stAr shAdow nEt said:
Hello all. I have been prescribed Ativan for the past month now for anxiety/stress. I have been taking about 1.0mg to 2.0mg a day. Im curious to know, are there any withdrawl syptoms i can expect when i stop taking it?
I might not be getting another prescription for it, and im just wondering what to expect once i stop taking it.
Thanks!
Yes, you will experience withdrawal symptoms once you stop taking the Ativan. After two weeks (or even shorter if you come across a particularly cautious psychiatrist), you're going to have to be tapered off of it to avoid some of the shittier withdrawal syndromes. If you're only taking it for a month, your taper should go relatively quickly (a week or two), however, you are on a relatively high dose (I am assuming you are new to benzos), so it may be longer. I also have to ask: who put you on this, and why? Your Family doctor? A psychiatrist? Was the reason to eliminate your anxiety until some type of antidepressant started working? Also, why is there a variation in your dosage? Is your prescription written out like "0.5mg twice a day plus 0.5mg up to twice a day for breakthrough anxiety," or are you just adjusting the dose on your own? If you're adjusting it on your own and not following the written instructions, stop and stay at a particular dose. The reason I ask is because I had a prescription written like that, expect it was "0.5mg three times a day, and 0.5mg up to three times a day for breakthrough anxiety" until an antidepressant was supposed to take effect, and given that you said that you might not have your prescription refilled, I figured that could be why.
Further, if your family doctor is writing this prescription, stop seeing him for it and go to a psychiatrist. Your family doctor is probably not capable of managing your benzo use--I learned this the hard way, and also, I dislike psychiatrists intensely, so I have no vested interest in you seeing a psych other than I think it would be better for you. Just because your family doctor can write a script doesn't mean he knows how to manage the medication. Most don't.
As for your withdrawal, believe everything you hear about withdrawal, especially if you're going to be stopping cold turkey. Despite some of the other...opinions on here, the more severe withdrawal syndromes could easily hit you, including seizures. Benozdiazepine withdrawal, like alcohol withdrawal, can kill you (mostly because they act in similar ways, but that's another subject). This is something to take seriously, regardless of whether you read about some guy boasting that he quit 6mg of Xanax cold turkey and was fine. Some of us around here have a term for boasts like that--it's called dicksizing. Mostly it's used to refer to someone who boasts about prescriptions, but it's also used to describe some superhuman dosage that they're taking and "don't feel a thing" or how easily they handled withdrawal of X drug. Some of it may be true, but most of it is bullshit. Don't believe everything you read. Do you really want to suffer major withdrawal syndromes because some guy on the internet is making outrageous claims about how he stopped X benzo cold turkey and was fine? I wouldn't. Take the advice of the mainline drug websites (Wedmd for example) seriously.
Anyway, for your specific symptoms, this will obviously vary according to whether you are pulled out cold turkey or tapered down (as well as specific body chemistry), but either way you will feel withdrawal symptoms. If you are tapered and are on an antidepressant that's working, your withdrawal will be very mild, depending on how good the doctor is, and the body chemistry as I mentioned. You can look up the withdrawal syndromes yourself, but an example might be mild drug craving, mild anxiety, maybe some difficulty sleeping, headache, stuff like that.
If you stop cold turkey, it could vary, but I would expect at least a major return of your anxiety (rebound anxiety), headache, difficulty concentrating, muscle spasms, high blood pressure, vomiting, inability to sleep, and quite possibly the really serious stuff like seizures. No one on this site is qualified to tell you whether you'll get a seizure during your withdrawal--it's impossible to say, but very possible that it could happen.
So I hope that answers your question. Obviously it doesn't end here--you'll have to find a psychiatrist to manage your medication and explain to you in depth the ins and outs of benzodiazepines, but hopefully this gets you off of the ground. Just remember, anyone can say anything they want on the internet--it's the real world that matters.
On last question, were you told about the addictiveness and potential difficulty in getting off of benzos when you were prescribed Ativan?
