Getting off Lorazepam … The Untold Story

Lorazepam, the drug doctors often prescribe to patients experiencing extreme anxiety and panic attacks may be one of the most difficult drugs to quit.

I have been taking Lorazepam, aka: Ativan, a Benzodiazeine class C drug. It is classified as a controlled substance and you must sign for it when picking it up at the pharmacy.

I also suffer from anxiety and panic attacks. Once I was reading from a book called, Low Blood Sugar, The Hidden Menace of Hypoglycemia. It explains in the book that stress can trigger panic episodes and is sometimes exacerbated by low blood sugar, from missing a meal or having hypoglycemia, a condition that is common to some people but not others so it is often misdiagnosed in the doctor’s office as just a psychological form of stress related to dysfunctional thoughts nothing more and therefore Psychiatrists take it upon themselves to prescribe this drug to patients. It becomes habit forming after just a few weeks of use.

Even the smallest daily amount of this drug, approx. .50 mg a day, can do wonders for a patient suffering from constant stress. But these days it is very stressful just to cope with every day events in life.

There is no sanctuary to get away from the dog eat dog world of the 21st Century rush we all find ourselves a part of, so many seek medical treatment to cope with stress. Some people self medicate and over do it. I used to medicate this way by drinking because it made me feel better and happier but it was a temporary solution to a much more permanent problem.

I read online that it is better to taper off Lorazepam than to do it ‘Cold Turkey” so to speak. I tried not taking it for up to 7 days and I ended up back on the drug. The reason for it was that I started having violent gastrointestinal cramping and pain and vomiting. These symptoms were triggered by the Gabba part of the brain not getting it’s fix and once I got back on the drug at just half a milligram a day, the gastric symptoms and nausea and trembling stopped.

I was told by a friend that such a small dose should be easy to just stop altogether, but I beg to differ as although my friend had suffered serious side effects by stopping that drug in larger dose levels than I have taken, it proved to be a dangerous thing to just cut it out without tapering properly.

I tried to do it by just quitting all at once and that did not work. I then tried for 30 days at half a dose, aka: .25 mg per day but after 14 days the symptoms were the same as they had been when I stopped at the .50 mg a day level.

I don’t know what they put in that drug and why it is so hard to stop taking it but all I know is I have to take it. If I were to get off of it I would probably have to be hospitalized eventually. I only know that after over 20 years of taking this benzodiazemine drug every day since my first psychoanalysis I have been addicted to this tiny little white pill and taking it makes the difference between a normal life and being a basket case, so to speak.

I may one day try to get off of it again but the stress of my life has been so high lately that I don’t dare even imagine getting off of this drug any time soon.