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Xanax and Pale Bowels
I take a low dose of xanax .25mg a day for anxiety. Within 24 hours of taking the drug the following day my bowels are a grey color other times a yellow/grey color (and continue that color while on the drug). My doctor said that xanax didn't cause this so in Dec 2007 I had a liver function test and an ultrasound of my liver and gallbladder. All tests were normal. I came off the xanax and 7 days later like magic my bowel color was brown. I told my doctor who still said xanax doesn't do that. I looked on google and could find no information about it either.
I started to feel very sick and depressed and high anxiety a few weeks after not taking xanax so I started the .25mg of xanax a day. My bowel color returned to the grey color but I stayed on it till May 2008. I finally decided I did not feel safe with grey bowel movements since no one seemed to believe me that the xanax was doing it and I didn't know if it was dangerous. I tapered of by not doing the .25 mg every 24 hours but every 36 hours then every 48 hours.
7 days after I stopped my bowels returned to normal. 2 weeks after I stopped xanax I began having obsessive thoughts (which I didn't have before xanax) I would stay up 30 hours filled with anxiety sleep 8 hours back up another 24 hours then sleep 8 hours again.
I started crying over nothing in the shower and before bed, I would wake up with this impending doom feeling and heart racing and pounding. I went to the doctor to ask for paxil which I have taken before and not fond of but felt so awful I just wanted it to all stop. The pharmacy didn't have the paxil they had to order it and it would be 2 days.
I went home and felt so bad I took .25mgs of xanax. In an hour like magic all scary thoughs stopped, depression gone, obsessive thinking halted. I was 100% normal feeling. Next day grey stool. I picked up the paxil but in my right mind now didn't take it.
I have stayed on the .25mg of xanax for a week now. This drug has messed me up some how and I am stopping again. I don't care what doctors say about it not making my bowels grey it has!! I also have no idea why when I go off a few weeks later I end up in this nightmare state of mind. I am not looking forward to where my mind will be in a few weeks time.
Why do my bowels to grey/pale on this drug? Why is my mind messed up weeks after I stop (way worse than before I ever took this drug)? It is such a low dose it doesn't make sense but I promise you this is very real and horrible.
Brian
I started to feel very sick and depressed and high anxiety a few weeks after not taking xanax so I started the .25mg of xanax a day. My bowel color returned to the grey color but I stayed on it till May 2008. I finally decided I did not feel safe with grey bowel movements since no one seemed to believe me that the xanax was doing it and I didn't know if it was dangerous. I tapered of by not doing the .25 mg every 24 hours but every 36 hours then every 48 hours.
7 days after I stopped my bowels returned to normal. 2 weeks after I stopped xanax I began having obsessive thoughts (which I didn't have before xanax) I would stay up 30 hours filled with anxiety sleep 8 hours back up another 24 hours then sleep 8 hours again.
I started crying over nothing in the shower and before bed, I would wake up with this impending doom feeling and heart racing and pounding. I went to the doctor to ask for paxil which I have taken before and not fond of but felt so awful I just wanted it to all stop. The pharmacy didn't have the paxil they had to order it and it would be 2 days.
I went home and felt so bad I took .25mgs of xanax. In an hour like magic all scary thoughs stopped, depression gone, obsessive thinking halted. I was 100% normal feeling. Next day grey stool. I picked up the paxil but in my right mind now didn't take it.
I have stayed on the .25mg of xanax for a week now. This drug has messed me up some how and I am stopping again. I don't care what doctors say about it not making my bowels grey it has!! I also have no idea why when I go off a few weeks later I end up in this nightmare state of mind. I am not looking forward to where my mind will be in a few weeks time.
Why do my bowels to grey/pale on this drug? Why is my mind messed up weeks after I stop (way worse than before I ever took this drug)? It is such a low dose it doesn't make sense but I promise you this is very real and horrible.
Brian
I thought you would want to read an excerpt from Dr. Peter Breggin's book that covers xanax and other benzos. This is a quote:
"Studies of Xanax (see ahead) show that most patients develop withdrawal symptoms during routine treatment lasting only eight weeks. Tolerance, or the need for increasing doses to achieve the same psychoactive effect, is the underlying physical mechanism of addiction. Within two to four weeks, tolerance can develop to the sedative effect of minor tranquilizers taken at night for sleep. 5 This again warns against the use of these drugs for more than a few days at a time.
The short-acting benzodiazepines can produce especially severe withdrawal symptoms, because the drug is cleared from the body at a relatively rapid rate. These include Xanax, Halcion, Ativan, Restoril, and Serax. However, according to expert Louis Fabre in a February 1991 interview with me, tightness of binding to receptors is probably more indicative of addictive potential, and the most tightly binding are Xanax, Halcion, Ativan, and Klonopin.
