Xanax .25mgs every am; is this too much?

[LazyDaizy]

I've been needing Xanax 0.25mgs every morning for the past few months to cope with early morning anxiety.

Is it possible to get addicted to this?

I also take prozac 20mgs (for just over 2 weeks now) and started half-inderal last night to see if that helps morning anxiety (it didn't).

Your opinions would be very welcome! XXX

[boof]

Hey. I used to take Xanax, about 1 to 3 mg to sleep, although i was only prescribed 1 per night. I couldn't decide if i was getting addicted or just getting a tolerance and taking more because of that. I was also taking celexa 50 mg for depression (still am.) which is an SSRI just like prozac (which I also used to take but way earlier) I'm not sure what half-inderal is though. 0.25 mg of xanax is a pretty small dose and if you were taking just that and prozac I would definitely think that would be fine. Since I don't know the strength or the effects of half-inderal 80mg though, I don't know. By the way, I take Trazodone HCL now for sleep/anxiety before I sleep. It is the only sleeping pill i've been prescribed to that works but is not addictive and that I haven't gained a tolerance to. Clearly I'm not sleeping now because I just ran out.

But if you find yourself really enjoying the feeling xanax gives you rather than just using it for morning anxiety than just be careful because it can become addictive.

[LazyDaizy]

Thanks for that boof! That's really reassuring.

No, I don't particularly "enjoy" the xanax, and I don't crave it, so I guess I'm not addicted to it.

Half-inderal is a beta blocker, more usually used for high blood pressure, but it blocks the sympathetic nervous response eg. tremors, dry mouth, rapid heart rate etc.

XXX

[melissaw72]

IMO, that isn't a lot to take. When I first started out on it I was taking .25 mg once a day, then got up to 6 or so mg before I went down to 3 mg, and now it is less than that. If you decide to go off of it, I'd wean off slowly because there is risk of seizures.

[San]

Your body can get addicted to it, there is withdrawal if you stop taking it, but it is a very low dose.

[LazyDaizy]

Thanks for that guys. I'm hoping that the prozac will kick in properly in the next few weeks and sort out the morning anxiety. Sigh. XXX

[midnightman]

IMO, that isn't a lot to take. When I first started out on it I was taking .25 mg once a day, then got up to 6 or so mg before I went down to 3 mg, and now it is less than that. If you decide to go off of it, I'd wean off slowly because there is risk of seizures.

6 mg a day???? Damn, that's a high dose! lol - don't mean anything by it, and after having been on benzo's on and off for a few years, I totally understand tolerance leading to higher doses being required, but 6mg of Alprazolam a day is amongst the highest maintenance doses I've seen. Would you take a bar 3x pd or 1 and a half 2x pd?

[melissaw72]

IMO, that isn't a lot to take. When I first started out on it I was taking .25 mg once a day, then got up to 6 or so mg before I went down to 3 mg, and now it is less than that. If you decide to go off of it, I'd wean off slowly because there is risk of seizures.

6 mg a day???? Damn, that's a high dose! lol - don't mean anything by it, and after having been on benzo's on and off for a few years, I totally understand tolerance leading to higher doses being required, but 6mg of Alprazolam a day is amongst the highest maintenance doses I've seen. Would you take a bar 3x pd or 1 and a half 2x pd?

Yeah, this former pdoc would just raise the dose when I told him my tolerance levels were building. He didn't question it either. It was all as needed. I usually took 2, 1- mg xanax at a time about 3 times a day. Looking back I can hardly believe it myself. This pdoc also was trying to get the cocktail right, and when I asked to try something, he said ok. Then if it didn't do anything, he would prescribe another one without taking me off the others that hadnt worked. I had to do it myself because at one point I was on a ton of meds that werent helping and realized it was all just fucked up. He just never said to stop them, and at the time I was in a med-seeking mind-frame, so in part didn't want to give them up even though I should have. I accumulated so many prescriptions that didn't work. I never got the cocktail right until I switched pdocs. He was/is responsible with prescribing meds and makes sure I dont take what I dont need.

[Alien Navel Cord]

Just a reminder there is a specific difference between addiction and dependence.. addiction is behavior and dependence is more physical tolerance.

