[nemesis]

Hi all,
Ive tentatively decided to trial a low dose of some given benzo over a couple of days to combat what looks to be a worsening anxiety disorder. The trial is not meant to influence any plans to take the medication for any longer than the trial itself, but more for me to gauge what life might be like to live without being on edge for every waking moment.

My questions for the reader are;
Do benzos help you to focus and execute tasks more easily, or do they send you into some happy drunken daze where you are unable to even leave the sofa?
And also, what is the timeline for the development of the dreaded dependency that I've read about? I'm worried that taking this med for any more than a couple of days might leave me curled up in a ball and soiling myself for weeks on end.

 

[[rula]]

depends on which benzo. Xanax makes me more sleepy than klonopin, Valium is happy dream-land pills. but, with any benzo it really depends on if you take too much (sleepy), too little (no effect), or just the right amount. most will make you sleepy at first, for at least a week. the right dose depends on your body chemistry and weight, so it might take more than 2 days to figure it out.

addiction is different for different people. depends on the dose, and if you take 'em on regular basis or just "as needed"...but the manufacturers guidlines for regular safe use without addiction is 2-4 weeks. i wouldn't worry that much about 2 days, or even a week.

i know what you mean tho, 1st time i took Xanax i felt normal, my old self, it was so great!! then an hour later i passed out

-ru

 

[Guest]

What is the conclusion of your trial, Nemesis?
My psychiatrist is being very cautious about misdiagnosing me and has only put me on lorazepam (Ativan) so far, while he makes up his mind. As things were starting to go better (clear lessening of the DP, slight lessening of the DR), I decreased the dosage and eventually got off the lorazepam without any difficulty. My condition has been relatively stable for about two months, with a tolerable level of anxiety and DR (or is it me learning to live with it?) I haven't gone back to the psychiatrist for a while now.

In the past week, my anxiety has been coming back again and I went to see my GP because I couldn't get an appointment with the psychiatrist before next month. He prescribed Alprazolam (Xanax). I'm really wary of starting a new benzo, as I remember lorazepam knocking me out at doses as low as 1 mg on some occasions. My GP advised me to take 0.5 mg up to three times a day and get back to him if things don't improve. I've heard very good and very bad things about Xanax. I have used lorazepam and cloxazolam in the past and never got addicted to either of them. The only side effects I suffered from were excessive sedation (especially on lorazepam), which is reported to be common at the beginning of any benzo treatment. And I never got to the point of taking these drugs daily for more than 10 days or so. I'm already addicted to nicotine, have kicked it and relapsed a few times, and know all too well the horrors of kicking a drug addiction. I wouldn't want to do benzos daily for more than two or three weeks at most. How have things been going with you? Has it helped with either DP or DR or both? I remember from previous posts that we had very similar symptoms, and we also work in the same field. I'd be very interested in your input, mate!

 

[bat]

i took oxazepam for a couple of weeks when needed. i found it took a slight edge off anxiety but increased depression pretty badly at times. i did feel jelly like but had no difficulty stopping it.

 

[Guest]

hi nemesis

I have found Xanax to be a real life saver for me. And it does help me focus. I have been taking it for twenty years. I drank for thirty years until I quit about a year ago. For the almost twenty years that I have been taking Xanax I was also drinking between a six pack of beer or more per day. I was a maintenance drinker and drank to achieve a certain level of comfort, i.e. a reduction of anxiety rather than to become intoxicated.

During this time that I was still drinking I was taking two doses of Xanax a day on average. .5mg in the afternoon and about the same or slightly more around bedtime.

When I quit drinking my doctor began prescribing Xanax at 1mg three times a day. For the fist few days without drinking I took that amount as i had read so many frightening articles about withdrawal and seizures and even death if one stopped abruptly. But sinece then I have been averaging about 2mgs per day. Yesterday i took only 1.5mgs. And slept fine with an abundance of dreams.

