Xanax withdrawl ?

[topshelf248]

I was prescribed xanax about 11 years ago and have always taken it as needed only. Typically a bottle 30 (.25mg) would last around 3-4 months and usually 5-6 months. It was never really a daily habit and I was careful to not abuse it.

Anyway, recently I have taken a fairly stressful job about 8 months ago and have needed to take the drug a bit more often. A  25 mg bottle will now last about 7 weeks. So roughly 1 pill every other day on average.

Anyway, for the past 3-4 months I have noticed an increase in anxiety, some dizziness, mood swings, etc which usually get a bit better if I take a dose of the xanax.
My question is.....is it possible that these are withdrawl effects even though I have never really been dependent on them or never noticed these symptoms in the past 11 years until recently?

Thanks

[topshelf248]

You guys are all awesome. Thanks
I will chat with the doc next week while on a regular visit.

[MzHolly]

you could just be developing a a tolerance to your low dose, so you have to take more. this is very common with xanax. also one of the reasons i hate it. It could also be what everyone else has said. I'd talk to the dr prescribing it.

[my_mayberry]

well heres the deal...'addiction' is a strong word to use. it imply's that one is abusing a medication to get high. addiction CAN form from theraputic doses, but generally most people don't have a problem with this. what they DO experience generally tends to be withdrawal effects from becomming physically dependent on the drug....this is different than just flat out addiction. as an example...propranolol is a beta blocker used for angina and blood pressure, etc. taking it daily WILL cause the body to become dependent on it...and yet you can't get high from it, period. thus, when discontinued, it requires a nice long taper.

xanax can be thought of in this respect, but make no mistake, xanax DOES have a very real potential for abuse. if you start taking it every day or even every other day, it can possibly cause rebound anxiety. i have had it happen on a very low dose as well. why? i'm not a doctor, so i can only explain this in 'non-doctor' terms......pretty much xanax causes your body to use GABA far more effectively.....after being on it a long time, your body starts to loose its ability to do it on its own, meaning without the drug you end up in withdrawal whether you're abusing it or not. on low doses, naturally this effect will pressent itself in a much milder form when used every day or every other day for a long time. you mention you're using it about every other day.....this is enough to POSSIBLY have this effect on a mild level. the problem is that most people start taking more and more of the drug thats causing the problem to begin with.

now the question is whether or not this is actually happening? well...it could be....and then again since you have a history of anxiety, it could just be a flare up of that. thats a call only you and your doc can make. i had it happen while taking the 0.25 mg tabs after being on them for 4 weeks. once i realized what was going on i stopped taking them and a few days later, the rebound anxiety and mild w/d symptoms went away. they were indeed mild...but unfortunately if i didn't know what they were in the first place, i would have taken more xanax and made the problem worse.

that was 2 years ago. i currently take xanax 1-2 doses per week at the most. sometimes i go a whole month with nothing. i have no problems now. yes, these drugs typically are safe when used for 2-4 weeks and in the lowest effective dose. daily dosing or close to daily dosing after that tends to lead to a physical and eventually psychological dependence. xanax is highly potent and has a rather short half-life. its a great drug for extreme panic and as needed dosing...but if a person needs benzo therapy on a long term basis, often they will use something with a longer half life like klonopin. i would stay away from daily use of any benzo's unless nothing else is helping. i know you said it averages out to be about every other day.....and this is indeed a low dose....but its the CONSISTANCY of the dose that could potentially cause rebound anxiety, etc. then again....maybe its not that at all. i think either way you need to talk to your doc. you're getting close to using them every day, which means there are underlying issues that probably need to be dealt with, right? maybe its all just stress related...but there are some great natural methods for dealing with stress that might help even more than the xanax.

[gnarly_1]

HI....as long as you keep your use light like you are and with the low dose .25 you should be ok...if you find your using more and more you could be building up a dependency but what your describing is not one...just be mindfull this is a highly addictive drug and addiction sneeks up on you graduley better off to error on the side of safety good luck and God bless
........Gnarly

[topshelf248]

Thanks for the responses. Actually, I have never taken them on a daily basis except for rare instances where I might take them 3-4 days in a row but even then they were usually taken once in a day and the dose was generally around .25 mg, and usually less than that as I would break the pills in half most of the time. As I said in the initial post, a bottle of thirty .25 or .50 mg pills would generally last 5-6 months.
In recent times I have gone through them a bit quicker but still a bottle of 30 pills at .25 mg lasted me 7 weeks.
I really have no plan or never did have any plans of using them daily and truly used them as needed. I guess my question is, when taken in low doses on an average of maybe 2 - 3 times  a week, can that produce an addiction and an ensuing withdrawl on days when pills are not used?

[my_mayberry]

whether this is actually what you're experiencing though is not entirely certain. it could be heightened symptoms or it could actually be caused by the drug. i recommend posting in the anxiety forum and reading up on benzo's if you're going to use them every day. educate yourself....and also ask your doc what they think.

[my_mayberry]

yes it is. some will tell you it isn't possible...but it is VERY possible. this isn't addiction though, in the terms that we generally think of in this forum. the anxiety forum has a lot of experience with this. any time you're taking a benzo daily or close to daily, you generally prefer a longer acting benzo vs. a very short acting one like xanax. it helps avoid these withdrawals, although no benzo should be taken daily unless all other options have been excercised.