Hey Ocean

My experience knows that any benzo (lorazapam is a benzo) needs to be withdrawn in a long, slow taper. Fluoxtenine 10 ( which is generic Prozac 10) is a low dose of an antidepressant that does have some anti-anxiety properties to it. While it should, indeed, help with your anxiety, using it does not preclude the need to taper slowly off the lorazepam. If you have been on it for few months, I don't think there is any longer a differnece existing between a long time user and you. not acriticism, no, not at all. Merely a fact that will help you in withdrawing from it. Short term use of a benzo lends itself to just stopping... like using it for a few days after a loved one's unexpected death or something like that. Two pills a day for a few months and we will experience some withdrawal.

Ditch the fear, though. Smiles. You are doing it all the right way... under a doctor's care and researching the process before youm begin. Good for you! You may be an ocean liner geek, but you are a smart geek as well. Smiles. I have a lot of work to do before bed so I can't make thi post any longer right now. Read more posts here on nevery kind of drug withdrawal (opiates as well as benzos) to gain some understanding of what is actually occuring in the brain and body during withdrawal. Educating ourselves in what is happening to us alleviates much of the fear. learn before you embark on the withdrawal cruise. It will make for much easier sailing. I will make every effort to catch up with you tomorrow. In the meantime, read, and I amsure others will pop in to also help with the education of a geek. hahahaha!

Nice to meet you
reach

as soon as the prozac starts to take effect, i am going to taper off the lorazepam. after i'm finally off that (and i'm going to insist on tapering off with the very least side effects), i'm going to flush the lorazepam down the toilet.

i think tomorrow i'm going to help it along by cutting down by one tablet. right now i'm at 1mg, but tomorrow i'll go back down to .5 mg and hopefully continue on that until the prozac starts to take effect (i'm on medical leave from work, so hopefully i won't need the 1mg dosage that much anymore lol). i have gone down from 1 mg to .5 mg fairly successfully before, so i'll try that so that when i do start to taper off, it'll be a bit easier to do. and if i get anxiety again and all the wonderful things that go with it (heart racing, agitation, nausea, loss of appetite), i will try to use effective therapy techniques to help out.

this morning i started my taper...and i'm going to go slow.

considering that i haven't been on lorazepam for a very long time (just about 3 to 4 weeks), and that i don't take a huge dose (1 mg in the morning (2- .5 mg tablets), i'm going to try to follow the following schedule:

for one week: 1 and 1/2 tablet in the morning (.75mg)
for one week: 1 tablet (.5 mg)
for one week: 1/2 tablet (.25 mg)
for one week: 1/4 tablet

hopefully by the time i get down to 1 tablet, the prozac will already begin working well enough for me that it will help with my anxiety.

honestly, i shouldn't be worrying about this so much. i have a tendency to dwell on things and that has the potential to ruin my day lol.

but does my schedule sound appropriate enough for how long i have been taking the drug, and how much i take?

also...my dad said that vitamin B6 is good for anxiety as well. has anyone tried this vitamin?