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Help Subutex and Xanax - sleep issues fatigue dizzy

MakeItStop

Greenlighter
Joined
May 24, 2016
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16
So I have a very unique situation which is my own fault, but here goes.

I got on Sub years ago because it was either that or my parents were shipping me out to a boot camp rehab. Of course, any addict would do Sub. A couple years into Sub I talked my doc into giving me Xanax .5mg for the withdrawal that I was half assing in the first place. Long story short, I got dependent/addicted to both.

About 6-7 months ago I stopped taking Xanax .5mg once a day as I was just using it for sleep. Two weeks go by without any WD's (maybe sub masked them). Then out of nowhere I start getting DIZZY and have HEADACHES. To top that off, my sleep is terrible. I'm wanting to lay in bed all day and I have been since I work for myself and had money saved up.

2 months into being off Xanax with bad sleep, I decided to take it again just to see if my symptoms of bad sleep and fatigue/dizziness/headache would go away. Well it didn't, and now I literally have to take .5-1mg broken up into 1/4s throughout the night to get 5-7 hours of bad sleep.

I had a sleep study done and they said I have mild obstructive sleep apnea. Well I am in my 20's, excercise everyday, and have never had issues with sleep until this past year. I feel its the mix of Sub and Xanax, as well as potential damage of detoxing quickly off Xanax.

I want to come off both ASAP, but i've been off work for two months and need to get back into it. What the hell should I do?

Has anyone experienced poor sleep, fatigue, headache, and dizziness, from Xanax or Sub?
 
The symptoms you describe sound like benzo PAWS. There are two types of withdrawal - acute (happens immediately) and PAWS, which is a protracted withdrawal and occurs after the acute withdrawal, when your body is trying to heal. I understand the desire to want to quit medications quickly and cold turkey, but that is not always the optimal way to get off a medication - particularly Xanax. You're very lucky you didn't have a siezure. Benzo withdrawal is very dangerous, and if not done properly, can cause death.

The ideal way to get off of benzos is to do a slow taper. Abruptly stopping and starting is going to make the situation worse. I think it would be in your best interest to discuss wanting to stop medications with your doctor, and discuss your options with them. Xanax in particular has a very short half-life, and is hard to use for a taper because of the short half life - you have to continuously redose through out the day. It would be better to switch to a longer acting benzo such as diazapam and taper off of that.

Another benefit of a taper is that it decreases the intensity of the withdrawal and subsequent PAWS, and if done slowly and correctly doesn't have to be very uncomfortable and painful.

I was forced to cold-turkey from Xanax which I took daily for ten years. My last Xanax was 14 Feb 2010. It has been over six years and I am still healing. I went through PAWS for a good two years, and didn't really start feeling good until around year three.

Please consider a taper ;) Feel free to hit me up with questions or concerns. Good luck!
 
I've been addicted two times in my life: right now to opiates and once to Xanax 6 years ago. The latent withdrawal Moreaux is describing above was the single worst thing I've ever been through in my entire life. I was out in the middle of the mountains in California at a treatment center called Narconon. My 5mg of Xanax a day (it had progressed to that over 7 years) had been force tapered off for 8 days at the center's medical detox just before the latent started. When I left medical, I remember the nurse saying "now you may feel a little rough for a day or two when all the meds leave your body."

Hah, she wasn't even close. The latent withdrawal was 3 weeks of the most bending, insanity testing, unbridled hell any any individual could ever endure. I was around hundreds of people who I had no clue who they were, every one of them freaking me out, as I hallucinated, puked, shat constantly, lost in a daze of no sleep and freaking out screaming at people wanting to attack them. Oh yeah, I'd also taken 2 huge shots of testosterone right before I left for treatment, thinking it would make me feel strong. lol, all it dude was make the anxiety 100x worse.

Anyways, this treatment center was called Narconon, and once I got into the sauna program which is basically sweating all of the leftover toxins out of your body, I felt great within 3 weeks. I did still have some trouble concentrating along with some double vision for another few months after I left treatment, but for the most part I felt 95% good as new. The latent withdrawal from xanax and benzos is incredibly dangerous and harsh.
 
