I was wondering if PwP who have been on Lorazepam (to manage anxiety) for a period of time of 8 to 10 months have experienced any positive or negative effects from taking this medication.I would be grateful if you could share your experience.
I'm specifically interested in any withdrawal effects you might have experienced when trying to gradually reduce the dose back to zero.
Also, were you adviced by your Neurologist that you need to adjust the dose of the levodopa you were taking at the time as Lorazepam makes levodopa ineffective?
drugs.com
LORazepam can decrease the effects of levodopa in some people. You may need a dose adjustment or more frequent monitoring by your doctor to safely use both medications. Contact your doctor if your Parkinson symptoms worsen.
Thank you in advance.
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Daisies22
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Ik gebruik het nu 7 jaar. Neem het vóór bedtijd. Eerste jaar 1mg per dag, daarna tweede 2e jaar afgebouwd naar 0,5 mg. Laatste halfjaar afgebouwd naar 0,25 mg.Heb er altijd veel baat bij gehad vooral voor de nachtrust en overdag betere werking van cl Afbouwen ging redelijk goed, maar nu, laatste 0,25mg is erg lastig. Ben op dit moment bezig met aminozuurtherapie waar in dit forum over berichte Nacetyl L Leucine. Nu 6 bezig weken. Geen bijwerkingen, resultaten tot heden; Rem-slaap enorm verbeterd, het lijkt weer normaal. God zegen in alles, vetrouw op Hem, Koning Jezus!
My wife, a Parkinson's patient for 17 years, takes approximately 2 mg of Lorazepam (Temesta) daily without any issues. We divide the dosage as follows: 0.5 mg in the morning, 0.5 mg at midday, an additional 0.5 mg if needed, and 0.5 mg before bedtime. During brief crisis periods, we have temporarily increased the dosage to 4 mg per day, then gradually returned to her standard dosage of 2 mg per day. This regimen has proven to be the most effective for her.
My husband has had to try and get off other meds. Sertraline. Mirtazapine.Take it very slowly. Decrease by about 10% of remaining dose every 2 weeks . The last bit is the worst. When you get to the last 10% have a pharmacist compound it into a capsule that is diluted 1:10. Then get jewelers scales and do the same weighing the powder into capsules for the weeks on each concentration until you are down to the last 10% of the diluted powder or 1%.
This might take the best part of a year but you are much less likely to rebound than if you try to go faster.
If you go faster the tail of the stronger initial doses are underlying the subsequent doses so you have more in your system than you think but it then drops quite fast and you can go back to the initial symptoms.
Thank you so much for sharing your experience! Yes, the key is indeed to do it gradually otherwise one could easily go into a withdrawal. It took me three and a half years to get off Neupro - a dopamine agonist I never asked for but was assured by my Neurologist that it was the best med for me, except that it wasn't.Now I have the same problem, if not worse with reducing the dose of Madopar I am on as it too paralyses me for hours causing me high blood pressure and pulse rate and even levodopa induced dystonia in my whole body. It's excruciatingly painful but not recognised by many Neurologists including mine. I'm finding it very hard to fight with the system and the terrible condition that PD is.
Thank you again for writing. As always your contributions are really helpful.
I thought about this but as I'm currently taking madopar every two and a half hours taking it any closer would literally prevent me from having any food.
Is this all levodopa that he is taking (5 × 50 mg + 3 × 25 mg) per day? If this is the case, I'm unfortunately on around 1100 mg per day total dose of Madopar. I desperately need to reduce it but for a number of reasons I have not been successful so far.
Yes. He also takes 3 Now dopa mucuna capsules. One with each of the first whole tablets of madopar for the day. He has been on the same dose for 5 years except for the extra 3 halves we added a year ago. Specialist tried raising his dose but it made him very sick.If you could live with the above schedule timewise you could try splitting yours using the roughly the same ratios and timings. For my husband 2 1/2 hours would be too long as he uses it too fast. He needs a little nearly every 90 mins at the beginning of the day and less in the evening.
Are yours capsules or tablets? He had blue capsules at first but swapped to white tablets. I hated all that blue colour going into him. Tablets are easier to divide too
I have the so called 'dispersible' 50/12.5 white tablets which are prescribed as an emergency pill. During the day I am on madopar Immediate Release 100/25 which is indeed a light blue+pink capsule. I never thought about the colouring of meds but I agree with you. I have an issue with the size of the night extended release capsules. They are too big to swallow.I have never tried mucuna.
You could see if you can swap all to the white tablets. They are easy to cut.Ah, you have the extended release. They made my hubby very bad. I'd try to cut them out for a start. I think they don't suit everyone
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This is a follow-up question to my earlier post of a couple of days ago concerning HBOT as adjunctive therapy for parkinson's disease.
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