Rivotril question!

Hello all,

I have anxiety -panic attacks for ten years now. Till now , I have
been taking seroxat (antidepresive) and valium.
It worked all right for last few years.
In these year , every saturday I must have a presentation in front
large group of people , my job requiers it.
This is anxiety hell , I mean , I ussualy dont have panic attack any
more except in situtaions of that kind , when EVERYONE is focused on
me.
So , I went to my shrink and she gave me those RIVOTRIL medicine
instead of Valium.
She told me to take it step by step , 0.25 x 2 , and than 0.5 mg x 2
after few days.
This is my second day with rivotril , I took 0.25 mg, and I feel ,
kinda sleepy and slow...
what are your experince , am I jumpnig to conclusion ? Should take the
rivotril for fwe days more till my body get use
to it ? Will "slowness" gone by the time?

As the valium leaves your body (which takes a few days) and the
Rivotril starts to become less "new" to your neuro-receptors, you will
not likely feel as tired. Not knowing your Valium dose, it's hard to
say much more, except that - if you've been on Valium for any length
of time, you are already out of the "drug-naive" patient population
(in terms of exposure to benzodiazepines) and so I'd think you'd have
a shorter time to wait for the Rivotril to become sort of
"transparent", in that you'd not be noticing side-effects. Rivotril
is generally thought to be more "potent" than Valium, and you can also
(check with prescriber first on this) take the whole day's dose at
night in many cases. Once you are used to it, you'll probably notice
that it works very well on anxiety symptoms. You might want to ask
the physician about taking the lower dose (0.25) for a little longer
before ramping it up to 0.5 mgs.

G