Posted by floatingbridge on July 20, 2011, at 10:58:57
In reply to Re: ammending severe xanax withdrawal » floatingbridge, posted by hyperfocus on July 20, 2011, at 0:28:28
The short version is I had a private gp who decided I was addicted and had 'dependency' issues. Since I have fibromyalgia, I am very chemically sensitive. This doctor is very new in her AA recovery and runs the big detox center in my area. (She had overcome her own addictions to her own scripts a few years back.). Once she said 'dependent' that was it. My pdoc/ therapist stopped listening to me. I was given 10mg Valium nightly to withdraw from 1.5mg Xanax of about 10years use (much of that decade at lower Xanax levels). I tried to follow her three week taper on just this
Valium. It was a terrible struggle. I tried to tell the gp and my pdoc that I underdosed and going too fast. This was percieved as drug seeking. I stopped the Emsam, too, because neither one would support my sleep during the Emsam trial. My pdoc 'let' me do this. Then came very bad
therapy of the you need to look at your sh*t kind (I do have PTSD and they knew that.). Any request of even an AD even
amitiptlyne became a sign of my pathology. This was so
nightmarish. I was taken to a dual diagnosis recovery house
were they said I didn't belong because I wasn't an addict. They said I was withdrawing.Both these doctors are gone now. My husband fired them,
because when I had tried a few times to fire my pdoc/therapist that he would say that was pathological. It
wasn't until he became incoherent and yelling at my husband that my husband got the full extent of the situation. This same pdoc refused (!) to refer me to another pdoc. Yes. I know this sounds crazy. PTSD symptoms became
prominent in a new way. This might be TMI, but for a person with social phobia and PTSD, I just hid in my house twitching and stuttering. I wouldn't stutter with my child. Just normal with him. Thank goodness. What I now recognize as acute withdrawal was terrible. I was screaming at times and writhing. When my husband called the AA gp, she more or
less said, see, I told you she had dependency issuses. Take her to the ER.Well, my husband who knows me and finally did his crash course in pharmacology is on board now, went to the new shrink, and supported restarting everything for me.
I am improving. I usually wake up at 4:00 and today slept until 7:30. Had sleep paralysis last night at 11:00pm, panicked, wanted to dump the Xanax, but my husband talked me down. Guess it's still possible to panic on xanax. I am just following this new doctor's advice to the letter right now. He wants me stable. If I decide to withdraw or reduce, he demonstrated that he knows how to do this without provoking massive withdrawal. He isn't afraid of medication like my last few doctors and interprets my struggles not as drug seeking
behavior but as a patient trying to deal with her symptoms.I don't know what to say. He was a quick study, had my very
professionally lucid Stanford assessment, and pegged me as someone how struggles with the idea of being on medication and who continually under doses and minimizes my psychiatric medicine use. Hence the instructions to take Xanax xr whether I thought necessary or not. Otherwise, there is not stability.This actually iis a long answer :-/ but a few asked why I was tapering. It wasn't my idea, but I thought why not, until it became clear it was against every wise thing I knew about tapers. I mean, who wants to be on meds?-- that is, until they are actually taken away. Believe me, if someone is labelled an addict and dependent, forget about having any voice in anything. People just stop listening. I temporarily lost my rights as a human being. If this is what happens to
the 10% of the population who may be truly struggling with addiction (as in craving a substance) I know why they might evade treatment. Chances are they are treated without compassion and have their rights taken away. God bless them. Sincerely, I will never look at life the same way again. I would never treat people like how I came to be treated for a while. It shoots any compliance they desire and any chance
to become healther and to heal.
I am feeling a little dopey this morning, but physically less startled. So far, just tiny moments of stuttering. HP, thanks., And Jedi, too. I thought stuttering and other symptoms might indicate irrevisible brain damage :-/> I'm pretty sure the stuttering is the Xanax withdrawal. Years ago when I ran out of Ativan for a few days, I developed this spasm on the right side of my mouth. My speech was uncontrollably slurred, all I could do was lay down, and I'll never forget my aunt looking at me like I was a crack addict.
>
> The truth is no matter how you do it, withdrawing from benzos is hard-going. It's a full-time thing: you shouldn't be withdrawing from another drug at the same time. It took me several months to withdraw completely from an average dose of Klonopin I was on for a few years. Three weeks is way WAY too fast for 2mg of Xanax.
>
> My strategy is stay on the same agent but just reduce by the absolutely smallest increment. Take a .25mg and cut it into halves. So you'd be decreasing in .125mg increments - starting from 2mg would be 1.875mg, 1.75mg, and so on. Then you have to figure out how much time your body needs to adjust to the lower dose. If after a week you're ok, go to to the next increment. At this rate it will take you a month to go from 2mg to 1.5mg. To me this is like the absolute fastest you can taper - your body will probably need more time. The slower you go the better your chances of minimizing rebound anxiety and having to restart the taper, which is what you have to do now.
>
> I think it's a good idea to restart the EMSAM - I feel like if you responded to the EMSAM you should try to find an agent that combats the insomnia. But one thing at a time. Is there any particular reason you have to come off the Xanax now?
>
> Hang in there fb, you're not alone in this. I and pretty much everybody here has walked the same path you're walking - and we survived. You will too. Never doubt human resiliency.
poster:floatingbridge
thread:991316
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20110714/msgs/991465.html