A Question About Xanax?
Question by eric: A question about xanax?
Alright, so I’ve had bad night time anxiety for awhile now. I often times will stay up all night just anxious about random things. My mind will not shut off, and it makes sleeping really hard. I’ve tried various sleeping aides, but the thing is, they don’t work. No matter how sleepy something makes you, if it doesn’t shut off your mind and make you stop thinking so much you’re not gonna sleep either way. I will most likely get maybe three hours of sleep a night because of this. Often times I get so nervous thinking that I will not sleep all night. So, I went to the doctor, and he prescribed me xanax. He told me to take .5mg before I go to bed. He said that it should help me in relaxing and therefore I can sleep better at night because I will be less anxious. The thing is, I’ve read up on xanax and it says that it is very easy to get hooked to xanax, which will in turn cause withdrawal symptoms. So, I was just wondering, how long should I take xanax for before I can quit without any withdrawal effects? I was not planning on using this drug long term, but only so it can help me get better with my night time anxiety. When it makes me better I was gonna stop taking them. I have no other anxiety problems really, just night time anxiety. I wasn’t gonna abuse them, but only take .5mg a night as recommended to help me with my anxiety. Also, is this an ideal situation to take them, or would I be better off not taking them at all and trying other methods, even though everything else has failed?
Best answer:
Answer by Kelle
You know what? All meds for mental health issues have a potential for addiction.
However after 15 years of these meds I can still say the illness is worth the risk.
The chance of becoming addicted is very slim if you take the meds exactly as prescribed.
The doctor can wean you off them anytime you want but why suffer?
http://www.drugs.com/misspellings/zanax.html
Answer by Mathieu
First thing you really need to understand, when a regular person says “I’ve read up on xanax and it says that it is very easy to get hooked to xanax, which will in turn cause withdrawal symptoms.” that generally means you have no idea what you are talking about because unless you read medical journals and pharmacology text books you got a lot of junk information. So whatever you think you know about Xanax forget it.
Part of the problem is very simple, just vocabulary.
Here are some medically correct definitions
Substance dependence (addiction) is the repeated and maladaptive use of a substance, despite clinically significant impairment or distress due to continued use of the substance. People addicted to opioids, alcohol, benzodiazepines, barbiturates, or other sedative/hypnotics (chloral hydrate, meprobamate, carisoprodol) are typically also physically dependent.
Physical dependency is a natural physiological response the body has after repeated exposures to the substance. This has NOTHING to do with psychological dependency.
Tolerance is a marked increase in dose to achieve the same effects and a marked decrease in the effects of a substance. Basically it means the body gets used to a drug and more medication may be required. This is not addiction, it is a part of physical dependency.
Here is your logic, it is very easy to get hooked to xanax, which will in turn cause withdrawal. Getting hooked, which is an ambiguous term, does not typically cause withdrawal.
If you get physically dependent (and remember this has nothing to do with addiction) it means your brain has adapted to having that drug and if it is abruptly stopped the body can’t compensate quickly. So effectively withdrawal is the lag time between stopping the drug and your brain altering its transmission, sensitivity, and production in certain neurotransmitters. But if a drug is gradually stopped under the care of a doctor it is not a problem. Also physical dependency and tolerance are not considered problematic in a patient using a drug legitimately.
About 90% of the stories you read online basically involve a person taking Xanax for years and just deciding one day to stop. Then withdrawal starts and at doses above 4 mg then the severity and risk of major effects increases. Then that person is angry and becomes a self described addict or in some cases a person in severe withdrawal will develop addict-like behaviours only because the withdrawal is so bad
0.5 mg is a very small dose (10 mg/day is max) and since you are using it once daily your risk of addiction and physical dependency are very low. More importantly If you have no history of substance abuse (particularly to alcohol or barbiturates) then you have little risk.
You have also been smart by trying alternatives before medications. Your question ‘would I be better off not taking them at all and trying other methods, even though everything else has failed?’ was a bit funny and you answered it. If your insomnia is severe and other things fail you can try medication or just let the insomnia go on. And insomnia can be a lot worse than many people think, it can become debilitating, it will effect your entire body, and it can destroy quality of life.
You have done everything properly and it IS worth taking medication. But I would ask you to talk to your doctor about the medication. Even though anxiety is keeping you up, you have insomnia and you need to take a hypnotic NOT an anxiolytic and ant-panic drug. Xanax is not approved for short or long term insomnia because it disrupts your sleep architecture (brain waves when you sleep) and, among other things, it will eliminate most or all deep sleep. So you might get 8hrs o sleep but it will not be quality sleep. You really need to change to a hypnotic like zolpidem, zaleplon, zopiclone (not available in The US), eszopiclone, or temazepam. These drugs are APPROVED for insomnia, they have little or no impact on sleep architecture and they are just better than Xanax when it comes to sleep. Since you have trouble falling asleep (rather than staying asleep) I would recommend zolpidem (Ambien) or temazepam (Restoril). Like Xanax, temazepam is a benzodiazepine but the others are “Z” drugs, they have similar actions but are not chemically related.
As for withdrawal and when it might occur it is impossible to give an answer. Since Xanax lasts a very short time you will know if you are physical dependent if you wake up in withdrawal. Also people tend forget that depending on dose and the time a person took the drug for, only 1/3-1/2 experience withdrawal. And with Xanax withdrawal stops very quickly. But, like I said, if you need a medication take it but make sure you talk with your doctor when you stop it.
And Xanax or any medication typically will not “make you better.” They help you sleep and either the problem that was keeping you up has resolved and some people just have periods of at most a month of