I am reliant on benzos, such as lorazepam and xanax.. I need them for anxiety, at least 1mg a day or else i feel like i cant function. i have never felt headaches or bad sleep from the xanax, but if you want a real sleep i would recommend either temazepam or ambien. especially ambien, that stuff has given me the best sleep and feeling i have ever had from a drug, although my drug of choice are opiets. i am currently trying to quit opiets, but i need the xanax to help me quit or i have no chance at quitting. just saying as far as sleep goes, spring for something thats purpose is to treat insomnia and that belongs in a drug class with hypnotics in the name.
 
The symptoms you describe sound like benzo PAWS. There are two types of withdrawal - acute (happens immediately) and PAWS, which is a protracted withdrawal and occurs after the acute withdrawal, when your body is trying to heal.


I appreciate the response and I was thinking the same thing. But wouldn't the PAWS symptoms go away now that I am taking Xanax again? I guess I really screwed up getting back on it again, but I really didn't think how I was feeling was because of the Xanax stoppage. I thought maybe Xanax was masking these symptoms or it was just allowing me to get quality sleep that I wasn't getting after off of it.

Now i'm extremely scared to come off Xanax again even with a taper, as I am afraid i'll do double damage. This drug is ridiculous! Man....

I also wanted to add that I was aware about Xanax being dangerous to come off of, but I assumed if I felt WD symptoms early on, I would taper. I didn't feel sick at all or strange until a WEEK LATER! This drug is so bad, man... Wow.
 
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I appreciate the response and I was thinking the same thing. But wouldn't the PAWS symptoms go away now that I am taking Xanax again? I guess I really screwed up getting back on it again, but I really didn't think how I was feeling was because of the Xanax stoppage. I thought maybe Xanax was masking these symptoms or it was just allowing me to get quality sleep that I wasn't getting after off of it.

Now i'm extremely scared to come off Xanax again even with a taper, as I am afraid i'll do double damage. This drug is ridiculous! Man....

I also wanted to add that I was aware about Xanax being dangerous to come off of, but I assumed if I felt WD symptoms early on, I would taper. I didn't feel sick at all or strange until a WEEK LATER! This drug is so bad, man... Wow.

Don't let it terrify you though. It is possible to avoid it with a slow taper and you can always switch to librium to get through WDs, which is a much weaker and longer acting benzo very frequently used in a xanax taper. Don't let the fear defeat you; that's letting the drug keep you in its grip. A positive attitude, nutrition, and exercise will go miles in getting you off this little Satan helper and back to living free again!
 
I appreciate the response and I was thinking the same thing. But wouldn't the PAWS symptoms go away now that I am taking Xanax again? I guess I really screwed up getting back on it again, but I really didn't think how I was feeling was because of the Xanax stoppage. I thought maybe Xanax was masking these symptoms or it was just allowing me to get quality sleep that I wasn't getting after off of it.

Now i'm extremely scared to come off Xanax again even with a taper, as I am afraid i'll do double damage. This drug is ridiculous! Man....

I also wanted to add that I was aware about Xanax being dangerous to come off of, but I assumed if I felt WD symptoms early on, I would taper. I didn't feel sick at all or strange until a WEEK LATER! This drug is so bad, man... Wow.

I suspect once you start going through the withdrawal it takes a little time to stablize even if you start taking it again, and Xanax has such a short half life it may take a while for that to happen, though two months seems like a long time. What dose were you taking before you quit? If it's significantly lower than what you're doing now, that may have an impact. If it were me, I would see a doctor. You may also want to talk to him about switching to a longer lasting benzo like diazapam - it will help for a taper and it will also let you sleep through the night without having to redose. Benzos will kindle, meaning each time you stop and start back up, the withdrawal (and ancillary damage) will be worse when you try to stop again. I may be mistaken, but I believe alcohol will kindle with benzos as well so I would avoid it if I were you. I haven't read it anywhere, but I suspect all GABAergic drugs kindle and will kindle with each other, so if you do one and then try a different one (i.e. Phenibut) you will have a tougher phenibut withdrawal than you would if you never touched other GABAergic drugs, so be aware of which class a drug belongs to before taking it. A few years ago I was desparate for sleep and took an Ambien, which previously never did anything for me back when I was taking Xanax...the next day I had a siezure :/

As for getting off them, when I quit, I just quit. Have never touched one since. I didn't notice the acute withdrawal too much because I was in rehab and I was put on Depakote, Zoloft, trazodone, and Indural. I was also going through alcohol withdrawal. I started to notice the benzo withdrawal hitting me around day 40, and then life got terrible and continued to get worse for about six months, evened out, and didn't start getting better until around the two year mark. Recovering from benzos is hard and takes a long time if you used benzos for a while. Withdrawal intensity and duration is directly related to the length of time you were on them and your average dose.

