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Benzos Switching from twice daily to one daily dosage advice?

300THB

Bluelighter
Joined
Oct 30, 2016
Messages
53
So for about a year i used to take my Ativan all in one dosage at night before bed.

After a severe withdrawal i switched to twice daily to limit withdrawal symptoms.

My original dosage was 2mg.

Im now down to 0.8mg in the day and 0.5mg at night.

If i wanted to switch to 1.25mg at night and move my daily dosage to be taken all in one go would this cause withdrawal symptoms to start? or would it be fine since im still taking my full dosage?

Taking Ativan through the day is really inconveniencing things in all honesty. I used to go out about once a month with my friends drinking and it was fun. But i have not been out for close to a year because i wont under any circumstances combine alcohol with this medication!

I was invited to a night out and i really got to show my face. Its around the 22/01/2017. Could i switch to taking my dosage all in one go as i explained in this post? i used to take it all at night before bed and experienced no withdrawals for a year but i think maybe my body has adapted to a daily dosage? or will this not cause withdrawals providing my body gets the same mg of Lorazepam?

If it would be ok to switch to taking it all at night would it be best to just take my daily dosage a hour later each day to gradually change over to taking it all at night?

Thank you
 
Okay, so this is going to depend heavily on your personal physiology, but, if you're taking your regimented Lorazepam (Ativan) twice per day pretty religiously, then decide to take the entire dose at once, it's not likely to cause you noticeable withdrawal symptoms. If you were to, overnight convert to the once daily dosing on a constant basis, I feel that it could cause some disruptions, but at that point, I feel they would still be transient.

I feel that true problems would only arise if you actually reduced your total dosage, but you're not doing that. This is all just my opinion. You really have to figure out what works best for you.
 
Okay, so this is going to depend heavily on your personal physiology, but, if you're taking your regimented Lorazepam (Ativan) twice per day pretty religiously, then decide to take the entire dose at once, it's not likely to cause you noticeable withdrawal symptoms. If you were to, overnight convert to the once daily dosing on a constant basis, I feel that it could cause some disruptions, but at that point, I feel they would still be transient.

I feel that true problems would only arise if you actually reduced your total dosage, but you're not doing that. This is all just my opinion. You really have to figure out what works best for you.

Thanks for your advice man.

As a side note question, is the withdrawal symptoms worse the lower you get on a taper?

I first dropped from 1.5mg to 0.5mg and i was rushed into hospital on day 7. So im very anxious about fucking my taper up.

After that i was stabilized back on 2mg a day. Then i cut it down to 1.5mg a day and had some withdrawals but they was relatively mild.

Will the cut from 1.5mg to 1mg be a lot worse than the previous 0.5mg cut?

I was actually considering dropping to 1mg a day. As technically my doc has instructed me to taper!
 
I'd personally vote against switching to once daily dosing. Being that Ativan is one of the shorter half life benzos, you'll probably notice around hour 16-20 some onset of withdrawal type symptoms. When doing tapers with benzos, ativan and xanax are some of the most difficult benzos to taper due to the much shorter half life when compared to valium or klonopin. I personally did the taper/jump with xanax and that proved to be an arduous journey, but it was successful. I ended up jumping off at .5mg daily from xanax. That wasn't the best idea, but I made it stick with a very stubborn mentality. All said and done, it took me about 8 months before I finally felt 85% recovered and could have a couple pints with friends again without it sending me back to day 1 symptoms of withdrawal the next day.

Best of luck to you 300THB! This isn't an easy process, so hats off to you for putting in the work!

-SK
 
I'd personally vote against switching to once daily dosing. Being that Ativan is one of the shorter half life benzos, you'll probably notice around hour 16-20 some onset of withdrawal type symptoms. When doing tapers with benzos, ativan and xanax are some of the most difficult benzos to taper due to the much shorter half life when compared to valium or klonopin. I personally did the taper/jump with xanax and that proved to be an arduous journey, but it was successful. I ended up jumping off at .5mg daily from xanax. That wasn't the best idea, but I made it stick with a very stubborn mentality. All said and done, it took me about 8 months before I finally felt 85% recovered and could have a couple pints with friends again without it sending me back to day 1 symptoms of withdrawal the next day.

Best of luck to you 300THB! This isn't an easy process, so hats off to you for putting in the work!

-SK

Agreed. But not bcuz T1/2, it actually has a scent duration due to its pharmacological properties, however, if you've been to the hospital, I would not advise you just combine doses randomly one day.

In fairness, 1.3mg isn't at all a high dose, however you are taking 0.8 first, then 0.5 b4 bed, which makes this worse.

PM me if you want, I am in a hurry. However I can give options.

You could have a couple drinks, depending on you're body, however I am exactly like you-NO ETHANOL.

Of course, I take 10x your dose. Of course, I have seizures and other neurological problems.

Taking it at night wouldn't really help you drink, IMHO...
 
The only WDs you would notice would be in between your daily dose. So if you end up experiencing WDs a couple hours before your next dose, then it might not work for you. The once daily dosing will also put you at greater risk for developing addiction and make it harder to taper, as it will increase the reinforcing mechanism by going from a much lower plasma concentration to a much higher plasma concentration.

That said, if you're not taking it as a seizure medication, there isn't much harm in trying the once daily dosing regimen... It might actually be to your benefit to experiment a bit with dosing schedule. Just make sure that you're still taking the same total amount each day.
 
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