Xanax Addiction

[meridannight]

I have also noticed that my resting heart rate has also come down (I wear a smart watch). Might be coincidental, as that is greatly effected by food, sleep, etc, but something I have noticed.

Your resting heart rate varies from day to day by itself, which you already know if you always wear a heart rate monitor (I have no idea what a smart watch is). If it's within your normal values, I think it's fine.

Whether alprazolam affects the heart rate in humans is kind of a very complex topic. Your heart rate is regulated by the sympathetic and the parasympathetic tone, among a number of other things. GABA has been shown to affect both systems and the rest of the systems that affect heart rate (GABA is a global modulator in the brain), which means its effects on heart rate are difficult to predict and/or conclusively settle. Not to mention it all depends on your particular physiology. But:

In general the cardiovascular effects of benzodiazepines in humans, at clinically relevant doses, are mild [58].

Source:
https://www.hindawi.com/journals/aps/2011/578273/

Myself, I have not noticed a change in my heart rate that could be attributed to alprazolam use for sure (I check my heart rate from time to time).

[Anonymous]

[MENTION=21405]meridannight[/MENTION] I can't say with certainty that reduction in Xanax has had an effect. As far as a smart watch, it is a fitbit tracker. It monitors heart rate and movement so it can with some degree of accuracy measure heart rate and quality of sleep, all which is really done by the app on my phone. The watch itself is useful to see notifications, but otherwise nothing to write home about.

I did some further reading and it is suggested that tapering too slowly is better than too fast and that stopping cold turkey is more likely to cause long term effects but is a small chance and there's still even a chance that a mild taper can still cause long term or even life time effects from short term use. Again I don't think at any point I had taken more than 2 mg in a day but that seems to be on the higher side. I typically had taken 0.5 mg 3 times in a day and seems that I am feeling better cutting it in half to 0.25 mg 3 times a day. I do feel a bit more uneasy in the mornings it seems and initially was I planning on taking 0.25 mg twice a day but got a bit testing. I figure that I would do that for a couple weeks and then cut back more to maybe 0.25 twice a day and then once in the evening. So hopefully in the next few weeks I can be completely off this stuff without having any problems.

[Anonymous]

I thought I would post an update. It has been about 11 days since I took the last dose. I noticed that when I got down to .25 mg that it really wasn't doing any good. The withdrawals are pretty unpleasant and after a week they are starting to go away but not quite back to normal. I have had a lot of stomach issues with it but seems to slowly get better, the worst was the anxiety, jaw clenching, just being all around jumpy.

I know I have groaned about Xanax but after experiencing the withdrawals and the many accounts of others, kind of makes you wonder why doctors prescribe it at all. To me it seems like Hotel California. At first, hey it does exactly what you want it to do. You feel "normal," calm and collective and you feel good. When it is constantly used, that goes away pretty quick and after missing just a few doses withdrawal kicks in.

Also looking at how Valium was promoted in the US back in the 60's, touted at the "I don't care" pill and then in the 80's Xanax comes on the scene as a cleaner version of Valium. Just seem, at least here, doctors just hand this and other stuff out like candy. It was a good damn thing I never allowed myself to progress to the point where I was taking higher does, like 8 mg and so on, there would have been no way I could have got myself off that stuff and could have been a lot worse off. Just too easy to get dependent on, between doctors not prescribing it correctly and people not taking it correctly, it's not a surprised this stuff gets abused.

Honestly I should have known better. My mom used to be on Stadol when I was a kid and she got addicted to it. Of course, at the time I was little and didn't realize how bad it was for her and probably contributed to her health issues. I've been down the road of anti-depressants and seen how pharmaceuticals are creating the need for medications that probably aren't doing any good -- say statins for instance. My guess is that overall the people who end up having cardio vascular disease are going to wind up getting it whether they're on a statin or not and will die at about the same rate. That being said I think often enough the cure lies within the cause, sure there are exceptions...some people do have psychological problems that can't be fixed with a "healthy lifestyle" same with those who have thyroid problems, familial hypercholestemia and so on...but for the millions and millions of people who get on benzos and anti-depressants probably shouldn't be on them. But that's my two cents and this not medical advice and I'm not a doctor.

With any luck, hopefully this is the last time I make a stupid mistake like this as it could have really done some damage on many different levels.

[kindy64]

Psychiatry is the only medical profession that doesn't look at the organ they are trying to treat. Imagine a doctor trying to set your broken leg without x-rays, or treat cancer by just guessing from your symptoms what the treatment should be.

[Anonymous]

[MENTION=22879]kindy64[/MENTION] To make matters worse GP's can prescribe just about all of this stuff and with the same approach. I was literally told "There's over 100 different medications, we can try them until we find one that works."