn't going to cause problems apart from withdrawal if you suddenly stop taking them.

What I still don't get is how some doctors are happy to keep patients on them, but others not.

I just don't want to go backwards. I've been through the whole routine in the past of trying meds, feeling crappy and nothing working. This is the only time I've felt meds have worked. Going back to the way I felt before isn't even an existence.

I took 0.25 mgs of Xanax per day, which is pediatric dose for two weeks. It was enough for me to become physically dependant. The stuff didn't do anything for me mood/anxiety wise, but I went into withdrawals after stopping it.

I had to do a water titration with a valium cross over to get the hell off the stuff, and it took a year. I do not drink or have ever had a substance abuse problem.

If you had cancer or some terminal disease, doctors prescribe long term benzos. You'll be dead before you have to worry about tolerance withdrawals. Lyrica is the standard in rehab to get you off the benzos.

I hated Xanax. All I wanted to do was get off of it. The tolerance withdrawals will make you want to kill yourself. You can't function. It doesn't matter which benzos you take. Xanax is brutal because of the short half life. Ativan, Klonopin and Valium are just as bad.

I do have issues with panic attacks and anxiety. I have I'm allergic to Xanax in my medical records. I will never take a benzos again, as I lost a year of my life coming off of them.

Everyone who thinks they need benzos to function, believes they will be the one to dodge the bullet. They won't have to updose. They can quit at any time. Until they get that doctor who stops writing the scripts and the hell starts.

You're doctor already pulling the plug by writing for Lyrica. You may be able to weedle a couple more months out of him. Street benzos can go for $5-$20 US dollars per pill. My brother used to sell them.

I undetstand you want to feel better. Benzodiazepines is not the way to go.

The leaders in benzodiazepine withdrawl techniques is the UK. Look up Ashton Manual and water titration. Not so much as you need it, but just how serious this mess can become in a very short time.

The physical dependence isn't really the issue with long-term use. Any drug with that has withdrawal symptoms, has them because it produces a physical dependence. Antidepressants, for example.

The real problem is somewhat related: Tolerance. The longer you take the medication, the less it helps you. Tolerance is what happens when you take some substances for a long period of time, and your body gets used to them. The effect of the drug begins to diminish as your body compensates, and sooner or later you are back to your old baseline without the drug--except that now you are dealing with the side effects of the drug, which sometimes stick around even with tolerance. And if you stop taking the drug, you get even worse than you were to begin with.

So with Ativan and similar drugs, the problem is this: You can take them, and short term they will help, reducing anxiety. This is the phase you are in now. However, long-term, your anxiety starts to come back gradually, and your doctor might increase the dose until you get to the point that if the dose were increased, you would start to physically get sick from it. At that point, when the doctor stops increasing the dose (or if he doesn't increase it at all, your body would start to readjust and your anxiety would come back until it was as bad as it had been to begin with. Then, if you tried to stop taking the medication suddenly, your anxiety would get even worse than it had ever been, and withdrawal would be very difficult and/or have to take place very slowly.

These short-term antianxiety drugs are short-term not because of some paternalistic "oh, noes, you're going to become a druggie"; they're short-term because for most people, they don't work long-term. How long they do work depends on the individual, but the longer you take them, the more likely that they'll stop working so well.

Your doctor seems to have concluded that you need more than a short-term solution for your anxiety, which is the reason for switching away from a drug that is currently working well for you. Unfortunately it means you're back on the medication trial-and-error cycle until you find something that does work, but it's better than keeping with the short-term stuff until it stops working, you've developed a tolerance, and you have to taper off very slowly all the while feeling worse than you did to begin with.

Last edited by Callista on 16 Jul 2014, 4:37 pm, edited 1 time in total.

The reason it took me so long to get off of Xanax, is I had to work and take care of my daughter. Rehab basically cold turkeys you with the Neurontin/Lyrica/Librium protocol, it's only 30 days, and you aren't that much better off anyway.

My shrink was at least will to let me do the water titration, most do not.

As for the medication making me gag, my shrink writes for a compounding pharmacy. Usually has them compound for a liquid with flavor of choice. Since you have developmental disability, your prescription coverage should cover a compounding pharmacy.

There are literally no doctors in my area with will write for benzos EXCEPT pain clinics (and that is very short term), hospice and oncologists. You can get a dose before a medical procedure. My insurance will only cover a once a year two week supply. Most of the people I know, have no prescription coverage for chronic/acute benzo use. There is one elderly (70ish age wise) GP who will write a month script for Klonopin or Ativan. I know my local ER just slaps a clonidine patch on you, if you come in looking for a benzo script.

