Please help me withdraw from Xanax and answer a question re: it

[reallysad]

I have been taking Xanax ER for 3 1/2 years.  I was told by an
"addictions specialist" that it was "non-addictive" since it was slowly released.  I never abused it or took it other than as prescribed.  NOW I am suffering, and I do mean suffering, very embarrassingly from incontinence.  I will not go out almost at all and I live alone.  I am dying of loneliness.  I read that Xanax could cause incontinence and the docs have been unable to find a reason so they have suggested that I stop taking it.  I am just now beginning to wean off the first 1/2 milligram and am feeling terrible.  I cannot sleep and I am shaky and miserable.  I am afraid of getting worse, as I start taking less in 2 days.  I am so alone and so shaky and scared.  IS IT TRUE that Xanax can "impair urination?"  I read that on one question and I am having that problem also.  Please give me some answers and also know that I have a history of alcoholism and severe panic attacks years after that with PTSD and then severe agoraphobia.  Am I ever going to be OK?  Do I need a treatment facility?  What should I do?  Are there any "things" that I can do/ eat/ drink/ that are healthy and helpful that I might try?  Please help!

[louloudi]

Hi, everyone. I have never posted anything but I have to admit you guys have giving me a lot of comfort the last month. Today is the first day of real clear thinking. I guess I should start by saying that a year ago I ended up in hospital with dehydration, low blood sugar, and a racing heart. Well all that together spelled out PANIC ATTACK to the doctors. So I was put on Prozac and Xanax. I took Prozac for 6 months (2 daily at 100mgs) and tapered off with no problem actually surprised myself. Considering I have no experience with any types of meds. Anyways I have been trying to cut the xanax even did for five WHOLE days. But here I am once again I was taking 3 a day (0.5mgs) and when needed. I am back down to only one at night and will not try to cut back until next week. I recently found out that 1 panic attack does not justify the meds they put me on so not only am I feeling crappy but I'm very upset about it. It is nice to know that other people have gotten off this stuff.

I have to mention that I have bad hormone problems (Very serious) and mirtal valve prolapse (not a serious problem) so I guess I'm more sensitive to meds, caffine, sodas and anything with sugar. Plus I will have to start taking something for my thyroid. Have nodes or something. The doc said this can cause panic attacks too. I guess I'm too busy trying to get off the xanax that I don't have time for panic attacks (thank goodness).

Has anyone tried Bespar for just Anxiety?????? I have serious PMS and know I need something. I just don't want to get caught up with wacko stuff.

By the way I'm 37 with three kids and husband (very understanding) I also took the advice about Stress manangement I have an appointment tonight.

I live in Greece and have no one close enough to talk too. But I kind of gathered that if you haven't been there you cant possible understand.
Sorry for babbling but thanks alot.

[amped out]

Thank you for you input it is so nice to know that I am not alone. I have a wonderful mother that helps me on a daily basis to keep me grounded and to let me know that I will be okay in time.  I have tried to figure out what it is that my anxiety and panic comes from.  I know that I hve been told by Joe Leibowitz in California that the panic atacks come from a tramautic experience in our lives and from what I can tell my started after the birth of my first daughter 14 years ago when it suddenly dawned on me that I had someone else who I was responsible for besides myself. That in itself is just plain scary and my fear is I will have a heart attack and die and not be there for my children.  Like I said in my previous comment, Xanax gave me back my life at one point but now seems to have taken it back away. So everyday I make a sincere effort to be active in my life and not let the little monsters inside control me. But it can be sooooo hard and exhausting.  Thank you for the wonderful infor on the Benzo website it has been quite enlightening I have found from it that the one medication you should never be on when withdrawing from the Xanax is the one my doctor perscribed for me for the withdrawls.... It is Buspar so anyone else that is told that this is the drug for you when coming off Xanax your doctor is wrong the effects of the withdrawls are doubled I am sure...These doctors should not be allowed to give out these meds if they aren't educated on the damage it can do to a person... Again any advise anyone has is greatly appreciated it is so nice to hear other thoughts on such a stressful time and situation.  I will keep trying to stay focused and positive...