[gizmo]

I will add that I took 6 mg of Xanax daily for a couple of years for my anxiety. It's a high dose, but you need to realize that some people have different reactions to meds, and what controls anxiety in one person may not work at all in another person.

And you need to keep in mind that higher doses don't equate to faster tolerance or increased chance of addiction. That all depends on each persons unique med metabolism.

ETA: I took 2 mg three times daily.

[bpladybug]

IMO, that isn't a lot to take. When I first started out on it I was taking .25 mg once a day, then got up to 6 or so mg before I went down to 3 mg, and now it is less than that. If you decide to go off of it, I'd wean off slowly because there is risk of seizures.

6 mg a day???? Damn, that's a high dose! lol - don't mean anything by it, and after having been on benzo's on and off for a few years, I totally understand tolerance leading to higher doses being required, but 6mg of Alprazolam a day is amongst the highest maintenance doses I've seen. Would you take a bar 3x pd or 1 and a half 2x pd?

Yeah, this former pdoc would just raise the dose when I told him my tolerance levels were building. He didn't question it either. It was all as needed. I usually took 2, 1- mg xanax at a time about 3 times a day. Looking back I can hardly believe it myself. This pdoc also was trying to get the cocktail right, and when I asked to try something, he said ok. Then if it didn't do anything, he would prescribe another one without taking me off the others that hadnt worked. I had to do it myself because at one point I was on a ton of meds that werent helping and realized it was all just fucked up. He just never said to stop them, and at the time I was in a med-seeking mind-frame, so in part didn't want to give them up even though I should have. I accumulated so many prescriptions that didn't work. I never got the cocktail right until I switched pdocs. He was/is responsible with prescribing meds and makes sure I dont take what I dont need.

wow this sounds like a bad doctor to me............

[melissaw72]

wow this sounds like a bad doctor to me............

He started out as someone who I really liked and respected, but then grew to resent him because he broke HIPAA laws later on when having him as my pdoc. He told my parents which hospital I was at (I went missing for 3 days and ended up in a particular hospital), because he "knew what it is like being a parent". Fortunately that coincided with me in another hospital for 6 weeks, when I fired him and found a new pdoc.

[midnightman]

Interesting story, melissaw72 - thanks for sharing your experience. I definitely understand what you're saying - there were a few months where I was on Klonopin while trying to stabilize my meds after an acute incident that left me IP and bc nothing was working that I was trying, the klonopin dose just went up and up meanwhile. I was able to taper off of it after like 4 months from beginning to end so it wasn't very bad, but i get what you're saying.

Also, I didn't mean anything by what I was saying in reference to the dose. I tried to make that clear but I think a couple may have interpreted what I said was "negative" in terms of the dosage. Certainly didn't mean that and understand that everybody is different and needs different things at different times than anybody else does.

Interesting comment regarding the difference between "addiction" and "dependence" brought up. I'd argue that one could call a dependence an addiction, but not an addiction as a dependence. With addiction, I believe that one can stop engaging in a behavior while still being technically addicted to it, almost like alcohol can be for some. Dependence I view as a physiological necessity, but also see it sometimes as a psychological dependency depending on how much a person relies on it. Dependence can result from psychological issues that lead an individual to try to "clear their mind" with drugs, and even if they're taking them as prescribed, that doesn't mean they aren't showing addictive behavior (IE - If somebody is having trouble dealing with a death, has dose increase requests frequently just for the effect of the drug, etc etc).

While i definitely see the two concepts of addiction and dependence as different entities, I do think they can very easily overlap and have the lines that separate them become blurred.

[melissaw72]

Interesting story, melissaw72 - thanks for sharing your experience. I definitely understand what you're saying - there were a few months where I was on Klonopin while trying to stabilize my meds after an acute incident that left me IP and bc nothing was working that I was trying, the klonopin dose just went up and up meanwhile. I was able to taper off of it after like 4 months from beginning to end so it wasn't very bad, but i get what you're saying.

I'm glad I could help

While i definitely see the two concepts of addiction and dependence as different entities, I do think they can very easily overlap and have the lines that separate them become blurred.

I understand what you mean.