Benzos Is this Benzo W/D or am I okay?

[Bealzebot]

Okay so this is my first time posting and if anyone could shed some light onto my situation it would be much appreciated.

I have been taking xanex since early December. I have always had PTSD/GAD and figured they might help. I tried 1 mg of xanex a couple times back in the first week in December and they helped tremendously and my anxiety subsided for a bit so I didn't feel the need to continuously take them. Fast foreward to mid January and I start taking them again, usually 1 mg to sleep every other night or the occasional "bender" with a friend where we'd take a whopping 2 mg one night.

Over the past week besides one day where I didn't take any it has been 1 mg a night and then 3 days ago where it was 2 mg and I noticed I was building a tolerence. The next morning I felt weird, light-headed, and anxious all day so I figured maybe take a break from xanex altogether. Yesterday I had a full blown anxiety attack and almost went to the hospital until I decided to take 1 mg. Passed out for the better half of 14 hours and woke up feeling okay this morning. Later on in the day today I started feeling very anxious and "wired" or on edge/shakey so I looked into WD and rebound anxiety etc. Now I'm worried that I'm going to have a seizure or something and die.

I've never taken above 2 mg ever and there have been times where it was a week or two in between use. My mom has been on Xanex (.5 mg) for a long time for her PTSD and told me to continue to take .5 a day only until I can fully taper.

I did end up taking a .5 today to be on the safe side and I'm feeling relatively okay besides being a little irritable and kinda shakey.

New to all this so I plan on seeing a Dr. next tuesday, but I am making sure I'm going to be fine or if I should take any special precautions (take more/less or go to the hospital idk). Sorry for the novel and thanks for any help!

 

[Lorne???]

Doubt your in seizure territory, seems more like legitimate panic/anxiety issues, combined with rebound anxiety from alprazolam(xanax)-Itisvery effective and hits hard and fast, however it wears off quite fast, especially at 2mg or less-and that can make ithings worse when hours later it has worn off, and symptoms begin to creep back up

Would recommend something longer lasting, yet anxiolytic, with clonazepam being a first choice, or even Lorazepam, combined with secondary medication if long term-even Valium may be preferable depending upon condition and response

However benzodiazepines alone are offten not the answer and the wd is terrible- that cannot be stressed enough

Yiu are probably becoming addicted already, and Amy be in the early stages of *devoliping* a dependency-however your use is simply not heavy enough to have a full blown WD syndrome and seizures would be unlikely if you are not epileptic already

Nonetheless, do not cold turkey-go to a Dr. as you mentioned, be until then keep use as low as possible, using 1-2mg as needed for panic attacks or extreme anxiety, and 1mg in certain important situations as a precaution if you are predisposed. Otherwise stick with 0.5 if you fun function in that normally or majority of the time-Good luck, and if this becomes long term again recommend switching benzos and trying other medications, although doc should (hopefully) handle that; if he doesn't want to give benzodiazepines, stress that you need. Then at least during transition, both to other meds and to transition/wean off of them; Continuing xanax or perhaps Valium temporarily would be reasonable, or low dose clonazepam (0.5mg 2-3x per day or 1mg BID) ask any other questions/concerns, someone should help

 

[Bealzebot]

Thank you for the insight! I'd really like to stop the benzos altogether. So I'm going to see what a Dr. says. As well as trying to keep it at .5 a day unless I'm having serious anxiety. I've also heard Valium is harder to be prescribed. Much appreciated though.

 

[Lorne???]

^ Nah, it is xanax that is usually thought of as "abusable"-the problem with Valium is low potency, and it wears off fast, despite a longer t1/2

It is true that it seems more and more to be used as a wd taper med; however it was the 2nd benzo, and the first was a prodrug, so Valium has a multitude of "accepted" medical uses-even if de-facto acception; clonazepam seems to be "relatively easy to get, though if you can find another treatment, that is ideal-maybe have like 10 or 15 xanax or Valium(they kick in really fast, otherwise not a big fan of synchronic use) for PRN panic attacks, at least at first-And you are Welcome And also, WELCOME TO BL!

 

[Bealzebot]

Thank you very much! I feel a bit better now ?

 

[MrRoot]

I used Xanax for PTSD related panic attacks and I noticed that instead of just taking Xanax and forgetting about the real issue I would just bounce back into panic attack mode if I took 0.5mg and it started to wear off.

1mg would help better but I would feel like being wasted on it so I decided that I just used Xanax to stop the panic attack and then started doing meditation and mindfullness based practices to help my anxiety while I was still under the influence of Xanax and it did help much better.

Soon I could stop using Xanax altogether and carry on just by meditation and mindfullness based practices and also my therapy was helping in the background.

I wouldn't risk being long time on Xanax for panic attacks as it will risk getting addicted into it.