Best to evenly distribute xanax across day or postpone until symptoms appear?

When I first tapered about 10 years ago from 6mg/day (doses were about every 4 hours) down to 0.5 at bed only, things were successful.

I ended back up at 6mg/day after severe stressers 3 years ago, then had successfully tapered to 4.5 about 1 1/2 years ago.  I dosed about every 4 hours up until about 10 months ago.  About 10 months ago I switched to dosing every 2 hours (but still tapering).  I switched from every 4 hours to every 2 hours because I tended to begin having symptoms after 2 1/2 hours.

As I continued to taper, I reached 2.375mg/day about 5 months ago.  Beginning 5 months ago from 2.375mg, I began changing how I tapered.  Instead of dosing every 2 hours and doing cuts every 3 weeks, I changed to dosing only when I felt symptoms (same total daily dose) and doing cuts every 10-14 days.  I only cut 0.625 each time.

Well, after 2 months I was at 1.0625mg/day and I ended up at the ER for severe GI symptoms (turned out it was anxiety). 

After the ER, my doc told me that my taper was not too fast, but to go back up a bit on the xanax because it was too stressful of a time to be tapering.  So I went up to 1.875/day and stayed there for 2 months, typically only dosing when I felt symptoms. 

I resumed tapering a few weeks ago, dosing only when I felt symptoms.  But after about 2 weeks, things began getting almost as bad as what landed me in the ER.  Finally, after things were only getting worse and it had been 3 1/2 weeks, I went back up a bit the other day to around 2mg.

Because I am waiting to take a dose until my my symptoms appear, by definition I experience symptoms many times throughout the day.  And they're still pretty bad.  They're down enough to keep me out of the ER, but sooooooo much greater than what they used to be before the ER visit.  (I've read something about kindling, so I don't know if this plays into it.)

I'm considering switching back to how I used to take xanax, only because it worked years ago:  I.e. Take my daily dose spread out every 4 hours (right now I don't know if I'll end up at 1.875 or 2mg/day.  I'll have to wait to see how I feel....but that's difficult to do if I'm feeling bad so many times during the day while I wait until symptoms appear instead of being "pro-active").

What I see as the pros and cons are:

The plus side of taking it every 4 hours is that I might not experience so many inter-dose withdrawals and my body might be able to get off this "roller-coaster" and I might learn what level my body needs right now so that I can then level off there before tapering again.  Because right now I feel as if I don't know what level my body needs because I have these interdose symptoms every day.

The con side of taking it every 4 hours is that I have read somewhere that the more frequently you take it per day, that the harder it is to taper.  And that one of the hard parts in a taper is eliminating one of the doses (i.e. going from 5 doses per day to 4 doses per day).  Years ago when I took it every 4 hours, I took it 4 times per day.  So I went a long time overnight.  But last year I was taking it every 2 hours in order to keep a steady state (but such tiny doses that I didn't always take enough to treat my symptoms).

How can I know if my daily dose is sufficient enough or if it's inter-dose withdrawal if I'm waiting until I have bad symptoms?

I guess one of my questions is:  Do people tend to take it scheduled like every 3 or 4 or 5 hours?  Or do people find that counterproductive?  Do people do better taking 3-4 larger doses during the day or 4-5 smaller doses?

Any information from others' experiences is greatly appreciated.

Hi.  I can't give a definitive answer to what is really going to work myself.  But, from past experience of any medicine, hormone or even supplement dose changing; if I did not go slow and steady I failed with uncomfortable symptoms. Thus is the case for me again.

I myself am  only weaning off of .75 a day and have yet to find a truly smooth schedule of dosing. I most likely won't.  I tried the split dose of .3750 2x's a day but felt the anxious withdrawals half way before the next dose.  I then recently referred to the ashton's taper plan outline, and tried the .25 3x's a day to spread it out in preparation for a drop in dose. That was worse for me.  I am presently  trying the .50mg during the day and .25 at night, as the reverse of .50 at night that I also tried  made me slow moving or unmotivated in the am. 

However due to not being steady on my dose, this morning I was very dizzy and nauseaus as I skipped my .25 dose last night due to a late dose of the .50 in the afternoon.  Today I am back to assessing my symptoms and re-adjusting the dosing plan to that same regiment and schedule again. 

As a result of each of these switches and the withdrawal anxiety symptoms I experience I think I am getting some sort of nerve damage or irritation; as I have been experiencing painful soreness around my lower rib cage, along with the anxiety in between any of the dose plans I make.

I am noting though that several years ago I was diagnosed with shingles minus the rash do to the severity of this same discomfort.  As a result I was prescribed gabapentin at night time and maybe day (I can't remember).  That helped a great deal.  I only stayed on the gabapentin for 2 weeks for fear of withdrawals though. Now looking back I think it was withdrawals and not shingles as I was weaning off of benzos then also, and had maybe even completed the weaning process way too fast and jumped. 

I am now doing my own research of studies and have found some interesting studies on using Gabepentin for benzo withdrawals for inpatients which I am going to bring up to my doctor this week.

Here to offer support and feed back if desired.  I am copying this to to my taper log for my own reference if I fail this myself.