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Xanax Long Term Use Direct Taper Support


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Hello fellow Xanax members.

 

I never really did find a support group for those of us that have been on Xanax for a long time and are tapering directly.  I've been posting on 3 other threads since the beginning of my taper and decided that I'd create this one as well in case there are people out there who are in the same boat and are looking for people to talk with.  I started my taper over 2 years ago but more methodically in the past 16-17 months.  Here's something I posted in the other thread this morning.... it will give you an idea of where I am now.

 

______________________________

 

I don't want to jinx myself since this is only day 3 of .75 but I'm doing okay. I definitely have symptoms but so far they aren't any worse (or better) than the last two cuts. They are mostly all physical at this point. Muscle issues and GI issues continue to plague me! It's a crazy process.

 

Early in my taper, and probably for the first full year, I had so much anxiety, racing heart, palps, dizziness, insane insomnia, etc. That has all gone away (except some trouble sleeping). But now? The stomach tightness (upper abdomen is so tight but lower stomach is crazy bloated), acid reflux, air hunger due to abdomen, and  GI issues are a royal pain! I was hoping they'd diminish but it's been almost 4 months and they are still here. I have to wonder if they will remain for the duration. Ugh!  Nevertheless, I'm hanging in there.

 

When I joined BB's a few years ago and read a lot of posts, I was certain that people were making up these physical symptom!  I know, I sound mean but I could not wrap my head around the idea that this drug could be so insidious! Boy was I wrong! However, on a positive note, what keeps me going is the fact that other symptoms (the horrible anxiety, panic, racing heart, crazy dizziness, numbness in face/limbs, depression, etc)  that truly brought me down and scared me are pretty much gone! Hence, I'll take the win on that one. I simply keep telling myself that if they went away, eventually these will too!

 

Hang in there! This CAN be done. Many have accomplished this before us and we will too! Just be patient... this coming from someone who is running out of patience! :).

 

Keep in mind that I've been on Xanax for 21 years now!!!! Yes, twenty-one LONG years at a high dose (at least 15 years on 4 mgs.) and tapering for over 2 years (methodically for about 1.5 years). If I can do this, ANYONE can! And to make it even more challenging, I'm doing a direct taper from the shortest acting Benzo available! If you asked me 2 years ago if I thought I'd get this far the answer would have been a terrified "I don't see how".  But here I am, still plugging away, at the lowest dose I've EVER been on.

 

Again, you CAN do this!

 

Best to you...

 

Lori

 

PS: I am definitely staying here at .75 for a full two weeks. I know that it was an aggressive cutting month. I did that in April (May was miserable) and then updosed in June. Never doing that again. I learned my lesson.  I won't make another cut until I'm ready.  :thumbsup:

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Hey Lori,

I am so Happy and Proud of you!!  You are doing so good and it was not long ago that you were in hell.  I know it is still not easy by any means but you have come a long way!!!!!

 

I am hanging in there.  This cut has not been too bad - some days better than others - as usual.  I am on day 15 of this cut so I am thinking it may be time to go down again which is fine by me but want to be sure I am not going to fast and cutting too much.  I also think that dragging it out is not the best approach but as you and many have said, this is totally individualized.  No 2 people are going to have the same results doing the same thing.  I am sticking with the dry cutting and so far that works better for me than the liquid did.  At some point I may have to try the liquid again but I am a long ways from that.

 

I reached out to you today but hoping things are going good for you.  When you get a minute  - or 2 lol  let me know.

 

Take care and again - I am very proud of you!!!  Keep it up and you will off this crap before you know it.

 

Love,

Julia

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Hi Julia!

 

So glad to hear that you're doing well!

 

I wanted to give you a little background on my experience. When I started reducing from 2.0 is when I ran into trouble because I went too fast! I was in a tizzy because I had lost two full months of tapering due to being sick. I was so bummed over it that I went too fast and that's exactly when my bad symptoms started. I don't want that to happen to you. 

 

At this lower dose of 2.0:

a 10% cut is only 1.8

And a 5% cut is 1.9

 

I believe I did cut to 1.95 for a bit (was fine) and then dropped to 1.8 (was still okay) but then after only 5 days, dropped to 1.75 which was too aggressive. Ten days later I dropped to 1.5 .... and that's probably when I really started to go way too fast!!

