XANAX Support Blog: If you're tapering Xanax/alprazolam, join in the discussion!

[[th...]]

Ashh,

 

I wish the laws were like that here! 

[[...]]

Totally, Grinch. But the pharma companies have to make the big bucks to give big bucks to our politicians. Systemic change is required, but we are a free democracy...sigh...the price we pay...

[[Ra...]]

Hi fellow Xanax taperers,

 

Just checking in to see how everyone is doing.  I cut another .0625mg last night, but haven't updated my sig yet.  Feel pretty good.  Slept good.  Just hoping my whole taper is like this, fingers crossed.

 

Jenn, how are you doing post taper?  TrueSouth, you too, still doing OK? 

 

Mrs, how are you doing with you taper?

 

Monique and Grinch, how are you two doing?  Everyone else, please let us know how you're doing?

 

Hugs,

 

Rabbit

[[mr...]]

Some tough days in these low doses, for sure. But baby steps and one foot in front of the other. Praise God, He's given me the strength to continue working through all this. Some day soon, I'll be looking back and grateful for this time in my life (looking forward to someday being here soon, just like all of us of course!) It is coming

 

Take care,

 

Mrs.

[[Sy...]]

Today is ok. A new sxs that has come up and I wouldint call it a symptom really. It is just this blaa extreme depressed feeling, I was so caught up in every day hardcore sxs, and trying to distract myself that now that im going slow on my taper I just feel super depressed. Im sure everyone here feels this way sometimes when the fog lifts a bit. The ringing in my ears is constant, and wakes me from my only social Life Dreaming. How pathetic is that! Im sure everyone in here thinks im an idiot too. I am holding this dose till I can do somthing with my life even if it's a crap job that I can quit. I dont want to ramble online about how isolated this has made my life and bother people trying to heal. I am doing my best. I was able to go to an NA meeting, but thats no place for me right now ether. I feel like everyone I know just wants to wash their hands of me. Even the friend I do have won't answer when I call because I refused to go out drinking with him last week. This window i am having is just sad, and as i type its slaming shut on my neck.

 

I know you all want to hear candy and sunshine, or whatever. Not someone bitching about stuff you are going through or have seen already. So I won't even bother anymore. Some of you have helped allot! Even if it was little stuff like epsom salt baths and breathing techniques, or what not to take. To the bigger stuff like my fast cuts! Dunno today just feels like maybe im feeling the way I might feel forever. I bother myself.! Could be it will take time before I realy know how i'm feeling? I can't even tell anymore whats real as far as my emotions! Um yea so I will lurk around and keep up cutting slower, but today is stupid depression like im back in highschool again WTF.  :'(

[[ho...]]

Sending all of you wishes for a speedy recovery and a big hug!

 

May your symptoms be light!

 

Love,

 

Hopeful Girl 

[[Ra...]]

Syn - this is a really hard road, there's no denying it.  It isn't as I've heard it described as 'unicorns and rainbows' for everyone.  Everyone's journey is so different.  So far I've had a fairly easy time of it if you don't count the 3 months of acute at the beginning, but there's no guarantee that it will be easy all the way.

 

Keep having faith in yourself and try to read positive stuff, stay away from the negative.  Like Mrs. says, baby steps.  We will all get there.

 

Best of luck Syn, keep posting 

 

Hugs

 

Rabbit

[[...]]

After returning home from the Far East (where I was forced to go CT due to the Xanax ban, I didn't do too badly except for bad headaches and panic attacks for which they gave me a paper bag to blow into and increase my CO2 levels), my brain reached for the Xanax like a fish to water. I'm again taking my baby steps towards taper, starting by learning to spread out my dosing evenly through the day. Each day is a new beginning, and it takes huge effort to stay focused.

[[je...]]

Hey Rabbit! Doing pretty good, I leave for vacation tomorrow for 8 days. Kinda my little reward to myself for reaching the goal lol. First vacation without my kids in forever, I am sure I will miss them by day 2! Anyway, how are you?

[[Mo...]]

Synap,  sorry you are having a rough time.  You will get better, it will just take some time.  Just take it slowly and don't rush getting off.  It will give you some time for your body to stabilize.  As long as you are cutting you are one step closer to being off even though it may seem like it will take forever.

 

Monique

 

[[Mo...]]

Hey Rabbit,

 

I am glad you are feeling good. 

 

I am doing pretty good.  I plan on staying at my current dose till the end of June because I have some things in June to do and I don't want to worry about symptoms.  I see my p-doc tomorrow and we will discuss how to get off the last .5mg of Xanax XR.

 

Hope your taper continues to be easy on you.  Keep us posted.

 

Monique

[[Ro...]]

