I want to get off xanax!

[messenjah]

I took ativan for years and went cold turkey and it was 9 day's of misery. Didn't realize how dangerous it was and ended up on iv and was embarassed and ashamed to tell my family.  They thought I had e-coli. I thought I would die..

Am a high energy person and was on 5 mg. xanax 3 x's a day... one  mid of the day then 2 to sleep.

Now I'm down to 1 in mid day and one only at nightime. I want a natural sleep and want to come off completely.  Do I keep doing the same thing or do I try to take only one at night.  I get panick attacks for no reason and live in Paradise but am just a little bit bored because there's not enough for me to do.

I want to get off completely..Help....How should I proceed....

[crackedglass]

I've never been weaned off of any meds, not even methadone (for pain, not addiction). That has always struck me as wrong on so many levels, that doctors would say, it's not helping, just stop taking it. One doctor gave me prozac for 3 months, said I seemed to be having a side effect of hyper-aggression and called to say throw the pills away. meanwhile, since I had a 24/7 business caring for dogs, I was seeing people who worked with me and clients every hour of every day and no one else noticed anything unusual about my behavior. I've always wondered about that stopping drugs suddenly. Once, while in hospital for vomiting (stomach closed again) they stopped my xanax for 5 days and I felt horrible until I got home and resumed my minimal dosage.

[messenjah]

The doc gave me amitriptiline to sleep and didn't take the 5 mg. xanax last night and none today.  Slept well but well but woke up a little droisier but slept the whole night.

No xanax so far today - so will see how it goes  This is scary. At some point you want your body back to yourself instead of taking a pill if you get a little unnerved...

[Hensley258]

I guess this means I am in real big trouble because I take 2 or the 2Mg bars a day.
Getting off of that high a dosage is probably going to be impossible.

[frue13]

You must taper off this but the real question is how are you handeling anxiety?  If you do n ot have a handle on it yet you could relapse when you get off the xanax.  See your body will start flashing some anxiety at you and if you are not prepared for it, you could start heading backwards. So make sure you are ready to get off these drugs because I know from exp it can get testy at times.

When I was on ativan I tapered down but I was no where near what you were on.  I used to cut the ativan in half, if with in a hour I was having symptoms I took the other half.  I did this until i was good at half then I tried none if symptoms would apear it was to much I took half.  You can see the how I tapered it.  It took a while but it worked for me.  This is what I DID not what a DOC told me to do. So please see your doc for what HE says.

[Paxiled]

Type in Xanax withdrawal on the internet or something like it, there should be protocols listed to help you.  You might also search this site for past posts on tapering protocols.  Good luck, and relax, you'll be fine as long as you go slowly.  I'd be more comfortable if you had a psychiatrist to guide you, though.

[messenjah]

No psychatrist....Started taking it when my mom was dying...it helped to relax me. didn't realize these were addictive...I'm going to taper off slowly..I can do it.  When I read the withdrawals, I got scared...

[Paxiled]

I assume you have a psychiatrist who prescribed this.  He should give you a tapering schedule.  Whatever it is, it's probably too fast, but you sound in a hurry.  Relax, take it slow, be safe.