Vito's 1 Month Chip- take 2

For the second time in the past several years, Vito earned a one month chip of zero car anxiety.  Sadly it wasn't a two month chip as after his wonderful 30 days reached in December, Vito reverted to old ways a week shy of the would be celebration.  For about two weeks in mid January Vito started having some small panic attacks in the car and then he suddenly stopped again.

To celebrate his new 1 month chip and overall 3 months of goodness (since November 17th!) I even stopped on the way home from work, left Vito in the car, and sprinted in and out of Little Caesars to grab pizza.  Considering that Vito used to freak out if I even filled the car with gas, this was a huge accomplishment!  Something I hadn't dared to try in many years.  I held my breath as I ordered and prayed there was a cheese pizza all ready to go.  I'm pretty sure I was in and out of the building in less than 2 minutes!  And then I returned to a very calm and relaxed Toller.

Due to his (unexplained) decrease in anxiety these last few months I also have been slowly decreasing his 3rd drug, Clorazepate.  My goal is to get rid of his most expensive drug as was the original plan when we weaned him off Prozac and put him on Zoloft back in June this past year.  Vito's been on Clorazepate since December 2013 when we decided to get rid of Diazepam (Valium).  At one point he was on 11.25mg /x2day and now he is on 3.75mg x2/day.

However with the decreased dosing has come some side effects.  Overall Vito has handled the gradual lowering quite well with no changes noticed until this past week when he went from 1 pill in the morning to half a pill in the morning (and was already lowered to half a pill in the evening 4 weeks earlier).  Vito was lowered on Sunday and at work this week he has been extra reactive to people walking by the cubicle or talking at a distance.  I made a chart today to keep better track of his reactivity and allow me to see if he improves as his body gets used to the adjustment in drugs or not.  I would really like to not spend the $50+  a month on Clorazepate any more!