AboutEric Brandt Expertise I am a practicing pharmacist.On my drug information website, I have answered hundreds of questions to date. The articles posted on my site include Parkinson`s disease. depression, menopause, diabetes, sleep and aging, congestive heart failure, calcium channel blockers, thyroid hormone replacement therapy, ADHD, multiple sclerosis an more.
Experience I have experience in retail as well as hospital pharmacy pracice. Currently working in a hospital pharmacy. I am experienced in drug information. Over the last 6 years I have developed a successful web site for drug information.
The addressfor my drug information website is http://www.druginformation.bc.caThere you can read articles on varios areas of health interest. You can also leave me questions which I will personally answer. I also have a free health information newsletter called The Caplet. To subscribe send e-mail to
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Question Hello,
Long story short, I live in a small town and am limited in my choice of doctors. My doctor has been prescribing 2mg/daily Ativan for a few years now but refuses either increase or decrease the dose. To compound this, I have recently had a family tragedy and have gotten more Ativan from family, so I have been actually taking 4mg/day for about 3 months. I want to go back to my 2mg/day but I know that it is dangerous dealing with these kinds of medications. Since I am not going to stop taking it, just lower my daily dose by one half, how quickly can I do this without harm to myself? my "extra supply" is running out fast so I am hoping I can do this quickly. Thank you.
Answer Hi Susan,
Try reducing by 0.5 mg per week. by this a mean first week 3.5 mg per day. Second week 3 mg per day and so on. This is slow enough to prevent witdrawals.
Personally I would not take that risk.
Thank you for using Allexperts
Sincerely,
Eric Brandt, B.Sc. Pharm