Chronic benzo use

Chronic benzo use is acutally the cause of progressive anxiety disprder for many people. I was on 1.5 mg Klonipin at night for about three years. a slow taper to .75 worked although it wasn't easy. I stabilized at .75 for three months (Virginia whitetail season) and then dropped to .625 mg at the turn of the year. about 3 weeks ago all hell broke loose. First panic/hypochondria, then horrible insomnia, literally lucky to get 2 hrs of crappy sleep/night over the last week. I can barely drive my car or walk without bumping into things. Totally depressed. Forget food. Lost 10 lbs in 3 weeks. Just reinstaed to a higher dose, hoping for a stabilization. Then I will attempt the Ashton method for detox.

If you are thinking about beginning benzo's please don't take them for more than 4 weeks. Even well meaning doctors will tell you that they are safe and good drugs for anxiety maintenance. For some that may be true, but for most anxiety sufferes you are entering a trap which will require months if not years of hell should you decide to discontinue.

Exactly...getting off Valium was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life.  I wish I knew then (the day I popped that first little yellow pill) what I know now...I would have found another way to manage my anxiety.

Donna

I've been on valium for 3months, every time i complain of worsening panic attacks im told to just take more valium. i was trying to be conservative....i can understand how people end up being addicted.

I'm just coming off an anti depressant, mirtazapine, i'd never touch that again in a million years.

Docs throw these drugs around far too easily without understanding the effects, they only know what the drug company has listed, and they're only going to try and portray it in a good light. Mirtazapine gave me insane derealization, thought i was losing it. tried to explain that to my doc/psych etc and they think ive got some other mental condition, had no understanding of the term whatsoever. luckly im normal again now im off the ant depressants.

Wish i'd just gotten some therapy.

good luck to you.

Deer Slayer

6 years ago when I first started to see a Psychiatrist for my mental health issues I was on Ativan 4 mg per day as prescribed by my PCP.  He had come to the point where he admitted that he was out of his league prescribing ADs and Benzos so he walked me over to see the awesome lady who now works with me on all my mental health problems and meds.

The first thing she did was wean me down and off of the Ativan.  I used the Ashton method and if you look at the weaning chart for Ativan  substituting Valium for the wean you can see where I started.  I pretty much followed the program as written. 

To start with we had lowered my dose of Ativan to 3 mg per day and then used withdrawal from Ativan 3 mg daily with Valium substitute plan.  ( 3mg of Ativan is approximately equivalent to 30 mgs of Valium).

It took approximately 6 months to get down to 2 mg of Valium which I still have for prn use.

I did not suffer any withdrawal issues as I went slow and my Dr. let me decide how slow I wanted to go.  I have nothing but good things to say about this slow weaning plan and I was determined to make it work and it did.

Good luck to all who are trying to wean off a benzo.

 

Maybe I'm lucky...I was put on xanax-1.5mg a day.  After months of being panic free I was able to wean myself off of it except for taking a .25mg dose as needed.  A couple years ago I had to ask my doctor to up my dose, so I take up to 2mg a day-which may seem like a lot.  There are days that I take that much-usually when I'm experiencing bad panic and am away from home.  But on the days I'm home and feeling relaxed, I may only need .5mg.  I haven't found there to be any withdrawal side effects.  The only thing I notice is that it takes a heck of a lot more to help with a panic attack and I think sometimes the meds aren't even what works, it's getting back to my "safe" place.