What I have been doing to try and reduce the amount i take is going for longer and longer time between my evening dose and the next day afternoon dose. Let me give clarify:

Last night at 7:30 pm I took 1mg Xanax and I won't take anymore until 4:30pm this afternoon. (5/8 or .5 mgs depending on how I feel) I have read that Xanax half life is between six and eleven hours. I am going for over twenty hours between the evening dose and the following days dose. I am squeezing the afternoon dose closer and closer by five minutes per day towards the 7:30 evening dose in this way I am finding that I am able to (fairly comfortably) reduce my daily dose as the two doses are getting closer to coinciding.

I am not particularly interested in completely eliminating Xanax from my life , particularly if that entailed switching to some other drug, and i imagine I would likely have difficulty sleeping if i stopped completely. If i could get by with no drug at all that would of course be the best option, but I don't have any wierd side effects from Xanax and the generic is inexpensive and also I like the idea of taking it under my control where and when I feel like it rather than going around in a 24/7 drugged state.

I have found that taking the benzos carries a certain negative "moralistic conotation" in the minds of many in a way which taking other psych. drugs doesn't. Being subjected to the "evil eye" and "moral contempt" by many in the medical field is the worst side effect I have found from Xanax. I won't argue that benzos aren't habit forming. But I believe that anxiety and panic attacks are far more deleterious to a persons overall quality of their life than being habituated to a benzo.

Just pray that you don't fall into the clutches of a "mean spirited" or even a sadistic doctor who will cut you off "cold turkey." Thats the other significant potential drawback as i see it.

One last thought. I don't feel nearly as anxious today as I have in the past and that might make cutting back on the Xanax a lot easier than it might otherwise be.

Good luck
john

 

[Guest]

Orlando: You mean that you've actually been on Xanax continuously over the last 20 years? I didn't know there were physicians who kept repeating benzo prescriptions for so long. The info on xanax.com says it should not be used for more than a few months. Didn't you develop tolerance to the drug?

 

[Guest]

Hi Uncle Seb

Yes I have been taking Xanax everyday for around twenty years. I have developed a certain tolerance over that time. But there came a time when I was able to maintain a certain level of relative comfort and freedeom from intense anxiety without increasing the dose in any dramatic way. Somedays I would take a little more some days a little less.

My doctor told me several years ago that for many long term Xanax users there comes a time where an effective dose becomes established and the user may come to stay at that level for a long time, or even reduce the amount. I have heard similar things on a taped lecture of a teaching Psychiatrist from a medical school. He said in the tape that for some people benzos are the only thing that gives them relief and when you start prescribing for them you should inform them that the drug is habit forming and that they may end up taking it all their life. Before i quit drinking I was taking between one and one and one half mgs per day. Currently I am taking around 2mgs on average per day and have been for the last year. I am even trying to reduce my dose from this point although it is not easy. I haven't felt a need to increase the dose from where i am at at this time. My anxiety level generally has greatly improved from where it was in the past and this may hopefully make it possible to move in the direction of a reduction.

My cousin has been taking a benzo for even longer, for thirty years in fact. But she has found that she only needs to take it to help her sleep now.

The other thing is that there are a lot of people who "abuse" Xanax" you know take it my the handful to get all drugged up. So it is listed as a "controlled substance" and the prescriptions I believe are recorded by the State. And many doctors may not care for the scrutiny. My doctor knows I don't abuse it. I have read data on the internet that says that most legitimate prescribed benzo users actually take less than they are prescribed and sometimes not taking enough can become a problem for them in controlling their anxiety and panic attacks.

I believe the theory is that one should only take enough to not be overwhelmed by anxiety but not so much that you stop working to reduce your anxiety level through non medication means such as therapy, or a health regiment of excercise good diet etc.

I have found that when I go for twenty hours or more between doses I sometimes start to feel DP/DR and anxiety. This could be a symptom of withdrawal but it feels like what I experienced before i started taking it those many years ago. So I feel it is an occurence of the underlying disorder reappearing in the abscence of the medication.

I was having a particularly bad afternoon today with DP and I felt i was starting to head towards a bit of a panic attack, but I was able to wait till the appropriate time before taking .5 mgs Xanax (a self reduced amount) After about 15 minutes I calmed down and was able to feel comfortable enough to go on with some social activities later in the afternoon.

