Find your medication
Start with the medication you are taking. Each page covers what it is, what long-term use can do, what withdrawal can feel like, and how we taper it.
Six groups of medication
Prescriby Health tapers medications the body adapts to, and medications that are commonly continued long past the point where anybody reviewed them. In practice that is six groups: antidepressants, benzodiazepines, opioids, sleep medications, gabapentinoids and stomach-acid medications.
You do not need to know which group yours belongs to. If you can tell us the name on the box and roughly how long you have been taking it, we can tell you the rest.
Nothing on these pages is a reason to change a dose on your own. Some of these medications are dangerous to stop abruptly. The point of a taper is that the reduction is planned, supervised and reversible.
Medications we taper
Six classes, each with its own page. Brand names are listed so you can match what is actually on your prescription.
Zoloft, Lexapro, Celexa, Prozac, Paxil, Effexor, Cymbalta, Pristiq. The class where stopping is most often mistaken for relapse.
Xanax, Klonopin, Ativan, Valium, Restoril. The class where stopping abruptly is genuinely dangerous — never do this one alone.
OxyContin, Percocet, Norco, Vicodin, tramadol, morphine, fentanyl patches. After surgery, or after years of chronic pain.
Ambien, Lunesta, Sonata. Licensed for short-term use, frequently taken for years.
Neurontin, Gralise, Lyrica. Started for nerve pain, often continued for pain, anxiety or sleep.
Prilosec, Nexium, Protonix, Prevacid, Dexilant. Often started for a few weeks and continued for a decade.
How a taper works
The same shape, whichever medication you are on.
We start from where you are
Your medication, your current dose, how long you have been on it, and what happened the last time you tried to reduce.
Small steps, not a cliff
The dose comes down in planned steps. The steps get proportionally smaller as the dose gets lower, because that is where most people struggle.
We watch how you respond
You log symptoms between visits. If a step is hard we hold it, or make the next one smaller.
You finish at your goal
Off the medication, or at the lower dose you decided on. Either is a finished taper.
Common questions
Probably. The six pages here cover the classes we see most, but we taper other medications too — mirtazapine, bupropion, trazodone, tricyclic antidepressants, and other sedatives among them. Tell us the name and we will tell you honestly whether it is something we should take on.
Sometimes, but usually not simultaneously. Where several medications need reducing, the order matters: your provider will sequence them so that we can tell which change is causing which effect. Trying to reduce everything at once is the most common way a taper becomes impossible to interpret.
No. Many of our patients contact us directly. Providers can also refer, and we will coordinate with whoever manages the rest of your care either way.
No. Most people who taper are physically dependent, not addicted — their body has adapted to a medication taken as prescribed. That is a physiological problem with a medical solution. Where there is also a substance use disorder, the right care is a different specialty, and we will say so and help you find it.
Self-pay is $400 per month for the duration of your taper, and we also bill insurance. The accepted plans and how billing works are on the plans page.
Not sure which page you need?
Tell us the name on the box. That is enough for us to say what a taper would involve, how long it would take, and what it would cost.