Please help PLEASE!!!

2 days ago I started taking .25mg of xanax every 6 hours as suggested on here.

Things progressively keep getting worse. I can't keep anything down at all. I've been having to take zantac just to burp otherwise I gag all the time and vomit. It's hard to breathe and I have trouble swallowing. I just went to my family doctor and he tested me for everything under the sun. My bloodwork was fine, my urine was fine (I have a kidney stone), My chest xray was fine, my ekg was fine, they did a back xray and a taste for a stomach bacteria. What in the HELL IS GOING ON WITH ME? I'm deathly sick all the time. Having all of these different symptoms and the doctors can't even find out what's wrong with me. I took xanax like 1 and a half hour ago and it's not even helping at all. Did I permanently mess myself up? I have like 100 different symptoms and it's driving me mad and i'm still on the original dose of xanax I was on for 2 months. I was going to see my pdoc after I left but started gagging so bad I threw up acid. I hadn't took a zantac in 13 hours.

Hi, I'm sorry you're going through all this.  You may be experiencing "tolerance withdrawal," when the prescribed dose no longer works as before and has to be increased to get the same result.  This is very common with benzos.  And, you may still be experiencing the effects of your multiple-medication taper/c/t of last year.

One good thing is that now that you've been medically checked out, and you know you are not suffering from any dangerous disease or disorder.  You are in good physical health! Knowing this usually puts our anxious minds at ease, at least for a while.

it's not easy to taper while one is in tolerance withdrawal, but many here do accomplish it.  Getting off benzos is not easy, but it's definitely worthwhile.

I keep vomiting up mucus.

I've had problems with acid reflux in the past, very bad problems to where I was on prilosec for a year.

I can't keep anything down at all.

Stomach problems - even if triggered by this withdrawal - combined with a diagnosis of ADHD and a history of acid reflux makes me worry about hidden, or "silent" celiac disease.  Blood tests and X-rays can be completely normal. The only way to find it for sure is an intestinal biopsy or possibly a genetic test of your DNA. If celiac disease is the root of your problem then the solution is to take all gluten out of your diet, and the healing process can be long and drawn out but you will be a completely new person.

I am not saying that is your problem and even if it is it won't help you right now. You need immediate help. Are you doing the normal things for vomiting? Avoid becoming dehydrated. Sip ginger ale in tiny amounts. If you are vomiting up any pill you take things could get worse for example, if you take a xanax then vomit it back up that will only get you worse into withdrawal. There is also the possibility you've caught a bug or ate something bad. In any event if the vomiting continues, please go back to the doctor.

Is there someone there with you? I hope you aren't alone. Good luck to you.

The doctors didn't know i'm trying to taper xanax!!! The ones at the hospital who gave this stuff to me don't know. And i've been looking it up and xanax and phenagin can make acid reflux worse. They gave me phenagin and pepcid ac.

Please tell me what to do. I need an answer within an hour because I need to take xanax soon.. Can xanax really be messing with my stomach now that i'm taking it? What's happening?!

The doctors didn't know i'm trying to taper xanax!!! The ones at the hospital who gave this stuff to me don't know. And i've been looking it up and xanax and phenagin can make acid reflux worse. They gave me phenagin and pepcid ac.

 

Please tell me what to do. I need an answer within an hour because I need to take xanax soon.. Can xanax really be messing with my stomach now that i'm taking it? What's happening?!

I am confused. Did they give you Zofran? 