I am not advocating that people should take it but it seems to work pretty well for me personally and other than the fear of being cut off someday, ( I can easily imagine the horror of "cold turkey" withdrawal that some of the other posters here have described) I feel fine in taking it. I don't notice any unpleasant side effects at all. If you read the ingredients of the medication cocktails that some of the posters here are taking you will find that a benzo like klonopin often finds its way into the mix. So I feel kind of lucky that only one drug has seemed to have worked pretty good for me so far.

Hope this answers your questions.
john

 

[jft]

Hello. I wrote a PM to Orlando earlier becasue I did not want to fuel a benzo war here, but sometimes pms do not seem to work on this board.

Anyway, I affirm all that oralando has said, being hesitant that this is our experience and maybe not that of others on this board. Apparantly many folks here and everywhere have major problems with benzoes. But not me. Or Orlando.

I still feel that many folks are denied this resource at a very critical time of need (especially immediatley after onset) becasue of the prejudice, liability paranoia and ignorance of the medical community. I do not think it is fair or helpful for docs to make a generalization that covers all people. We are all different case histories.

I have been on xanax as long as Orlando, four years at 2 mgs/day and later 3/mgs day for a year, then quitting on my own and using them only as needed for the last 16 years or so and have never had a problem with them. In fact as Orlando said, they have been a lifesaver. I only use maybe 60 pills /year, but when I need them I am thankful for them.
jftmn

 

[Guest]

Uncle Seb

There is a bit more I feel is neccessary to sahre with you so that you have a clearer understanding on my particular situation.

I happen to have a long history of mental health issues starting when I was hospitalised in a State hospital back in the sixties. I have medical records going back to that time and the various mental health issues that have come up between then and now. I have records and an extensive "paper trail" substantiating a long standing psychiatric disorder going back for forty years. Also I have been recieving psychiatric disability monthly payments for thirty years. I have been diagnosed with having a "personality disorder" in addition panic attacks and a depersonalization/ dissociative disorder.. This is all well documented. It is not that I just came in off the street to my GP and told him I have been feeling very anxious and having feelings of "unreality." It is a Medical clinic where there are several doctors and they all are familiar with my case and prescribe Xanax for me because they know it helps me. And my extensive mental illness history justifies them doing so in the eyes of the State apparently.

One time a new woman doctor who had just started working there wrote me a letter saying that she didn't feel comfortable prescribng Xanax for me, this was back when i was drinking regularly and that if i wanted to I could bring it up with the other clinic physcians, but when I sent her a copy of all the history of my medical records beginning with my initial hospitalization , county mental health contact and their diagnosis of my schizotypal Personality Disorder , my DP and panic attacks, anxiety
etc. She called me at home on the phone and apologised and said how she appreciated me taking the time to send her my complete history and how much much having my complete history had helped her understand
my situation and that she would no longer have any objection to prescribing Xanax for me. She placed a copy of my history in my chart and i assume this is why I have been able to get the Xanax over the years in a compassionate manner. The main doctor at the clinic told me that iif i ever wanted to try and get off the Xanax he would be happy to work with me on it.

Just walking into a doctors office complaining of anxiety with no mental health history would be a much different sort of situation.

Just wanted to add this additional info to the things I said in the above post.

Hope this helps
john

 

[Guest]

Hi jft

And thanks for your input. Glad to know i am not alone in my, so far, positive experience with Xanax. Was it hard for you when you quit at the 3mgs a day level? Did you taper off pretty quickly or did you take plenty of time? My main doctor said he would reccomend that if I decide to quit the Xanax I should look at about a five to six month tapering off schedule. If you have DP did quiting bring it back or worsen it for some time? I think it is really great that you can take it only when you feel you need it. That to me seems ideal. Good for you jft!

john

 

[Martinelv]

I've taken a wide variety of benzo's over the years. I was sensible (for the first time in my life) and only took them when needed, so I never had any problems whatsoever stopping them. I've taken Effexor for just two months and I'm shitting bricks trying to get of it. And the irony is, my GP told me that the dose of Effexor I was taking was so low (37.5mg * 2) as to be, and to quote, 'of homeopathic value'. Jesus ! Why put me on it in the first place ?!