 

My advice would be to stick to the no more than 10% every 10-14 days. If I had it to do all over again, that's what I would do. Unfortunately I really didn't abide by the percentages. I guess I got lazy because weighing the pill and shaving them down was time consuming and tedious. My kitchen table looked like a meth lab! :).  Memories of this are one of the reasons I had prayed that the liquid would have worked better for you. Once you get below 2.0 milligrams, dosing becomes more challenging. It's not that it can't be done, rather it's just more tedious. Again, I may be projecting my laziness and impatience. 

 

Let me know how you plan to proceed. Will try to reach you at some point today.

 

Love,

Lori

 

 

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Hey Lori,

 

Thanks for the information.  I was thinking about doing a .25 mg cut but I think that may be toooooo much.  I am having issues with getting the .25 mg pills so I can break them to do cuts of .125 mg.  The military pharmacy says they will NOT fill 2 prescriptions and that I will just have to cut my .5 mg pills but how the hell do you cut a .5 mg pill into 4 pieces and still have the right dose??!!  I am going to see what I can do because I do not want to change from the peach oval Xanax I am taking as I do not want to have that issue either.

 

Will reach out to you later today and see how you are.  I hope you are better today.  I am getting ready to go get my hair cut which is long overdue.  I will try to contact you once I get back.

 

Love,

Julia

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Hi, I am so glad to see this group for people weaning off of long term use of Xanax. I too am weaning down. I am 72 years old and have taken it for 30+yrs. started weaning off of it last November 1st. Yay! Just made another cut on August 1st. I went from 2.0 mg. a day to .625 mg. a day. So this is only day 4 of this cut so we shall see. I am experiencing fatigue, headache, nervous. I just like being by myself. Could you tell me what side effects you are having? Sure would appreciate it. Need some friends to walk this path with. I would like to be done by 12-31-2019 but we shall see. Thank you. Sheila :-* :-*
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  • 2 weeks later...

Congrats on getting to .625mg. I’m glad you’re here for help and support. I also started tapering from 2mg after long term use...probably close to ten years, which isn’t much different in terms of withdrawal issues than 30. Before that I’d been on another benzodiazepine (temazepam)for sleep issues related to RLS. 20 years or so of that.

 

It would have made a difference in my outcome had I been given proper taper advice. As it happened, I didn’t find BenzoBuddies until after I crashed and burned from poor taper advice given by a specialist in drug withdrawal.

 

 

So...at .625mg it sounds from your description that everything is about what one would expect, maybe a little better. All that you’ve described is normal for the withdrawal process.

 

Will your next cut be to .5mg or are you doing smaller cuts?

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Thank you for writing to me. I cut by 1/2 of a .25 mg, so that is 12.5. I think I am ready to make that cut real soon. Then I will be on .50mg. Well, bless you for reaching back to me. I appreciate you. Sheila
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Sounds good. Once you get a little further down in dose you may want to consider making 1/4 tablet cuts instead. The lower end of a taper seems to be the toughest for most.

 

Challis

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Hi there, just read all of the posts. So helpful to see that there are people out there doing the same thing as me. I de died last night that it was time to take a piece away so last night I was at .50mg. It is interesting that as I have been doing this since  last November I have gotten to know my body and mind a bit better. I still have headaches, muscles hurt, some lack of sleep. When I start feeling nervous like I would like a pill I just breathe and push through it. Many times eating something helps but I can’t eat every time because I don’t want to gain back a bunch of weight that I have lost over the past 2-3 years. Did you get more hungry during the weaning off period? Well,thank you again for reaching out to me. I appreciate you. Sheila :smitten:
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Hey Lori,

Brain fog has taken over.  I am at 1.875 and plan to do a 10% cut on Friday - how the heck do I figure out this percentage?

1.875 x 10% = 0.1875

1.875 - 0.1875 = 1.6875 ?????  is that right?  It does not look right.  I was going to go down to 1.75

Not sure what is going on with my brain the last few days but I do not want to do this wrong...

 

Love you and hope you are enjoying the shore.  How is the cut going for you?

 

Love,

Julia

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Hey Lori,

Brain fog has taken over.  I am at 1.875 and plan to do a 10% cut on Friday - how the heck do I figure out this percentage?

1.875 x 10% = 0.1875

1.875 - 0.1875 = 1.6875 ?????  is that right?  It does not look right.  I was going to go down to 1.75

Not sure what is going on with my brain the last few days but I do not want to do this wrong...

