What do I tell me doctor tomorrow!!! Xanax is no longer helping!!

[ErikEverhard]

Go see my doctor tomorrow she has me on Cymbalta and 4 mg of Xanax a day. The Cymbalta seems to be working , but the Xanax I am having to take a lot more than being prescribed just to make a small dent in my anxiety. Yeah I was doing recreational drugs cocaine, oyxcotin, Adderall. I stopped the cocaine about 6 months ago and don't miss it at all. The Adderall I do not miss but I say maybe each week I do take about 3-4 20 mg each week at the most, and yeah I know that's not good but been doing it for about a year and I haven't increased to doing it each day.
So what do I tell the doctor about my Xanax and anxiety because it is badddddddddddd right now for the last few weeks.

 

[Moreaux]

The biggest thing you can do is to stop the recreational drugs, particularly the stimulants - they are making it worse. Tell your doctor it's no longer working. You may want to consider a longer acting benzo like diazepam. 4mg Xanax is a high dose and unfortunately there are not many meds available that immediately hit anxiety like Xanax does. Unfortunately benzos are not really a long term solution for anxiety and tend to make it worse over time, especially Xanax. I speak from experience as I was on Xanax for ten years :/ I highly recommend looking into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy while you get your meds sorted - CBT saved my life and taught me how to manage severe debilitating anxiety without medication but it took a few years to learn (rough few years).

 

[ErikEverhard]

The biggest thing you can do is to stop the recreational drugs, particularly the stimulants - they are making it worse. Tell your doctor it's no longer working. You may want to consider a longer acting benzo like diazepam. 4mg Xanax is a high dose and unfortunately there are not many meds available that immediately hit anxiety like Xanax does. Unfortunately benzos are not really a long term solution for anxiety and tend to make it worse over time, especially Xanax. I speak from experience as I was on Xanax for ten years :/ I highly recommend looking into Cognitive Behavioral Therapy while you get your meds sorted - CBT saved my life and taught me how to manage severe debilitating anxiety without medication but it took a few years to learn (rough few years).

Yeah, it took awhile but I definitely learned cocaine and Adderall the come down made my anxiety 10000000000 times worse. That's the thing I know long feel that immediate hit from the Xanax for im pretty sure my tolerance is high now. I mean heck it is constant anxiety, and I can not keep popping Xanax every 3 hours after they stop working. My doctor is a psychiatrist and I also see a psychologist. I just wish there was a drug like oxycontin made for depression because when I take one my mind is clear, no anxiety, I can handle all my problems with rational thinking.

 

[herbavore]

One thing you might do is to recognize that it is your mind that is capable of feeling clear and anxiety free. You are capable of creating the chemicals necessary for you to feel like that without importing those chemicals from a pill. It takes a while, it takes a lot of life changes and thought-pattern changes and those two things do not happen overnight. But think how free you might feel to know that by manipulating your own thoughts, you create new neural pathways in your brain. Becoming more and more dependent on benzos is a dangerous trap.

See if you can commit to working with your psychologist on ways to alter the thought patterns that feed anxiety by using your rational mind to diffuse the manufactured fear.

 

[Cdkman]

Herbavore is right at one time all i knew was being in fight or flight mode with my anxiety..it is possible to live above your mind in the "seat of the soul"..its that background awareness thats always there..if your consciousness is not stuck inside your head it is calmer and you are in control..its hard to explain
I wouldnt increase xanax dose that will be hell to get off if u get too high

 

[Moreaux]

What I am about to say is based solely on conjecture and is not substantiated by any scientific evidence. Regarding opiates, time and time again I have heard people reference how they help with depression, and I have experienced it myself. I really wish it were studied more. Traditional opiates make me horribly ill and it's not tolerance related, I had a pretty solid two year addiction to oxy in the 90's and would tolerate the constant vomiting because it eliminated my depression. Within the last year I have found that kratom behaved similarly- eliminated depression but I began dosing to high and had to stop. I switched over to tianeptine (12.6 mg three times a day) and have found that to work well but I do feel the niggling presence of addition tapping me on my shoulder so I am going to use what I have and not purchase anymore. It's frustrating to say the least.

Depression and anxiety seem to be related to glutamate based on studies I have been reading. I am currently looking at glycine which it relatively benign and helps to modulate glutamate. Part of the issues with benzos, particularly high doses, is that they seem to throw off the body's ability to regulate glutamate even further. It's truly unfortunate that neuropharmacologist aren't more available to the general public because I think they would be in a better position to test neurotransmitter levels and give more thoughtful input into treatment. I have always felt like my psychiatrist just guesses on what meds to prescribe and it tends to be a painful debilitating process at times.

Hopefully your anxiety decreases as your benzo dose decreases. It should also decrease if you switch over to a longer acting benzo as you won't be entering withdrawal as frequently and then take the opportunity to taper off of them completely.

Herbavore is correct - anxiety is best managed naturally. CBT is a good way to start the process along with diet and exercise. At the end of my run with Xanax I didn't leave the house much because my anxiety was insane and I was afraid I was either going to get arrested or institutionalized. When people would tell me about managing anxiety myself I thought they were full of it and procrastinated on learning to manage it myself. If I could do it over again I would have looked into CBT before trying benzos because self management is far superior.

 

[simco]

What I am about to say is based solely on conjecture and is not substantiated by any scientific evidence. Regarding opiates, time and time again I have heard people reference how they help with depression, and I have experienced it myself. I really wish it were studied more. ....

Just wanted to add two cents here.

I have struggled with major depression my whole life, and am in the midst of ending a 4-year heroin habit. When I was using, I believed firmly that opiates alleviated my depression. For a while, they probably did. But for reasons I'm still trying to figure out, eventually things switched up, turning the dope/depression into a really unholy combo. I went on for about a year, doing dope and sinking into isolation and an increasingly bad headspace.

I'm not saying this to discount what you've observed, Moreaux (and others). For a long time, I observed exactly what you describe. Just wanted to put out there the possibility that opiate/depression therapeutic effects can take a really grim turn.