6 months ago I started trying to taper my bipolar medication known as Geodon. I had been on 80mg of Geodon for about 4-5 years. The first month I tapered down to 60mg. I started getting really anxious at night 3 hours before my next dose. I started almost having panic attacks. I had xanax given to me by my dentist. Now in the past I had used xanax off and on for anxiety. But never got addicted to it. So when this all started, I started taking xanax maybe once every four days.. because it was getting bad. Then I started having to use it more and more after. And now, for the past 2 months i've been using xanax everyday. 1mg a day. My condition has gotten no better. None of the doctors will help me because i've been taking the xanax illegally. I'm in the middle of a psychotic episode and none will help me. Done tried to get into mental hospitals, done been to detox(that made me worse), and the doctors will not help me taper will valium like I want to do. I've been self medicating now i'm trying to get off the xanax. I'm at .5mg now.. And it seems the xanax is just making things worse when I take it and not even helping anymore. I can't keep anything down. I'm throwing up all the time. My head feels like it's going to explode. I feel like things aren't real all the time. Tingling in my hands and feet. Everything under the sun is happening to me. Been to the ER twice last week, they didn't find anything wrong other than a kidney stone and a UTI. The UTI has been cleared apparently and the kidney stone should pass sometime but hasn't passed yet. I don't know what the hell is wrong with me. They tried me on tegratol in detox and that made me worse. I tried seroquel, that landed me in the ER, I tried buspar, and that gave me terrible side effects. My family doctor won't help, and I just had to change psychiatrist because my last one did not give two craps about me. And this one doesn't seem to either. I've been thinking about suicide, and even TOLD me doctor that yesterday and he refused to send me off. He said I needed to get off the xanax then he could work with me. Right now i'm currently taking .5mgs of xanax, 80mg geodon, 30mg baclofen a day. And i'm having to taper the baclofen too because none will give it to me anymore. I tried using taurine and gaba to taper off the xanax. It seemed to work at first but then it completely screwed me over. So I quit taking that, I was also taking multivitamins with all of that. I keep sweating under my arm pits, nausea. Only time this gets better is when I take all my medication at night to sleep. Baclofen, geodon, xanax, benadryl.. During the day I AM SCREWED. Been running, been trying to eat a good diet. Nothing is helping.. I feel all alone here.. My acid reflux has returned and is killing me. I don't want to take anymore medications to feel normal. Sometimes I don't even feel like i'm in my body and the anxiety is overwhelming.. Can anyone please HELP ME. I've never felt this bad in my entire life.. and getting xanax is getting hard now.. I don't know what I would do if I ever ran out..

Also, i'm recovering opiate addict. So none will help me and it's on my medical records.

 

Edit: They put in me in a detox center twice and was giving me serax and both times I got out I was worse than before I went in!!!

 

Edit2: Had a full blown panic attack at mental health today. Drove like 100mph to make it home. Just took my medications. Going to bed yet again early tonight.

I think I tapered too fast. Now everyone needs to know i'm a recovering drug addict from opiates. Which makes it incredibly difficult to get an actually prescription for something to help me taper off which means I've been getting the xanax off the streets. It's becoming increasingly hard to find xanax now. And the only ones i'm ever able to get are 1mg xanax. That's it. And It's hard to taper with those. I don't know how to do it and need advice. I've been trying to find a doctor who would help me but to no avail.. I done been to detox and that place made me worse both times I went. I'm currently trying to get into a long term rehab.. there is one in california.. I live in Georgia.. the people just text me back yesterday and said they had good news for me.. So i'm hoping to hear back from them soon..

I went back and read some of your earlier posts.  The discrimination you are facing because you have a documented history of drug abuse is appalling. No matter what you did illegal in the past, to not treat you properly now is inhumane and cruel.

It does seem counterintuitive that the xanax dose is causing your stomach upset. But if you did cut by half and you are in severe withdrawal then nausea and vomiting are part of the territory but the xanax PER SE should not be causing it - is it the fact that you swallow it with a beverage?  What would happen if you just let a chunk dissolve under your tongue to bypass your stomach altogether?  If you took a dose that way and you did not feel sicker then it seems that would show that it's not the xanax itself making you feel worse.

I agree with the others, the thought of you quitting the xanax cold turkey right now really doesn't seem wise.

Xanax is a short acting drug and your doctor was right to suggest taking it every 6 hours and on this board we all know that a cross over to the longer acting valium is the thing to do. Especially since you are having such upset with the xanax and it might itself be paradoxically causing you stomach upset.

But because of the atrocious state of affairs in this country with the DEA and the War on Drugs they have created a horrible mess when suffering people try to get help.

It is morally wrong to deny help to a suffering person just because you have a past addiction. This benzo was given to you by your dentist for a legitimate medical reason. You then used it to treat anxiety (not to sit around partying) because you have a constellation of real disorders. Many of us including me, had no idea benzos were this addictive when we used them, what we thought was sparingly. Your xanax and my ativan are two that sound like fairly small doses. Who'd a thunk only 1 mg of anything would cause an addiction problem? That is one reason I myself got caught in this wringer. It seemed like such a harmless little amount of a harmless little pill. And I am no dummy, it's that I had no prior experience of benzos and no reason to have educated myself on dosages. I trusted my doctor who gave them to me! So did you. Even if you used them later after the dental event was past, you were using them for anxiety which is reasonable. That you obtained them illegally since is neither here nor there. We aren't supposed to torture people in this country even if they are convicted killers.