The benzo that has worked best for me is Diazepam (Valium), from doses between 2mg and 30mg. It's true I have developed a tolerance for them, 2mg does nothing to me now, I need at least 10mg to feel any effects, but seeing as I take them once in a blue moon I don't care.

I've also taken Oxazepam, Lorazepam, and Clonazepam. None of these were as effective as Diazepam. Also, no benzo has ever made me feel sleepy. Relaxed, yes, but often I actually feel 'more' awake and alive because of the absence of anxiety. Benzo's as sleeping aids were useless for me.

Although I'm not anti-benzo, I do think that long term use (apart from the tolerance and addiction potential) is self-defeating. I only ever used them when absolutely needed...like when my DR/Panic/Anxiety was disabling, or preventing me from working/playing. But that's just me. One thing I'd like to say though is this: If someone has been on benzo's for years and years and years, for whatever reason, without significantly raising the dose (and I know of people like this), and it has helped them life at least a reasonably happy life and nothing, absolutely nothing else has, then why put them through the purgatory of withdrawal ? It's like going up to someone aged 90, who has been smoking for 70 years and telling them to give up. Why ? But still, it's a fine line to tread.

 

[jft]

Orlando. I looked at my old journals to double check and saw that I was daily on 2 mgs of xanax for 3 to four years and was prescribed 3 mgs for for the last year (approx. 4 years taken daily). It is doubtful I did 3 mgs every single day the last year as I look at my journal. The reason it was upped to 3 mgs is when I learned of the half life and realized as evening came on I was going down in blood level. That is probably why i resorted to the beer in the evening at 2 mgs. My notes said that the extra xanax in the evening took my energy away and really did not effectively deal with my strong dr and lighter dp. But it did deal with the anxiety and sporadic panicy feelings. Somewhere in this time frame I weaned myself off all xanax. The tapering only took a month ( my idea..not the docs... I was in a hurry). I do remember discomfort, but not to the extent that some of this board and the benzo site describe. I guess I was jsut lucky. I then got a script for as needed basis, and have done this for 16 years

I like you have found that as years went on the anxiety has tapered, though still very much a part of my life. I find that when I get very symtpomatic with dr and then dp that a xanax comes in real handy, even at .5 mg (that is all I ever take) to take the edge off. So I pop one. I too did not like the idea of being drugged all day, and this "as needed" basis works very well for me. I wake up sometimes feeling panicy and will take .25 mgs to quite me to sleep. I have no urges to do any more than this and feel fine the next day.
jft

 

[Guest]

Orlando: thanks for taking the time to write your Xanax story. I certainly don't want to see another benzo flame-war on this forum but what you wrote seems to disprove the horror stories about alprazolam.

Martinelv: should I understand that your tolerance to diazepam has remained high even though you now "take them once in a blue moon"? My experience with lorazepam is that my tolerance quickly dropped again after I stopped using it regularly. Is there usually cross-tolerance between different benzos (including alprazolam, which I understand is not 100% a benzo)?

Well, after just two days of using alprazolam, I must say I am really impressed. It doesn't last for quite as long as I would like but the DR symptoms really seem to go away. The anxiety certainly does. And it doesn't knock me out, just makes me slightly numb for half an hour or so. I was so afraid I was falling into full-blown DP/DR again, now I can almost feel my old self.

 

[Martinelv]

Uncle Seb - Yes, I would have expected my tolerance to drop too, but it doesn't seem to have. Perhaps it's more to do with my expectations than the pharmacology of it, I don't know. I last took 30mg of Diazepam about a month ago, before that 20mg two months or so before. When I first took Diazepam, the dose was 6mg, and the relief was astonishing. 6mg wouldn't even touch the sides now.

