Getting off Alprazolam

[90%.]

swim has been on alprazolam for about a year and a half ranging for 2mgs a day to recently 1&1.5, it consist of 1&1.5 in the evening and 1&1.5 at night preferably at 1am. swims been on this schedule for a couple weeks now and wants to go lower and lower until its all out. is their anything swim can follow thats actually the correct way to get off alprazolam without going to rehab?

last time swim would go lower for a week swims heart an irregular heartbeat scaring the shit out of swim, sometimes the irregular heartbeat would be like 10-15 times a day untill swim got a higher dosage and returned to his old schedule. swim just needs some advice on how to fight this off


thanks swims pet turtle

[RaverHippie]

These are a few posts from a thread that is exactly like your situation. I included the introductory post here.

Originally Posted by Smitty2

SWIM has been using around 2-3 MG of lorazepam a day, or 1-1.5 mg of Clonazepam a day. SWIM really wants to taper off this stuff but is in a panic as he cannot get a refill for another week and a half and only has 5 Clonazepam left. He is not sure if he should call his Doctor and just tell her everything, he really does not want to end up in the ER.

Maybe SWIM is in a panic for nothing, I mean is 3 mg of lorazepam really that high of a dose to being taking daily? Surely it’s not good, but I can also imagine other SWIMMERs have managed to get off much higher doses as well. SWIM really wants to get switched to a longer acting benzo like Valium, hand it over to his mother and have her be in control of the distribution, he has already discussed this with her as she knows all about his addiction to Oxy and such. SWIM just has no idea how to approach this and again his apt. with the Doc is not until the 24th of this mouth, so he is going to run out by the weekend and is panic stricken that he will have to go to the ER next week.

Can any SWIMMERs offer some advice? SWIM has been though Opiate WDs cold turkey more times than he count and honestly he is mentally prepared to handle similar hell, but he has read that benzo WDs make opiate WDs seem like a joke which makes him worried. The last time he went for about three days without any Benzos and the first two days were ok but by the third he was agitated as hell, flipping out on people at work which could have been due to the lack of sleep and eating, could not stop pacing, but once he got home he was somewhat OK, work is a HUGE stressor for SWIM, he also had shakes in his hands a bit and his body just felt very “off” and tingly, but SWIM feels like he could deal with it and if he has to take next week off from work so be it.

Here is the post where he comes back and reveals the schedule he got from his doctor for tapering.

Originally Posted by Smitty2

SWIM thanks everyone for all the replies! SWIM got no responses on this thread for a while and was planning on posting an update soon anyway. SWIM ended up using his last 5 pills, at one pill a day and then after than he called his Doc (the one who prescribed the Ativan) it was very hard to do but SWIM came clean about everything over the phone as best he could, and SWIM's doc gave him enough of a supply to be on 2 Mg a day until his apt.

At his apt. SWIM told his Doc the full details and told her that he wanted to taper off of it, so SWIM is now on a tapering plan, he was on 2mg a day for about a mouth and is now on just 1.5 mg a day. So far SWIM feel fine, he can still sleep and has had no horrid WD symptoms. SWIM Doctor plans to have him be on 1.5 mg a day for two more weeks and then go down to 1 mg, and then after that he will be switching to a long lasting benzo for the remainder of the taper.

SWIM is hopeful and thinks that he can get off this crap for good, just as he did with Oxy, which SWIM has been clean from for just about two months now. Once SWIM is off of the benzos he will only be dependant on Subxone and can then focus on kicking that too.

Then this is a post from another helpful user that links to a thread showing withdrawal schedules, as the title describes

Originally Posted by ScorpioSunshine

Here is a link good link:

Benzodiazepine withdrawal schedules

http://www.drugs-forum.com/forum/showthread.php?t=45539

Overall the best bet is to switch to diazepam or another long acting benzo since these are much easier to taper with.

[ScorpioSunshine]

Swim was about to post that link again, but see's that it's been posted. Swiy can also search for water titration withdrawal schedules. Many have found success with that.

(Swim can't find the link right this moment for water titration....)