Xanax need advice with minimizing PAWS and tapering success stories.

I am tapering off of 2 mg of Xanax.  I was on it for almost 3 years gradually increasing doses as I became tolerant.  I have worked with nutritionists and I’m taking taurine, glycine, l-thenine to help ease withdrawal symptoms.  What I struggle with is not knowing how much to taper and  if a longer taper will ease the withdrawal symptoms once you stop or (PAWS).  I’ve done a lot of research as you have and in my mind I feel if it takes time for the receptors to heal then it would make sense that slow your taper to avoid PAWS.  I haven’t been able to find any constant guide as everybody is different.  I am not sure if I should switch to Valium or not if that will help. 

I started tapering on May 6 2022. I went pretty fast for the first two months.  I was listening to my body and obviously we have no guidance from psychiatrist and doctors.  The ashen manual is also not 100% OK for everybody. 

May 6. 

Start 1.5 mg

May 11.  1.25 mg

May 15.  1mg

May 26.  .75mg

June 6.  .5mg

June 7 .75mg

June 8.  .625mg 

June 9.    .5mg total

June 10.  .75mg

July 4.  .625mg

July 15.  .5mg

August 1.  .375mg

August 15. .25mg

August 21.  .31mg

Like most others I had no idea what I was facing but there was always a pattern of four days to adjust my sleep would be a little disturbed but for the most part I would get 5 to 6 hours per night.  I have muscle twitching watery eyes stomach issues such as gas and noises.  I went through being scared and then doing the research and educating myself.  I’m still nervous and afraid at times of the unknown and what this has done to me but Of course once I realized I was on my own and that the doctors could not offer any guidance, I found this forum and it made me feel empowered and that I’ve got this and it will end.  Since August when I got to .375mg I haven’t been able to regulate like I did before as far as from beginning to end there was no change, much more muscle twitching and the symptoms stayed constant for two weeks so I thought OK just keep going and I went down to .25mg for 6 days.

  Sometimes I read things that make me feel as though if your brain needs more time you’re at too low of a level if you’re not experiencing leveling out before you cut your next dose.  For the most part I’m sleeping at least five hours a night, I thought I would be done with this by September and now I have no idea.  I don’t wanna go through PAWS especially after all the time tapering what’s the point of tapering if you’ve got to do that eventually?  I just wish there was a better guide to is it worthwhile to taper longer keep yourself comfortable to avoid bad withdrawals.  Or are you just delaying the inevitable.  I think the answer is we don’t know and that’s the most frustrating part to me. As well as at this point should I switch over to Valium?  If anybody has advice or experience relating to this, I would appreciate any input. Especially if there’s anybody out there that was able to avoid much of a strong  post tapering withdrawal. 

Hi Deanne

Unfortunately there is just no way to guarantee how to escape PAWS. If we knew everyone would follow it to the letter. Conventional wisdom though has shown us that following a symptoms based taper where you keep your symptoms manageable has a much higher chance of succeeding. The reasoning is your brain is adapting and recovering at the pace that it requires while you're tapering.

You say from August you haven't been able to level out as normal and I can see your cuts have been pretty big. You might or might not know but cuts accumulate and over time they catch up with you. The accumulative effect of the cuts if too big results in an increase in withdrawal symptoms and it's your body's way of telling you it needs a break. My suggestion would be that you hold your dose for a while until symptoms level out. I would not recommend a crossover at the dose you're at. You are pretty low and seem to tolerate Xanax fairly well. I would not introduce a new drug into the mix right now.

You've done really well. I understand it's daunting thinking about what will happen if we stop the drugs but we can't control it. We just have to set ourselves up for the best jump possible. You are going to be okay. 

PS: this person did a very slow taper  with very few symptoms http://www.benzobuddies.org/forum/index.php?topic=269876.0