What is worse, even doctors who would be compassionate and treat you don't understand about benzo withdrawal. Even if they gave you xanax it would probably be too little and taper too fast. It might be too much to hope for a doctor to know to give you a valium prescription. And because you did your research, if you walk in and ask for valium, they see you as a "addict" because of your history, but you are not now a drug seeker to get high, you are highly motivated to get clean of benzos, that is obvious, and you desperately need help doing so.

You mentioned a Broadway Clinic. In general I understand detox centers are bad places for this. They don't understand slow taper and you can leave worse than when you went in. But maybe this place is different. Do you know if they would give you valium for a slow taper?

If there is no way you can get anyone to give you valium, you asked how to taper the xanax; did you read the sections on liquid taper? Buy a dose syringe, like for babies at the drug store, and just crunch and mash up a pill in whatever amount of water (250 ml I think which is about a cup), let it dissolve or mix around. Shake it up in a covered container. Then you can calculate gradually decreasing doses in milliliters of water with the syringe.

You could try to see if this helps the stomach problem. Instead of swallowing a piece of pill with water, you can slowly dribble the solution into your mouth under your tongue. In fact, if I were in your shoes, I'd mix a regular dose in a very small amount of water, say only 20 or 30 ml, then dribble it in tiny drips and drabs under the tongue over an hour while watching TV. It would taste terrible but hopefully most would absorb in the mouth or dribble so slowly into the stomach so as not to trigger a vomiting episode. Heck if it comes to that, you can get medications in suppository form for the "other end". If you cannot keep ANYTHING down, not even the Zofran, you can ask a doctor to give you a prescription for an anti-nausea drug suppository. It's important to get vomiting under control very soon.

A severely inflamed stomach sure sounds like more than just benzo withdrawal to me. You may have a completely separate issue going on with the stomach. They tested for bacteria but probably only H-Pylori. There are many other bacteria that can invade your stomach. Only if they did an endoscopy and biopsy will they truly know what is going on there. You had a UTI and kidney stone. More indications that there is something systemic going on here.

Then you have mental issues most urgent is what you said:

I've been thinking about suicide, and even TOLD me doctor that yesterday and he refused to send me off.

This is approaching malpractice if doctors are continuing to ignore your plea to address a benzo detox. In defense of doctors, the U.S. government and State and local law enforcement are all coming down on doctors, pressuring them to not treat patients and stories like yours is the result. From the other direction they are getting sued FOR giving prescriptions.

We need to sue them for NOT giving prescriptions when the result is severe suffering and even physical harm. I can't say what treatment you should have but in the ideal world if I were treating someone similar to you I'd hospitalize you and put you on an IV drip of valium until your vomiting stopped while I did a FULL gastrointestinal workup including a full celiac panel, liver panel, etc. I know you said they did a lot in the ER but the ER is not the same as a GI consult.

I wish there were a comprehensive and caring hospital to take you and address your constellation of problems. You are clearly crying for help and don't know where to turn or how to ask for it. You have a psychological crisis AND a physical crisis. I've half a mind to make some phone calls to the drug enforcement office of the State of Georgia and ask exactly what the law says about doctors refusing to treat patients with a history of addiction in their record. In my state, this is ILLEGAL. And while I'm at it I might call the Georgia State licensing board and ask what they think of one of their doctors who blew a patient off when he indicated he was suicidal.

Well, just kidding, I really can't spend any more time right now, gotta go live my own life. 

But I hope I have maybe helped pull together the picture here for you. I think you need face-to-face help. I don't know if the Broadway place is the right place to get it or not, but best of luck to you.

Kallor

PS just saw your post you're going to a GI - YES DO IT!

Ok a few suggestions- stop running

Get phenergan suppositories

U may not like the idea but it bypasses the stomach

Chill out

Maybe try nexium -great med

Sips of room temp water, Eat soda crackers, warm chicken broth, maybe room temp coke -fiz may irritate u

Gatorade sips ,slow is key

Pedialyte pop sickles are great and have electrolytes

Put pillow on tummy

Lay down listen to chill music

All this helped me during chemo

Then if that doesn't work -time for some good ol fashion cannabis

Good luck

I am glad u r able to run. I heard it can help a lot with anxiety. Many of us are bedridden unable to shower ourselves or work. Just a warning: if you are addicted to xanax doing a cold turkey will prob bring on a whole other set of debilitating syx. I would advice not cold turkey any med. Just my thoughts. Have a nice run

Agreed!

i was on .5mg of xanax a day then jumped back up to 1mg. Everytime I take a xanax now it makes things worse!!!!

It makes it hard to breath, makes me gag burp, makes me so nauseated that I can't keep anything down.