Serax Withdrawal

In my early 20's and 30's I suffered from a severe panic disorder. I was practically paralyzed with fear of almost everything. Now in my early 50's, I'm amazed that I managed to live through that time, recover and have a mostly happy and productive life.  I owe a lot of thanks to my psychiatrist who believed in using medications along with various different forms of therapy.  Early on in my illness he prescribed Serax which was the first drug that brought my anxiety down to a somewhat managable level. Unfortunately, I had to take over 100 mgs a day to survive. In those days, drugs like Paxil just didn't exist.  To this day I thank him for working with me and allowing me to take this level of medication.  I didn't want to take drugs but I came to realize that without them, I couldn't trust myself to not start thinking in suicidal terms. I was just so scared and miserable! As I'm writing about this now, it all seems so long ago.  Reading other people's postings and hearing what they are going through makes me remember how hard it was for me too.  My heart goes out to all of you living and struggling daily with an anxiety disorder! It's taken me years to withdraw from Serax.  Sometimes it would take me 2 years to cut back by 10 mgs.  I'm finally down to 15 mgs per day but am having a hard time cutting back to nothing. I've tried taking it only every other day, but get such a fuzzy, achy head with confusion and nausea.  I guess it's purely physical withdrawal at this point.  I really don't want to start taking another drug to get off this one as I'm afraid I'll develop another addiction! Any ideas?
Thanks!

[Roger Gould, M.D.]

I am not sure why you want to get off of it altogether at this point. I suggest you think about that.

If you want to go off, just keep reducing even more each day, then go to every other day, then accept the fact that you are going to be uncomfortable for a while because of the physical withdrawal.