Individuals who take only one pill daily for sleep or anxiety are not exempt from withdrawal problems. In my private practice during the last few years I have worked with several people who were unable to stop taking a once-a-day standard dose of Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, or other minor tranquilizers. In each case, the attempt to stop the medication led to a disturbing degree of anxiety or insomnia within twenty-four hours. The problem seemed to be caused by rebound anxiety or rebound insomnia (see ahead). In a personal communication in late December 1990, internist John Steinberg confirmed that patients taking one Xanax tablet each day for several weeks can become addicted. Steinberg is medical director of the Chemical Dependency Program at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center and president of the Maryland Society of Addiction Medicine. He points to research that Xanax and other short-acting benzodiazepines can cause a reactive hyperactivity of the receptors that they block. The hyperactive receptors then require one or more doses of Xanax each day or they produce anxiety and emotional discomfort. Steinberg calls the impact of Xanax "a fundamental change in the homeostasis of the brain." After the patient stops taking the Xanax, according to Steinberg, it takes the brain six to eighteen months to recover. Xanax patients should be warned, he says, that it can take a long time to get over painful withdrawal symptoms. Since doctors frequently don't realize this, they, too, are likely to be confused and to continue the drug in the hope of "treating" the patient's drug-induced anxiety and tension.
Many detoxification beds are occupied by patients addicted to minor tranquilizers and even more by those who are cross-addicted with alcohol and other drugs. Steinberg says that Xanax is "by far and away" the worst offender and that it definitely causes addiction without being mixed with other sedatives. Steinberg estimates that one in ten patients receiving Xanax will become addicted. * (Based on an estimated fifteen million people receiving Xanax each year in the United States, Steinberg concludes that 1.5 million Xanax addicts are produced each year.
(* Steinberg does not use the term addiction loosely. By addiction he means that the patient periodically loses control of his or her drug intake and has a pattern of compulsive use, despite adverse consequences. If Steinberg were merely speaking of habituation, or difficulty stopping the use of the drug, his estimates would be much higher. He considers Xanax "very easily habituating" and observes that people are especially susceptible to the initial "euphoria or disinhibiting effect" that it has in common with alcohol. l) "
xan
"Studies of Xanax (see ahead) show that most patients develop withdrawal symptoms during routine treatment lasting only eight weeks. Tolerance, or the need for increasing doses to achieve the same psychoactive effect, is the underlying physical mechanism of addiction. Within two to four weeks, tolerance can develop to the sedative effect of minor tranquilizers taken at night for sleep. 5 This again warns against the use of these drugs for more than a few days at a time.
The short-acting benzodiazepines can produce especially severe withdrawal symptoms, because the drug is cleared from the body at a relatively rapid rate. These include Xanax, Halcion, Ativan, Restoril, and Serax. However, according to expert Louis Fabre in a February 1991 interview with me, tightness of binding to receptors is probably more indicative of addictive potential, and the most tightly binding are Xanax, Halcion, Ativan, and Klonopin.
Individuals who take only one pill daily for sleep or anxiety are not exempt from withdrawal problems. In my private practice during the last few years I have worked with several people who were unable to stop taking a once-a-day standard dose of Xanax, Ativan, Klonopin, or other minor tranquilizers. In each case, the attempt to stop the medication led to a disturbing degree of anxiety or insomnia within twenty-four hours. The problem seemed to be caused by rebound anxiety or rebound insomnia (see ahead). In a personal communication in late December 1990, internist John Steinberg confirmed that patients taking one Xanax tablet each day for several weeks can become addicted. Steinberg is medical director of the Chemical Dependency Program at the Greater Baltimore Medical Center and president of the Maryland Society of Addiction Medicine. He points to research that Xanax and other short-acting benzodiazepines can cause a reactive hyperactivity of the receptors that they block. The hyperactive receptors then require one or more doses of Xanax each day or they produce anxiety and emotional discomfort. Steinberg calls the impact of Xanax "a fundamental change in the homeostasis of the brain." After the patient stops taking the Xanax, according to Steinberg, it takes the brain six to eighteen months to recover. Xanax patients should be warned, he says, that it can take a long time to get over painful withdrawal symptoms. Since doctors frequently don't realize this, they, too, are likely to be confused and to continue the drug in the hope of "treating" the patient's drug-induced anxiety and tension.
Many detoxification beds are occupied by patients addicted to minor tranquilizers and even more by those who are cross-addicted with alcohol and other drugs. Steinberg says that Xanax is "by far and away" the worst offender and that it definitely causes addiction without being mixed with other sedatives. Steinberg estimates that one in ten patients receiving Xanax will become addicted. * (Based on an estimated fifteen million people receiving Xanax each year in the United States, Steinberg concludes that 1.5 million Xanax addicts are produced each year.
(* Steinberg does not use the term addiction loosely. By addiction he means that the patient periodically loses control of his or her drug intake and has a pattern of compulsive use, despite adverse consequences. If Steinberg were merely speaking of habituation, or difficulty stopping the use of the drug, his estimates would be much higher. He considers Xanax "very easily habituating" and observes that people are especially susceptible to the initial "euphoria or disinhibiting effect" that it has in common with alcohol. l) "
xan
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