To Cut or to Hold….Suggestions please 🙏

[[Mi...]]

Hi Everyone,

 

I have been doing .25 mgs of Xanax twice a day for a little over a month. I’ve noticed my symptoms (some serious, including restlessness) decrease pretty significantly the past week and a half. Do I cut? It would only be 10 - 12% in the middle of the day. Worst symptom I have currently is probably breathing issues and throat problems.

 

Lemme know.

[[Jt...]]

I would keep holding, if you don't feel good now then how would dropping be any better? We all want to get off this asap but it takes time. I've been taking .75 klonopin everyday for 7 years tapered to about half of that in 8 months and finally hit a wall. Im on day 19 of the hold without much improvement but i just have to hold nothing else can be done. I would just keep holding until you feel like you can go down.

[[Mi...]]

Thank you. Definitely makes sense. I’ll keep monitoring it daily.

 

Best,

 

 

[[je...]]

Hi MiracleMan

 

It will help if you can give more detail with dates in your signature to look like mine.  You say you kept increasing your dose to 0.5mg total, but it's really important to know how fast you increased and what date your last increase was, in order to properly answer your question on making suggestions. I looked at your previous posts and I see you had reinstated twice. Please can you include these dates as well. It's really important because these cold turkeys will definitely influence how you long you need to hold to stabilize for a taper. I had two rapid reductions and it set me back pretty badly. Both times I had to updose. I'm not judging you, but I do understand what these massive cuts can do to you and how it can impact the start of a taper.

[[Mi...]]

To be honest, typing that out made me soooo much more furious at the doctor that got me into this, but I did it. My comeback will be huge. Thanks for reminding me that it’s important to have that on here. I guess I have avoided it because I can’t stand thinking about how much I didn’t know and how much my doctor didn’t care about me. If you have any further input, it would be appreciated. Much love.

[[je...]]

Thanks for doing all that. I know it's frustrating. My doctor did something similar. Didn't look at my file, wrote me the wrong prescription and cut my dose by 75%. I thought, "what could be the harm, I'll just take less". Then I got severely sick, figured out what happened. I updosed to 1mg instead of 2mg but didn't tell my doctor that. When I called to let him know he gave me the wrong prescription, he told me to taper 2mg in 6 weeks and then he'll cut me off. So I followed his plan and made another 50% cut. Big mistake!

 

You've had quite a lot going on and your body had lots to recover from. In my case I felt much better after 3 weeks after my second updose and I started tapering. But that was too soon even though I felt better. I made only a 6% cut and boy did I feel it. I had to hold my dose for another month I think.

 

So I would suggest, you hold your current dose for at least 2 months after your final updose. And you need to feel better. You might not feel 100% stabilized as I'm not sure how much impact kindling will have, but you need to feel better. I hope this helps. Oh, and also just to give you some hope, you reinstated pretty quickly, so that was good. There seems to be consensus that reinstatement works best if done between 2-4 weeks after stopping and you did it in less than that.

[[Mi...]]

Appreciate the input buddy. I now have a team of very knowledgeable people behind me along with this community, plus friends and family. Overcoming this is inevitable. Knowledge is key. Everyone needs to stay incredibly strong in these times.

[[Bo...]]

Just chiming in once you move ahead that Xanax being a short acting benzo, ideally needs to be doses more than twice a day to keep interdose withdrawal symptoms at bay. Just a note bc you mentioned cutting some if afternoon dose and the last thing I’d want for you is to get rid of a full dose at some point and be only dosing one time a day with this stuff and not realize symptoms might be reduced dosing more frequently. Not saying yo increase your dose but to spread out the .5mg over 4 doses or 5. You can ask in the planning tab for more guidance on doing this but wanted to bring it up bc it is important point with Xanax or Ativan.

 

Maybe the mods can help you on this thread plan for how to adjust but just wanted to mention.

 

Wishing you the best on your journey! Hugs

[[Mi...]]

Yeah, the short half life of Xanax definitely makes this worse. I’m going to start working with some amazing psychiatrists soon to help me taper off of this, so I will go over this point with them. As always, definitely appreciate the input. The more the better.