Tapering yet again🙄

[[Tr...]]

I still don't know how to navigate but I have not spent much time on here learning. I joined BB in 2018 and had much success and some really rough patches with holding my dose and up dosing a time or two. I'm back at it but this time it's 5 yrs later since I first joined and now I'm 60 yrs old. I'm scared. I have unstable blood pressure due to a health condition called POTS and that's my main concern during this taper. I will be going extremely slow and my goal is to eliminate half of one pill this entire year out of the 3 pills I'm on. I take .75 mgs total of Xanax a day. I just need words of encouragement I'm feeling pretty hopeless. 🥺

[[de...]]

Sorry you are feeling hopeless.   Did you taper completely off a benzo in the past?  Your post was not completely clear.   When you say three pills, are those three different medications?  As you know, going slowly is important.  You can do this, just don't get in a rush. 

[[ns...]]

4 hours ago, [[T...] said:

I still don't know how to navigate but I have not spent much time on here learning. I joined BB in 2018 and had much success and some really rough patches with holding my dose and up dosing a time or two. I'm back at it but this time it's 5 yrs later since I first joined and now I'm 60 yrs old. I'm scared. I have unstable blood pressure due to a health condition called POTS and that's my main concern during this taper. I will be going extremely slow and my goal is to eliminate half of one pill this entire year out of the 3 pills I'm on. I take .75 mgs total of Xanax a day. I just need words of encouragement I'm feeling pretty hopeless. 🥺

Hi Trishy, sorry your having some fear but understandable. 

You know most if not all of are going thru this together. We're here to hp each other as much as we can. I'm not one to talk to for tapering but someone will eventually be here. I had a lot if fear when I first started and have learned some tools to help me with my fears and symptoms.  If you should have symptoms I will be happy to spend time talking with you, encouraging you and offer you some tools to help u get through the rough patches. You said your BP is unstable due to POTS, I'm very sorry you are suffering with that. Do u see someone for your BP? Have they offered any BP medicine to keep it stable?

Im.asking these questions so we can have a better understanding of your situation ok, those who might assist with your taper questions will need answers to these questions. 

I will ck back Tomorrow to see your response and see if anyone has had time to help you ok

After that if you'd like we can spend some time together where I can share some tools with you on how to overcome your fears and hopefully ease the stress of withdrawal symptoms ok

Get some rest, 

talk with you tomorrow 

ns

 

36 minutes ago, [[d...] said:

Sorry you are feeling hopeless.   Did you taper completely off a benzo in the past?  Your post was not completely clear.   When you say three pills, are those three different medications?  As you know, going slowly is important.  You can do this, just don't get in a rush. 

 

[[Tr...]]

To nsindy and decatur,

I'm sorry my story is long but I'll try to shorten it. I was once on 3 mgs of Xanax for anxiety. I tapered slowly down to 2 mgs without my Drs knowledge and I did it without any issue at all. I stayed at 2 mgs for a very long time until one day my DR decided to take me off and he wanted it done within 6 to 8 weeks. That's when I became very ill and that's when I joined BB. I did get a new Dr who thought it absolutely cruel to try to take me off this drug so quickly. This new Dr, whom my daughter in law worked for took me on as a patient and allowed me to lead my own taper. Fast forward I made friend's here at BB who got me through some hard times and many bumps in the road. If not for my friend's here I'm not sure what would have happened. Anyway I did make it all the way down to .5 mgs of Xanax a day over a long period of time. I was on two .25 pills a day. That's the lowest dose pill, .25 in Xanax medication. Then I got the flu in November early December of 2022. I had been holding my dose since I think September of that year. Well January of 2023 rolled around and that's where my blood pressure out of no where went thru the roof. My cardiologist and my POTS DR can't tell me what caused my BP to go so high, they can't say if it was the taper or if the flu did it. But one thing they agree on is it affected my POTS. They believe my unstable BP is bc of my POTS. I have hyperadrenergic POTS. I'm on a low dose of BP medication. My BP still remains unstable with swings of high BP and low BP. That's where my fear comes in. I'm not knew to tapering. I have been at this for a long time. I thought I would be off by now but bc of health set backs I have had to updose twice in my tapering journey and both times did nothing to help. I wish I had never updosed either time. I know it helps some people but it never helped me. I wish I had held but I did not out of fear. Anyway I do taper very slowly and I'll be going even slower with this latest attempt of mine. I'm sorry I've written a book here but I hope that clears up some things about me. I was part of the long hold support group here so cutting and holding for long periods of time is the only way to go for me. 

Thank you both for responding.

Trishy 

[[ns...]]