I know the idea of getting off them again is scary, but you'll do much more damage staying on them. The actually intensify anxiety the longer you're on them, and they cause very real and lasting cognitive damage and serious memory impairment. If you quit you can recover, but that recovery takes a lot of time and the longer you are on them the longer it will take to recover from. I took Xanax for ten years and am still healing and it has been six years. I'm not terrible, but I still have sensory issues and memory impairment.
 
I suspect once you start going through the withdrawal it takes a little time to stablize even if you start taking it again, and Xanax has such a short half life it may take a while for that to happen, though two months seems like a long time. What dose were you taking before you quit? If it's significantly lower than what you're doing now, that may have an impact. If it were me, I would see a doctor. You may also want to talk to him about switching to a longer lasting benzo like diazapam - it will help for a taper and it will also let you sleep through the night without having to redose. Benzos will kindle, meaning each time you stop and start back up, the withdrawal (and ancillary damage) will be worse when you try to stop again. I may be mistaken, but I believe alcohol will kindle with benzos as well so I would avoid it if I were you. I haven't read it anywhere, but I suspect all GABAergic drugs kindle and will kindle with each other, so if you do one and then try a different one (i.e. Phenibut) you will have a tougher phenibut withdrawal than you would if you never touched other GABAergic drugs, so be aware of which class a drug belongs to before taking it. A few years ago I was desparate for sleep and took an Ambien, which previously never did anything for me back when I was taking Xanax...the next day I had a siezure :/

As for getting off them, when I quit, I just quit. Have never touched one since. I didn't notice the acute withdrawal too much because I was in rehab and I was put on Depakote, Zoloft, trazodone, and Indural. I was also going through alcohol withdrawal. I started to notice the benzo withdrawal hitting me around day 40, and then life got terrible and continued to get worse for about six months, evened out, and didn't start getting better until around the two year mark. Recovering from benzos is hard and takes a long time if you used benzos for a while. Withdrawal intensity and duration is directly related to the length of time you were on them and your average dose.

I know the idea of getting off them again is scary, but you'll do much more damage staying on them. The actually intensify anxiety the longer you're on them, and they cause very real and lasting cognitive damage and serious memory impairment. If you quit you can recover, but that recovery takes a lot of time and the longer you are on them the longer it will take to recover from. I took Xanax for ten years and am still healing and it has been six years. I'm not terrible, but I still have sensory issues and memory impairment.


Thank you for your response. I think i've been on them for about 5 years. But one thing I thought I had going for me is I tried to take the smallest dose possible. When I would use it for sleep I would usually only need around .25-.5 mg to fall asleep and STAY asleep. Now that I am back on them I usually take .25-.5 to fall asleep then at 4 am I wake up and have to take another .25 to get back to sleep.

When I wake up, I feel like I haven't slept at all and my sleep test tells me I have sleep apnea. That is strange to me, as I didn't have any of these issues before coming off Xanax. The sleep doc seems to think Xanax doesn't cause sleep apnea related issues, but i've read otherwise.

I came off Xanax in the first place because I didn't feel I needed it and didn't really feel withdrawal the first week. I also wanted to be read to come off the Subutex this year, but now i'm worse off than before.

I am going to see about getting put on Valium and doing the Ashton taper.
 
So i've finally come off Xanax again through a taper. I may have rushed it a bit, but i'm not sure if these symptoms i've been having are all from Xanax or not. Maybe you guys can tell me.

- I feel zero motivation in the day
- I have extremely dry eyes and throat that cause headaches and bad vision
- I get anxiety when I look far distances
- I like to stay by myself most of the time and be on the computer
- I now have sleep apnea and need to use a CPAP (weird as hell as i'm 6 foot 175lb in shape)
- SHALLOW BREATHING

My situation is really complicated though, as i'm tapering off of Suboxone (currently at 1mg) and I have been diagnosed with Sleep Apnea and have Epstein Barr Virus from blood work.

So, anyhow, if I don't end up killing myself from this, I will hopefully feel better soon.
 
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