[amped out]

Where do I start... About a year and a half ago my cardiologist put me on 1 mg of xanax a day to be taken at night as that is when the anxiety would be the worse and I couldn't sleep and the terror would take over and have me convince I was gong to have a heart attack...Well the xanax felt like it had saved my life then but now trying to get off of it seems like it is taking my life away again. My doctor never told me to wean off, they gave me 14 Xanax and told me to take them while they started me on 15mg of Buspar twice aday. So I took them and did not take any xanax for 9 days until last night my left arm was shaking so bad and the insomnia/nausea has gotten so out of control that I broke down and took a half .50.  I did sleep from 10:30-2:40 this morning and then from 3:00a-7:30a.  It is the most sleep I have had in a week my arm isn't shaking so bad this morning and I feel I can function today. But someone please help me to get off this horrible drug I no longer feel the same person is in my body.  I have 2 beatiful daughters and they can tell something isn't right.  My husband is very supportive but doesn't understand panic attacks or anxiety but he tries and I think honestly is scares him to a point.  How could it not is terrifies me and I am living with it..I don't think Buspar is the answer for me either.  I don't really want to replace one with the other, but maybe there is one more suited for xanax withdrawls... Any help would be greatly appreciated it is wonderful to know I am not alone on this...

[rosetoes]

My heart goes out to you, I know that you are having a extremely hard time getting off of xanax.  I just took it for 3 months and by your note, it seems that you have been on it for over a year.  The best advice is to go slow weaning off of xanax.  If you are taking 1mg, break it and take .75 for a week to 10 days.  Even that is going to make you have withdrawls, but not as severe.  You have to wean off very slowly, and know that you will have withdrawls, there is no way to escape them.  But keep in mind, it will eventually subside and you will get back to normal.  Deep breathing (from the stomach) helps and do read about anxiety and panic and learn to rid yourself of the negative thoughts that brings on our anxiety.

Anxiety is brought on by me thinking of heart attacks (I have sinus tach, and palpitations)  and when it happens I use to have full blown panic attacks....but one good thing, while I was on xanax, I was learning how to deal with my anxiety and by the time I stopped xanax, I knew how to deal with it.

It is hard dealing with withdrawls when you have little ones, they require so much attention and really don't understand what were going through.  I have 3 and I know that I wasn't the best mom in the world when I was getting off of them.  I had little tolerance to the everyday bickering and fighting siblings go through.  Thank God my husband was very supportive.

There is a website that is unbelievably great and I got alot of support from.  It is benzo.org.uk  It deals with every imaginable issue withdrawing from benzos (which is xanax).  The website allows you to interface with others that are going through the same thing.  The only thing that I didn't agree with is that they feel weaning off of xanax should be done by starting valium then gradually getting off xanax, then valium.  Valium has a longer life then xanax.  I just wanted off and didn't want to start another benzo to get off of xanax.  

Best wishes to you and you are doing the right thing.  Be strong and know that you will survive and how you are feeling is quite normal.  Check out the benzo website.  It will help!

[reallysad]

I'm sorry about your struggles... your sister so sick, your condo needing to sell, your brother (mine has really, really hurt me) and this med. which has wrecked havoc on both of our lives.  I've been so sick from it that I shouldn't drive... but I have to in order to survive, as I live alone and isolated.  It is scary.  Today it is time for me to "go down another dose" from 1.75 mg/day to 1.50.  I have been dowe from 2/mg a day to the 1/75 mg for 11 days... and am supposed to withdraw .25 mg. each 10 days (or the doc said that I could go down each 7 days if I was "tough" enough...but he has no idea the danger I would be in, as I am barely functioning right now).  So, I am doing this today, with fear and trepidation.  It doesn't help that I am going to have to somehow be "there" for my daughter and support her when she has surgery (and I guess drive her to and from it although it seems crazy as I am NOT safe driving and will be driving her because she cannot drive herself) when she has day surgery on Aug. 15.  I had planned to try to drive to Colorado as soon as she got this done, and was sort of hoping that she would have it sooner, but I am so sick, that I can't figure any of this out.  She is having surgery at 6 AM and I do not even take my daytime meds until about noon... so that the evening is not too bad of a nightmare.  So, I don't know how this will work.  Anyway, I don't know how I'm going to get food- groceries, etc. this week so sick.  My hair is falling out bad from lack of nutririion I have lost so much weight.  This is just such a nightmare.  And, this "email friend" wrote me yesterday that he is going to kill himself so I have a call into my counselor to ask her what I should do about THAT.  I am really very worried.  It is too much for my brain to figure out what to do about.  I am so very concerned about him.  Really scared.    Well, we can beat this medicine.  It is just a stupid little pill and we can.  It might take a bit of time and fight... but if we really put our minds to it... this can be overcome.  Our fears and problems can be overcome.  I belive this.  (And I am rightfully labeled a glass-half-empty person.)
So, hang in there.  Don't despair.  Just believe that it can get better.  Life can always turn around... even though we are a bit older and don't have all that we once did... it can still offer us surprises that we don't yet see or expect.  We have to have hope and we have to know we can beat this med and all the fears and phobias that are connected to it... whether they were why we were put on it, or a result of it, or whatever.  They can be overcome.  If I can believe this, anyone can.  I truly am not an optimist at all.  So, keep fighting.

