Hello,
My Mom is a very anxious lady with hypertension (now controlled) that lead to her having a Hemorrhagic Stroke in May 2011. Thank goodness she did not need surgery to stop the bleeding in her brain. After the stroke, she needed meds to lower her blood pressure, anti depressant, and something for anxiety and sleep. My Mom just doesn't feel well and she's tired all of the time.
We decided to go to another neurologist to see what he felt about her medications. First, he said, she needed to be weaned completely from the Ativan because it causes cognitive disfunction and memory loss and it interferes with your natural sleep pattern during R.E.M. portion of sleep. Second, he wants her on Trazadone for sleep. Third, he wanted her Buspar increased. She is now on Buspar 30mg in a.m. and 15mg at bedtime.
My Mom was on 1mg at 12pm and 1mg at 10pm every day and night. We have been slowly decreasing her Ativan now for 2 1/2 weeks and she is now at .25 mg at 12 pm and she's trying not to take any Ativan at night but, she took .5 mg at 3 am because she could not get back to sleep.
She is on Trazadone 75 mg which she has been on for 4 nights. We are having difficulty trying to take her off completely. Sometimes during the day she will start to have a "hot head" associated with anxious feelings. Then I have her take .25 mg of Ativan to counteract the bad feelings.
We are doing the weaning with doctor supervision (I am a nurse) and I feel that the "schedule" that I created was appropriate. But, I'm wondering if too much change is happening at the same time. This is what is going on now:
Buspar 30 mg in a.m. Buspar 15mg in p.m. (was on 15mg and 15 mg)
Trazadone 75mg at bedtime (this started on 8/3/2011)
Ativan 0.25mg at 12 pm & .50 PRN sleep if she wakes during the noc and can't get back to sleep (Originally she was on Ativan 1mg in am and 1mg at bedtime) We have been weaning her since July 21, 2011
How long should it take for us to wean her when we started to wean her on July 21,2011? Should she just continue the rest of the week with .25mg for this week and do .25mg every other day next week then try no Ativan for the week after with Trazadone 100mg?
I would appreciate any ideas. Thank You!