please help

I was prescribed xanex around 16 months ago to make me sleep. 1 mg before bed. It really works good. After the first 4 months I started having this feeling of pressure or a full feeling in my neck. It really started to worry me being a smoker so as of now I've been to 3 ENT specialist. I've had MRI, CT scan, etc. Everything has came back normal. The only time my neck does not bother me is soon after I take a xanex at night and first thing in the morning. Then like clock work it will start bothering me by mid morning. So after about 2 weeks of this misery I tried 1/4 mg of xanex during the day and it calmed my neck down. So for the past year I've been taking 1/4 mg twice a day and 1mg at night to cope with this bad feeling in my neck. Also it gets worse when I'm doing physical labor or when I am stressed which is quite often. It is really bothersome, makes me feel bad and I am so frustrated with it. Could this be a side effect of xanex and does anyone have these same feelings in there neck? PLEASE HELP

[OneScaredBuckeye]

I agree that Valium would be far better than Xanax, but 10 mg. three times a day sounds like a pretty high dose to me.  I would try to get by on 5 mg. twice a day and if that doesn't work, have your doctor increase it.  Good luck.

[OneScaredBuckeye]

But the half-life of Valium is so very, very long.  I've never met anyone who takes 30 mg. a day.  Even if he needs that much, I think he should try to bring the dose down a bit.  That's a lot of Valium, though true, Xanax is a stronger drug.  It is, however, eliminated from the body faster.

Benzodiazepines also differ markedly in the speed at which they are metabolised (in the liver) and eliminated from the body (in the urine). For example, the "half-life" (time taken for the blood concentration to fall to half its initial value after a single dose) for triazolam (Halcion) is only 2-5 hours, while the half-life of diazepam is 20-100 hours, and that of an active metabolite of diazepam (desmethyldiazepam) is 36-200 hours. This means that half the active products of diazepam are still in the bloodstream up to 200 hours after a single dose. Clearly, with repeated daily dosing accumulation occurs and high concentrations can build up in the body (mainly in fatty tissues). There is a considerable variation between individuals in the rate at which they metabolise benzodiazepines.

[OneScaredBuckeye]

.5 mg of Xanax is out of the body in six to twelve hours, while 10 mg. of Valium take twenty to two hundred hours to clear.

http://web4health.info/en/answers/bio-benzo-overview.htm

[OneScaredBuckeye]

I do agree that 1 mg. of Xanax is equal to 20 mg. of Valium, but don't you think he should try to reduce the Valium dosage from 30 mg. day to maybe 20 mg. day or even 15 mg. day, over time?  Especially in light of the long half-life?

[OneScaredBuckeye]

Thanks for typing all that, Ryan.  I think a lot of people are afraid of Valium today, but I used it for years and had not one bad reaction and I never became physical dependent on it, however, when I was feeling my worst, I do think I was psychologically dependent on the drug.  That passed of its own accord, however, when I started feeling better.  I credit Valium with saving my life and my sanity.  I had simple anxiety-muscular tension, which I believe was initially caused by a hormonal imbalance, but really, who knows?  As a former patient, I agree, nothing has surpassed Valium, in effectiveness or safety, for anxiety.  Again, thanks for typing all of that.