[espresso]

Yes we do have some things in common! Not just in our lives and events but the terrible dependance on the drug which has made us so unstable. Sometimes I read the newsgroups where people have decided to live on their meds forever because it makes them able to work and have a life. They never plan to go off, so being dependent doesn't worry them. I never understand that. If the meds worked and made me normal, sure I'd stay on them forever. But they stopped working right. That is the whole point. I know I am in dependency withdrawal...even with going back to alprazolam which is less horrible (wears off more slowly) than xanax. I still have my tremor. I have so much I have to do! My sister has cancer. I have to visit her, soon she will be moved to her daughter's way down south and I won't see her again ever. We just got close again in March. Then suddenly she was ill. Her daughter and kids are taking her over. I won't have her to talk to...she was a major friend, even though she stole my husband. I got used to that. She couldn't help it, I realized she was insecure all her life. I just wanted to still have our close sisterly talks. Here I am selfish, feeling upset, and she is the one going through it.

I've got to sell my condo. I have hated it since I bought it, becaue the day I bought it, my boss made advances and ruined our work relationship. He fired me a few weeks later and so did my other job downtown...I loved my jobs and was so good at them...still I couldn't gt out of the condo, I had signed the papers, and now I had no job. I had to use up all my savings, sell my stocks...finally do work for my brother long distance and he paid me for a few months. That will stop as he's mad at me for not visiting him...which I can't as I can't even go a shorter distance to visit my sister who has cancer. I've had terrible mental blocks about these things, I just cannot do them, I am so afraid of being judged, of making mistakes again. Every time I was happy and thought life was good again, the rug was pulled out from under me. And that is why I went back to xanax and it is ruling my life now and I despise being crippled by it.

I swear I will not let my enemies win. The doctors who tried to hurt me, or did so inadvertantly out of ignorance. The people who jealously fired me because I was too good. I was told I do too much. Too darn bad, I was raised to achieve and be excellent. Now, because I was too excellent, I have nothing. Just my condo, all the money is in it. I have to seel it, but unless I paint it and put in hardwood floors I will not get as much. But I absolutely can't do it.

Something terrible happened to me, and I don't know why. I was as you were, in a wonderful life. I had men pursuing me, many dates a week. But no one wanted to marry me. I was not the kind they want to marry, just date. I still don't know what my big problem is. Something about my personality? Sorry but it's late now to change that. No one complained about it really, most of my life, but aging people who are not outgoing enough - they can just die. That is this society. I don't fit in! But I am  not suicidal. I know I can recreate myself yet again and the people who hate me can go to hell. It's all my self esteem issues.

Well I am haunted by terrible things I had to go through. I can't set them aside, and I hope the new psychiatrist can help me. I wish I could set them aside. Anyway as for now, I took the alprazolam 2 days in a row. The effect is much less horrible when it wears off than the xanax and it makes no sense, but that's the way it is now. my body which used to prefer xanax, now is used to alprazolam. So I wasted $27 on the xanax. Who knows, maybe in desperation i will use them eventually too, but why would I , since the alprazolam is free. I am not tapering right now. I am taking the full .50 which I have to have to function. I can go out now and will. It's hot here too, not over 100 like in the states but for me it's hot when it is over 28 centigrade. That's about 84. When it's 24, like yesterday, which is 76 F, I feel fine and it doesn't bother me. I feel all the time I am just struggilng uphill, over and over, only to get kicked back down again, with someone laughing. I don't know why. How it became such a mess. I was so capable and organized before and every time I try to be that way I give up or I forget. So I figured it has to be the benzos making me not thing correctly anymore. I get windows of clarity and feel I can do things again. Every time I see my daughter she says I can and should get a job, and I have applied, but no one has hired me.

Anyway it's crisis time, one thing after another, yet I only address the really vital ones like the broken toe, the dental appointments, blood tests etc. The foreclosure will happen unless I get a realtor and put this on the market or beg my brother for more money. He is rich, but he is not that willing. He ahs compassion, but also some kind of resentment.

Always resentment...and I don't know why. Well, this is all for now...got to go out now as it is cooler outside.