I hope your therapy goes well, and you get your life back.

you can blame the war on drugs for this doctors are scared of losing their licenses over it.
also benzo withdrawl is only really a problem if you are taking them when you are not prescribed. if you only take your prescribed dose you are fine. the withdrawl from ssri's is just as hellish but doctors dont give a dam about ssri addiction because theres no war on ssris

jayjayuk,
am a very long term daily+PRN user of benzo diazepenes having been swapped between loraz,temaz and diaz and woud not recommend them for long term use because they need increasing every so often to keep working to the same level and no doctor will go high level on those,mine dont even work anymore and am coming off them.

woud recommend looking into anti pyschotics if have not tried them already,am prescribed twice daily+PRN haliperidol because of extreme anxiety and the severe challenging behavior it creates and it works amazingly, not everyone can cope with the sedating effects at higher doseage or the tardive,so its best to start low.

You explained tolerance withdrawals much more elegantly than I did. That is what happened to me, but instead of months before the shaking and the nerve shattering anxiety started, it was two weeks.

This is how bad it was for me (and many people on the benzo buddy board). Put yourself in your worse meltdown situation. Now amp that up by x1000. That is how bad tolerance anxiety is. I was lucky as the next dose of Xanax took the edge off. For some people, that really didn't happened, and there is nothing you can take for it. More benzos prolong the agony. I would chip little Benadryl here and there because I had to work and take care of my kid.

I had a friend who had to kick heroin and Ativan. He told me heroin was the easier of the two. The first time he stop heroin first, then the Ativan and failed miserably. The second time it was the Ativan first, then the heroin. He's been clean for three years. That isn't the only person who said street drug (insert name here) was easier to stop than a benzo.

This is not everyone's experience:
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6QrsKMofWZE[/youtube]
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4Af5L_NcV34[/youtube]
I was given 0.5mg to take twice daily. The idea was that we would increase the dosage over time, but I found that I was very sensitive to it. A single 0.5 mg tablet would stop a panic attack and leave me anxiety-free for at least 36 hours. I have never taken it twice daily. I only take when my anxiety begins to overcome my non-pharma anxiety controls (meditation and exercise) I find that it make me a little lacking in drive. I have to force myself to work and don't feel the pressure of deadlines properly, because i just don't care while I have it in my blood. I still take it when I get on that track that leads to panic-but then it's a one-time, low dose thing. I think people who take it regularly are in real danger of a nasty addiction. I cannot fathom why anyone would take it "recreationally."

I don't know, I guess some people like the effect. It's not my thing, either, but I can appreciate it somewhat because I like the effect of coffee--I feel more in control and a little better at switching tasks and dealing with unexpected things. If I can like that, maybe someone with a different temperament would actually enjoy a tranquilizer even if they didn't need it medically. The problem is, some drugs are much more dangerous than others, and some addictions are more debilitating than others. Technically, I'm addicted to caffeine... but it's causing me no trouble and I can go through withdrawal in a weekend with no more than headaches easily treated with acetaminophen.

Yeah, your situation is pretty much the appropriate use for benzos--they're meant to be used for occasional crises, like to stop a panic attack. Also good for things like getting a phobic person through a plane trip, or calming somebody who's hysterical with grief or just experienced a traumatic event. The trouble comes when people start to take them regularly, and they have to take them to just feel normal, because that's a sign of tolerance, that the meds are going to stop working, and they're going to eventually have to deal with the withdrawal and worse symptoms than they started with. Better never to develop that tolerance to begin with, which means that if a person needs constant or long-term anxiety medication, the doctor has got to look at other options.

I've been on them 2 weeks now, and the difference they have made is significant. My life has improved dramatically. I've also completely cut out alcohol now from my life because I can't drink on these meds which is a plus.

It's possible I've already developed a dependancy. So pulling me of these is going to cause some major problems with mental health.

I feel like I've been given a glimpse of "normal" life to then be ripped out of it and thrown straight back into reality.

My mood is so happy right now I can't even get angry at the doctors lmao - that's be the Benzo's.

After seeing all the withdrawal videos and peoples experience ... I still want to take these long term. I'll cross that bridge should I ever come to it.

I spoke to my aunt today, she's been on these same meds for 6 years!! !!

Only to certain effects/side-effects of medications, and it's not clear cut; it's based on the action of the medication, and they're all different. Say, the sedative effect of benzos -- you don't become tolerant to the anti-anxiety effect, just the drowsiness (lots of people like the drowsiness, which is why some take more and more to get that effect, but it always goes to some extent).

As for me, I've been on Valium for several years, and the only "withdrawal" I experience when I couldn't be bothered to go to the doctor to get another script is my anxiety coming back (plus some other positive effects of gaba going).

I've found Zoloft the hardest to stop, but that's probably because of what it's being taken for (OCD and panic disorder).