 

[Guest]

jft

After reading your post where you mentioned going back and referring to your journal about your dosing schedule I started thinking back to the early days of my Xanax use as well. As i now recall after thinking about it I was drinking daily for many of those years I didn't really feel that much need for the Xanax during the day unless something particularly stressful came up so i used the Xanax mostly for sleep. I don't know if you are familiar with how drinking can interfere with a good nights sleep but often times after drinking it is easy to get to sleep but after three or four hours one often wakes up in the early hours of the morning and can't get back to sleep. Taking about .5mg of Xanax before going to bed pretty much insured me that I would sleep through the night. Ocassionally I would wake up and not be able to get right back to sleep and then I would take.25mg more and in a few minutes sleep would return. Anyway the point is that for many of those twenty years I was not taking it during the day very often, it has only been in the last ten years or so that I added an afternoon dose along with my regular night time dose. For many of those earlier years I was probably only taking about .5mgs per day on average. The average daily dose of between one and one and one half mgs per day has only been over the last eight to ten years. So now I am currently taking between one and one half mgs and two mgs. And I no longer drink alcohol. Recently I have been getting by with less than 2 mgs. After about 18 hours I start to experience some withdrawal symptoms. Generally a reoccurrence of feelings of "unreality" about the environment and my sense of self. I have noticed that these feelings come in waves. I can sometimes get caught up in very intense feelings of DP/DR, but knowing that relief is only a pill and a matter of a few minutes away I find that I can ride out these waves without the feelings of terror and confusion (a great deal of confusion) I used to feel when i first developed DP/DR years ago. For a number of years after I left the hospital I felt pretty much in control of my DP/DR even without any medication. So I know it is possible to be DP/DR free (more or less) without meds but it takes a "character strength" which unfortunately I don't have an abundance of.

Anyway the main point is that I have not been taking Xanax at my current dosage level all of those twenty years I have been taking it. So I have upped the doasge level over the years but even two mgs per day is generally considered a fairly low to moderate dose.

Uncle Seb you wrote in your reply that alprozalam was not a 100% benzo. I asked my pharmacist
about this and she went back and did some reading on the subject in the literature of the manufacturer. But I wasn't able to get an understanding why alprozalam is not 100% benzo. She did tell me that in one way which it is different is that it is not an anti convulsant like klonopin, valium and most the other benzos. It is strictly designed for the reduction of anxiety. While all benzos apparently reduce anxiety, Xanax according to the manufacturer is particularly effective in reducing anxiety associated with depression. I have found that Xanax has a mild anti depressive quality to its effects. That is another reason why I like it.

She did say one thing that i found somewhat confusing though. She said that after the liver metabolizes the Xanax the by products of this metabolism becomes stored in the fatty tissue and when one quits taking it it continues to be released into the blood stream for some time after and these by products have a similar effect as the original drug. I am still not too clear in this matter.

Now when i first started taking it there was a popular opinion that a pharmacist told me that Xanax was not truly addictive like valium or some of the other benzos because the by products of its metabolism were excreted in the urine and not stored up in the fatty tissue and this was a major advantage in preventing addiction because it was cleared from the body so quickly. My doctor also told me something to the same effect years back. Also the fact that it was cleared from the body so quickly there was less likelihood of developing tolerance like one does to valium etc. I have noticed that since I have been going longer and longer between my evening dose and my daytime dose my tolerance level has gone down about 1/4mg over the last week or so. I am now at 20 hrs and 30 minutes between these doses. I start to notice withdrawal symptoms (?) setting in after about 18 hours. But like i said above, knowing that I can put an end to the unpleasant feelings whenever it becomes too much allows me to just sort of go with wave like feelings of fright and confusion which seem to wash over me and pass by, especially if I just keep doing whatever it is I am doing. I know that relief is within arms reach at anytime. That helps immensely. When I quit smoking for the first month or so I always carried a pack of cigarettes in my shirt pocket. Same with alcohol when I quit drinking. I still have a half pint of Brandy unopened on a nearby shelf jsut across the room.

I can easily recall
the "horror" I used to feel when it seemed there was no end to these feelings. (DP/DR) I sympathize with all those who find themselves in that condition. The agony is truly beyond words to describe.

Words and their meanings are part of the rational-logical function of the psyche and DP/DR is a disorder of the feelings and the emotions which underly ones sense of self. At least that is the way in which I currently view it and experience it.

Regards
john