please be carefull i've been on benzos for 3 years and when i tryed to stop got horrible panic attacks, shakes, delerium, sweats, total hell. i am now on a taper program to get off. Benzo's work extremely well, the problem is when you start them no-one tells you how hard it is to get off.
This is too true! Doc has me on 2mg k-pins 2/day - seem to work well.Originally Posted by djilla
How many / much Xanax were you taking?
So true fisx they are horrid wd's I have seen pts die from the seizures
I see a psychiatrist and have seen one off and on for over a couple of decades. I have PTSD from my childhood, major deprssion, used to have social anxiety disorder/social phobia but this has reduced to where I can be around people, most of the time very self-conscious, but experiencing anxiety that is not obvious to others.
I also have a documented history of alcohol abuse, with a few alcohol related charges on my record frrom a couple decades ago. Believe it or not I am now a very light social drinker, drinking maybe 2 beers once a month (more in the summer, not much in the winter).
So, doctors are very reluctant to prescribe me benzo's. I have self-prescribed them in the past for many years with very positive results and am also doing so at the present time.
I take several anti-depressants and my dr has recently added a couple more meds as the anxiety continues, nightmares continue, I act out physically in my sleep (like I will be dreaming I'm being attaced so will take a swing at my attacker) except I actually throw a punch for read in bed into the wall or knocking over the lamp or something.
I have recently been put on lamictal, it's for seizures I believe and also is a mood stabilizer and while researching it found out that it works very well for some people with PTSD, depression that isn't well managed by SSRI's, and also helps with anxiety. Needless to say, I've had my share of problems in life. It sucks that dr's are trained to be predjuiced against giving someone with a history of alcohol abuse any benzo's becase my alcohol use is under control and has been for a decade, I don't even think about it. I'm just naturally a light social drinker now. Although I don't think my dr's would understand and/or believe me if I told them I occasionally drank a beer or 2 so I tell them I have remained sober the whole time.
Meds I find helpful are ativan for quick relief from strong anxiety with a quick onset, klonopin for long term anxiety lasting all day/night.
Meds prescribed by doctors, rather than by myself, that i find helpful are clonodine as a prn to help me relax a little (it's a beta blocker commonly given to people with HBP, but also prescribed to stage musicians as a PRN to calm their nerves while they perform, etc... it reduces heart rate, blood pressure, etc
Another med I am finding helpful is remeron which helps me get good sleep, as well as a clonodine helps me with sleep.
Most recently I have found that the lamictal seems to be helping quite a bit in assisting me in alleviating some of the more chronic symptoms of depression and anxiety and PTSD. So I'm LOVING it at this point. I also take trazadone to help me sleep but that is another self prescribed med. I have more than 1 sleep disorder which significantly impairs my functioning during the daytime as I was getting virtually NO rejuvinative (deep/rem) sleep.
I know this will seem odd but I get nervous when I fly as well and the one thing that helps me more then any anti-anxiety is Lunesta. I'll take a very small dose(like 1MG) and it seems to settle me down better then xanax or anything else. I can't believe 28 days without sleep. You must have been a raging lunatic- do you remember anything about the experience or was it a fog?
---------- Post added at 10:00 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:51 PM ----------
I forgot to mention that I normally would recommend tramadol to people for both anxiety relief and pain but after my experience with this medicine I would say stay away from it at all costs. You could take the normal dose, even half the normal dose and if you stop it suddenly it feels like you got hit by a train. I talked to my doctor about it because I was so ignorant I had no idea what withdrawals were but apparently that's what I was getting and I was only using the medicine for a short time. Very scary. It's a very complicated medicine because it affects your serotonin and dopamine levels.
Valium is only thing that keeps my anxiety to a manageable level.10mg daily and I am good.
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