Safely weaning from benzos
I'm suffering.
I think I found a clue in the new psychiatrist's appointment notes in the online portal thingy.
I want to know if you guys think this is a safe and reasonable weaning. In mid August my doses were 1mg clonazepam per day, and 1.5-2.0mg alprazolam every 2-3 days for emergency use against panic attacks. This are the amounts I've taken for well over ten years.
In mid October (after going completely without for a while because of having to change do tors) clonazepam was completely eliminated and alprazolam was reduced to ten 0.5mg tablets a month. (Two months later she reduces that to 8 tablets a month but I'll get back to that.) I was given propranolol to replace what was taken, and I'm in agony every day. Does this sound like a sensible taper? Should this be reduced that fast? Oh, and if I my panic attacks get severe I'm supposed to hold an ice cube in one hand while I'm sniffing lavender oil out of a Kleenex in the other hand.
I may have a clue, though, and I hope to God that it is actually a clue because it just might save my butt. In preparing to make a complaint to the patient advocacy office of her medical group I was checking over appointment notes. In the meeting notes from out first appointment, she wrote that I had previously been taking 0.5 (¼ of a 2mg tab) every 2-3 days. This is 100% incorrect. Also, last month she reduced me from 10 0.5mg tablets a month to 8, and I'm thinking like, uh she already took most of my medication away from me why would she care about two tablets. If she wrote this down wrong, imthat might explain why she would reduce by 1mg for a month (not per day, per month).
This IS one of those "I will never prescribe Xanax to anyone" type of doctors who treats Xanax as something worse than the panic disorder it fights, and wants it completely eliminated off the face of the earth. She was nice (heh) enough to give me a small fraction of my Xanax to help me taper off. She also likes to consider herself superior to pretty much all other doctors and doesn't listen to anything, and wants to congratulate herself and taper IN ANTICIPATION OF a presumed success rather than any actual success not that she's given me anything other than propranolol to be proud of herself for.
TL;dr Is going from my initial does to nothing for a bit to a small fraction all over just a couple of months even safe?
Posted Jan 9, 2026, 12:03 AM UTC