Introducing a New Drug

• When introducing a new drug, review the history to see what has been useful in the past.
• When adding a second drug, you may commence weaning of the first drug immediately to achieve monotherapy, or you may try a defined period of overlap to determine if the combination is successful, provided both drugs are tolerated. The approach depends on the individual situation.
• Benzodiazepines and phenobarbitone weaning regimens need to be gradual.

This page was created in March 2012. It was last reviewed in December 2017.