 

Love you and hope you are enjoying the shore.  How is the cut going for you?

 

Love,

Julia

 

Hi Julia!!

 

1.875 minus 10% = 1.6875 (new dose)

 

You can round it up or down. But this would equate to .4218 (.422) per dose if dosing 4 times per day. However I know that you haven't done equal doses all the time.

 

I'm going to pit this on the other board.... hold on. Lol!!!

 

Lori

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  • 2 weeks later...

Hi Everyone. I just came across this and will be following. I’m in super struggle mode and having really bad interdose withdrawl. The worst is when my eyes pop open wide awake at 3am and my next dose isn’t until 6:30. Do you guys have any advice on this?

 

Hope everyone is doing great!

 

Pearl

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Hi Everyone. I just came across this and will be following. I’m in super struggle mode and having really bad interdose withdrawl. The worst is when my eyes pop open wide awake at 3am and my next dose isn’t until 6:30. Do you guys have any advice on this?

 

Hope everyone is doing great!

 

Pearl

 

Pearl, I have been there hundreds of times over! I fought it like crazy for so many months by obsessing over how much (little) I slept, stressing out about how I was going to function on that little amount of sleep, etc.  I finally just threw up my arms and said, "on top of all the other symptoms, how are you going to continue like THIS?"  I finally decided that if I wake up, I'll just deal with it. It wasn't easy... something about the darkness made me feel so alone... but eventually I gave in. I listened to playlists of music on Spotify (using ear buds w/ my phone), meditation techniques, podcasts (the more boring the better) and somehow things got better.

 

Ironically, the insomnia and waking at 3:30 EVERY night has been back for two months now and I haven't even mentioned it in my posts. It's just become my norm so I don't dwell on it much these days. Like you, I wake by 5:30-6:00 am everyday as well. Again, I've just accepted this as my norm for now which wasn't easy since I've always been a sleeper!

 

Sleep issues are one of the most common side effects of a Benzo taper. For lack of a more eloquent way of putting it... it sucks!  :-\. But people say it fades and I have to believe them. Once I stopped being afraid of it, I was able to adjust and even fall back to sleep faster. When you find yourself waking, instead of fearing it, roll your eyes, roll back over and try to think of something to distract yourself. 

 

I just want you to know that you are not alone!

 

Hang in there!

 

Love,

Lori

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Thanks Lori for your reply. I read it this morning at 4:30 and it made me feel better. I wasn’t able to fall back asleep though. I am impressed that you are able to. I just need to practice I guess.

 

I think I will hold here for a bit and see if it gets any better.

 

Talk soon!

Pearl

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I keep my kindle and tablet by the bed, and do various things on them when I wake up early in the morning. Often, by putting my kindle on audio, I will fall back asleep for a while. Also, I put on thunderstorms from Youtube for background sound as i read.  I look for compelling articles to read about science, art, etc, All interesting, nothing triggery.

 

I don't get up and start my day, because the withdraw is too much. I don't take y first dose until 7 am, so like Lori, I accept it and wait it out.

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Thanks Lori for your reply. I read it this morning at 4:30 and it made me feel better. I wasn’t able to fall back asleep though. I am impressed that you are able to. I just need to practice I guess.

 

I think I will hold here for a bit and see if it gets any better.

 

Talk soon!

Pearl

 

Pearl, I had to laugh about you saying you were impressed... don't be!  :laugh: Last night was hell! I think I must have jinxed myself. (Haha). I was awake until 6:00 am this morning! This was the first time in almost 6 months that I had almost zero sleep! And let me tell you, I was not a happy camper. Groggy as all get out today. But again, I'm not going to the obsessive thoughts that this will be my norm again rather I'm viewing it as a fluke.

 

Right now I'm jealous... you got more sleep than I did!  ;D

 

Again, it's going to be okay!

 

Lori

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Thanks Baddove for your reply. I’ll try your ideas. Hope your doing ok and not waking early too often.

 

Lori. Oh no 6am. That is definitely a fluke and you are in for a great night sleep tonight. How are you feeling on your new dose?  Are you doing .25 .25 .125?

 

My next cut will be from my afternoon dose. Not all the way to .875, but more like .95. But I’ll get there gradually with my liquid. 1.0 is where I crashed and burned last time. So must go a lot slower this time.

 

Stay well

Hugs

Pearl

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