Hey everyone,

 

I'm about 30 minutes from taking my morning dose and trying to distract myself.  I'm down about 50% from my peak xanax dosage even though that was only for a few days.  The side effects have been mostly mild, save for insomnia, but that's what got me started on this whole ride to begin with.  My doctor has me scheduled to cut my evening dose by half tonight.  That worries me and makes me happy at the same time.  Every time I take a pill, I feel like I'm willingly poisoning myself.  The sooner I get off this stuff, the sooner I feel like I'll be able to get the rest of my life sorted out.  I'm just trying to stave off the feeling I got when I tried to C/T the xanax.  I hope you are all doing well and hanging in there.

[[Sy...]]

Synap,  sorry you are having a rough time.  You will get better, it will just take some time.  Just take it slowly and don't rush getting off.  It will give you some time for your body to stabilize.  As long as you are cutting you are one step closer to being off even though it may seem like it will take forever.

 

Monique

Thanks, Some days I just call it like it is. I do have hope, and I am strong. I just felt like venting a bit, that is part of support and recovery. Right.

 

I have good days, just try to fill them with Living as much as I can. Next time i will post all the good. I never said this process was all Rainbows and sunshine, I ment we all try to be so upbeat in here. Nothing at all wrong with that, My emotions may be all over the place, but they keep me sane...

[[th...]]

Xanax is one of the short acting benzos so has anyone done their cuts like every 5 days instead of a week or longer? I guess that depends on syx huh? I just did a .25 cut last fri, remember I always feel sick...really sick...and didn't have much increase in my normal shitty feeling except for worse headache and nausea day 3 after the cut. Which can be worse on certain days even without cutting so who knows what's what really. I m cutting again tom .25 mg, not quite a week, almost though. Just wondering if anyone on here cut like every 4th or 5th day since Xanax cuts should not build up like the other longer acting benzos. I mean scientifically the benzo cut with Xanax we shouldn't really need to worry about syx piling up weeks later bc of the fast acting of x right? Though I know the brain needs to heal yet even if we cut more often. Just throwing it out there and seeing if anyone has and did ok.

 

G

[[Ju...]]

I could not cut that quickly Grinch.  The best I could do was cut on the eighth day on many of my cuts and sometimes I had to hold longer.  I used my hit and stabilization pattern to gauge when I cut.  And by stabilization I don't mean I felt perfect by any stretch.  What I mean is this:  On the 4th or 5th day, (usually), after I cut one night, I'd experience a very distinct uptick in symptoms.  The symptoms were very distinct and with out a doubt were my cut 'hitting me'.  I'd always wait for the symptoms from the hit to settle back down prior to cutting again.  This usually took between 1-3 days.  If I'd cut every five days, I'd have been a basket case. 

 

Have you cut enough to know when your pattern of being hit is?  And when the intensification of symptoms settles back down?

 

In fact at the top end of my taper I was cutting on a weekly basis without really knowing how to listen to my body.  I got in to trouble doing that and was glad I joined BB's and Challis and Charlie helped me get back on track.

 

I know you tapered off another med, so I'm not sure you've had a chance to really examine what your pattern is. 

[[th...]]

No, and that's prob the problem. I ve been tapering and cold turkeying all over the place with other meds too. So when I did this cut of .25 I thought ok I m ready day 3-5 to gauge when I ll have an uptick in syx. I cut on fri and Sun was worse according to my husband, so I thought ok that was the day...day 3. So now I think I feel back to normal shitty self and ready to cut again. I don't really have a significant uptick in syx yet so hard to tell what's happening. I could have been just having a bad day on sun too, who knows. I prob haven't cut enough to figure it out and I seriously have no patience when it comes to this tapering when I feel like crap anyway. Bedridden anyway. Sick all the time anyway. I keep thinking I might as well cut again now since it's been about a week and I don't feel any diff than I normally do, like crap, and it's been since Sun that I felt "maybe" an uptick of syx.

 

What "trouble" did you get into??? Syx??

 

G

[[Ju...]]

The weekly cuts piled up on me and sent me to my bed for 3-months.  Yes, many, many symptoms.  Please don't think for one minute that Xanax cuts can't pile up one right on top of the other if we cut too quick.  I know you might be thinking, well I always feel like crap anyway so how much worse could it get.  Magnify how bad you're feeling right now to even worse and this could be what happens if a person cuts too fast for their GABA receptors to catch up, (up regulate).  I believe these receptors are literally growing back and coming back alive as we taper.  This process can't be rushed with a good result, IMO.  I would not cut again before Sat if I were in your shoes. 

 

I'm a patient person in some ways but in other ways I have no patience.  I had no patience for my taper, I wanted it OVER, like YESTERDAY.    But I dug deep and did not rush it even though I fought a need to rush every single day.  You'll get there Grinch.  Set your mind to taking it more slowly if you can.  This will pay dividends in the long run.  And that's why you're doing this --- FUTURE GOOD HEALTH.  And you'll get there girl.  If I did, you can too.   