7 hours ago, [[T...] said:

To nsindy and decatur,

I'm sorry my story is long but I'll try to shorten it. I was once on 3 mgs of Xanax for anxiety. I tapered slowly down to 2 mgs without my Drs knowledge and I did it without any issue at all. I stayed at 2 mgs for a very long time until one day my DR decided to take me off and he wanted it done within 6 to 8 weeks. That's when I became very ill and that's when I joined BB. I did get a new Dr who thought it absolutely cruel to try to take me off this drug so quickly. This new Dr, whom my daughter in law worked for took me on as a patient and allowed me to lead my own taper. Fast forward I made friend's here at BB who got me through some hard times and many bumps in the road. If not for my friend's here I'm not sure what would have happened. Anyway I did make it all the way down to .5 mgs of Xanax a day over a long period of time. I was on two .25 pills a day. That's the lowest dose pill, .25 in Xanax medication. Then I got the flu in November early December of 2022. I had been holding my dose since I think September of that year. Well January of 2023 rolled around and that's where my blood pressure out of no where went thru the roof. My cardiologist and my POTS DR can't tell me what caused my BP to go so high, they can't say if it was the taper or if the flu did it. But one thing they agree on is it affected my POTS. They believe my unstable BP is bc of my POTS. I have hyperadrenergic POTS. I'm on a low dose of BP medication. My BP still remains unstable with swings of high BP and low BP. That's where my fear comes in. I'm not knew to tapering. I have been at this for a long time. I thought I would be off by now but bc of health set backs I have had to updose twice in my tapering journey and both times did nothing to help. I wish I had never updosed either time. I know it helps some people but it never helped me. I wish I had held but I did not out of fear. Anyway I do taper very slowly and I'll be going even slower with this latest attempt of mine. I'm sorry I've written a book here but I hope that clears up some things about me. I was part of the long hold support group here so cutting and holding for long periods of time is the only way to go for me. 

Thank you both for responding.

Trishy 

Trishy, please give your current dose so it's posted here ok

Ns

[[Tr...]]

5 hours ago, [[n...] said:

Trishy, please give your current dose so it's posted here ok

Ns

My current dose is .75 mgs of Xanax. I'm sorry I thought I had already given my current dose. 🙂

[[ns...]]

2 hours ago, [[T...] said:

My current dose is .75 mgs of Xanax. I'm sorry I thought I had already given my current dose. 🙂

Hi Trishy. Doesn't look like anyone has chimed in yet.

Thank you for sharing your current dose. I hope your doing ok,  waiting is difficult when we need answer's to important questions. Many here are from different countries so the time zones are different for everyone. I hope you will be ok until someone gets to you, please try to be patient ok. 

So you would like to taper 0.25 for the entire yr correct? Usually it's recommended to taper 5 to 10% every 2 weeks or hold your next cut until your stable with the current cut.

Im.cutting 5%, but the dates are not set. I just don't stabilize. So I'm waiting until I do or, I'll take a cut when I feel a little better. It all depends on you.isten to your body and what it's telling you. This is what most people recommend. 

At that rate however you would finish your 0.25 cut before the yr is up providing you don't have any problems stabilizing. This is the best I can give you, if u still have questions or feel you.need more help I would ask the staff for more information ok. The staff  an be found in the tabs up.in the right hand corner of your page. 

I hope this helps. 

You've been here before, you'll probably do great! 

Take care

Ns

[[Co...]]

7 hours ago, [[n...] said:

This is the best I can give you, if u still have questions or feel you.need more help I would ask the staff for more information ok. The staff  an be found in the tabs up.in the right hand corner of your page. 

Hi @[ns...]

I appreciate that your intention to is to help, but I need to point out that BenzoBuddies is a peer support community. 'Staff' (or the 'Team' as we generally refer to them) are all volunteers, often still going through withdrawal or recovery themselves. Our primary role is to keep BB organised and running smoothly; and where we can (individually) provide some direct support on the forums, we might do this too.

I have seen other communities (utilising a more top-down approach of support) close down due burn out of 'staff'. Besides, since BB comprises of non-medicos, peer support is the correct approach for us to take.

Although we will try to help individual members when they make more direct appeals for help, to avoid the risk of overload, please avoid directing members to seek direct help from the Team or other individual members. We already have some members who disable their inboxes to avoid direct appeals for help due to feeling overloaded.

Thank you.

[[Tr...]]

9 hours ago, [[n...] said:

Hi Trishy. Doesn't look like anyone has chimed in yet.

Thank you for sharing your current dose. I hope your doing ok,  waiting is difficult when we need answer's to important questions. Many here are from different countries so the time zones are different for everyone. I hope you will be ok until someone gets to you, please try to be patient ok. 

So you would like to taper 0.25 for the entire yr correct? Usually it's recommended to taper 5 to 10% every 2 weeks or hold your next cut until your stable with the current cut.

Im.cutting 5%, but the dates are not set. I just don't stabilize. So I'm waiting until I do or, I'll take a cut when I feel a little better. It all depends on you.isten to your body and what it's telling you. This is what most people recommend. 

At that rate however you would finish your 0.25 cut before the yr is up providing you don't have any problems stabilizing. This is the best I can give you, if u still have questions or feel you.need more help I would ask the staff for more information ok. The staff  an be found in the tabs up.in the right hand corner of your page. 

I hope this helps. 

You've been here before, you'll probably do great! 

Take care

Ns

Thank you ns, sadly I have been down this road before. I know what to do and how to do it.. it's just the fear. I think I have some PTSD I'm dealing with from all of this. I'm in New territory with tapering now bc of my blood pressure swings but I'm going extremely slow I know my body I'm very in tune to it and from past experience with tapering I know I have to go at a snails pace.

Thank you for your kindness and responding to me. I know there's not much anyone can do. 

Take care and I wish you luck on your tapering journey.

Trishy ♥️