[[th...]]

Ok. Well there will be no way I ll be able to hold for 14 days unless I am feeling worse syx x1000 but I SUPPOSE I could hold 7-8 days after a cut. That's when u did your cuts right? 8th day after last cut? I am going to cut tom though even though it will only be 6 days from the last cut. Just this once again. Then I ll slow it down and won't cut again for a good 8 days.....I ll really TRY not to anyway!!! I think that is the best I can do. TRY not to cut too early bc it is my most dreaded parts of this taper, the waiting to cut, having to take the pills, knowing that taking them is making me sick and just wanting to be done!!!

 

Thanks 

 

PS. The thing is you saying you were bedridden with worse syx for 3 months bc you went too fast doesn't scare me bc I already live that life  :'(. My brain goes to "I am already there so why not cut to get off" ...I know this is wrong thinking, it's just really hard for me to go slow. Really hard. Maybe if I started getting partial windows or felt better at certain times it would be different, but I am sick all the time, and so it's hard for me to hold a cut bc I don't think it would matter. Bc I don't get a break...ever.

[[Ra...]]

Grinch, I'm thinking about you.  I agree with Juliea though, that slowing it down and allowing you GABA receptors a little more time to grow back might be helpful.  I SO want my taper to be over, but for now, I'm stable able to work and I think it's because I'm taking it SO slow.  I have to be able to work, so even though I want this OVER, I don't dare try to speed it up. 

 

I hope you're able to get to a point during your taper where you feel a little better.  I hope you don't have to feel like crap the whole way down.

 

Hugs to you 

 

Rabbit

[[th...]]

Ok Juliea,

 

I would like to cut every fri (every 7 days) bc if my syx rear up at days 3-5 the wk end will have been regular sucky days and the only time my husband is home, kids are here and maybe just maybe I could do an activity like go out on the water in our boat for a couple hrs. I d rather hit my uptick in syx Mon - Wed when I am alone at home, hence cutting fri to prep for early week syx. You said you cut on the 8 th day, that makes it a diff day each week making it hard to plan wk ends and other days if the cut days and uptick days are changing every week?? I d like to be safe with my taper but also need a little life this summer if I can bc being housebound and bedridden now for 3 yrs is beginning to really do me in. I need the wk ends free, if at all possible from the upticks. But I don't want to cut every 2 wks bc I don't think it's needed unless I get a surge of syx, than I ll hold. Would one day diff really cause a pile up like u said??? Cutting every fri or sat depending on when I see my uptick should be ok too shouldn't it?

 

G

[[Ju...]]

Grinch, you asked about scheduling cuts.  I very strongly believe in listening to one's body rather than scheduling cuts.  My detailed taper schedule is in my signature, (a link).  If you will look at my schedule, you will see that I did not hold for the same exact length of time on each cut as I was tapering down.  This is because this would have been impossible for me to do and keep my symptoms manageable.  For example, if you see a period where I held longer than usual --- there was a reason for this --- ^^^^symptoms, I had not yet stabilized.  I did not cut through difficult  symptoms after I learned to taper.  Our bodies have a mind of their own during a benzo withdrawal.

 

If I wanted to have my weekends free for the summer, what I'd do is hold LONGER to achieve this on some weeks.  This might mean that some of my holds would be 8 days and some of my holds might be 18 days.  I'm not certain how to work this out but I'm sure I could work it out if I wanted my weekends to fall on days I felt well.

 

We had a buddie Lisa who was a hairdresser that I tapered with.  She scheduled her cuts around her work schedule and I remember her fussing about being ready to cut but having to wait, (continue holding), so that her down days would fall on the days she had off.

 

It's doable to have the weekends fall on good days, but if I were doing this I'd know that I had to build in some longer holds to achieve this so that the hits would fall during the week.

 

Personally, I would not cut on a set day each week.  I'd listen to my body.

[[th...]]

Sounds good...thanks for the help AGAIN 

 

G

[[Ju...]]

Another simple way to put this is:

 

Ok GABA receptors!!!    You've got till Friday to grow back or else: 

 

Do you think those receptors give a hoot about our command? 

 

Nope.  They take their own sweet time or else we're the one's who wind up getting the  

[[th...]]

Hahaha...yep!!

[[Tr...]]

It's awfully quiet here... That generally indicates some buddies are feeling good, and a number are being hot with nasty withdrawal symptoms.

 

Seeing there are 350 pages on this thread, I'm reminded that Mrsalw started the migration that moved us here to the public side of the forum. I still remember some of us being upset at the time and not wanting unregistered users to be able to view our posts, yet here we are today. Alive and trying to get well. How time flies.

 

Next week will mark eight months since my jump. It's nothing short of a miracle.

If I can do this, anyone can!

 

Wishing everyone a symptom free day and peaceful nights rest.