My Experience with Xanax — Pretty Surprising / Eye Opening from an Anxiety Sufferer for Decades

I've had bad anxiety and depression for close to two full decades. I'm 46. Never ever took anti depressants. ever. Struggled throughout life because of anxiety depression. I got tinnitus about 4 weeks ago. Have been to the darkest places in my life (and I've been thru divorce with kids, dad has dementia, etc etc in my life) because of the tinnitus.

I had a spike Tuesday after a just 10 min nap. I had a nervous breakdown basically yesterday and everyone begged me to just take the Xanax finally that I was prescribed. just .25mg. (I also have Lexapro but have not used it yet at all) I kept refusing to take it because of my how my mind works....

And within 20 minutes... I literally felt like a normal human being again for the first time in 10+ years? It was beyond incredibly eye opening to realize how much my depression and anxiety has affected my entire life and I'm sure gave me tinnitus. The tinnitus is there still... but it's like pushed into the back of my mind? It's very hard to describe. It's there and annoying a bit, but off to the side? I have a appt with my PCP today to check where I'm at. I'm deciding what my path will be.

1) Maybe get on the the Lexapro? And use Xanax when needed?
2) Or just take Xanax when needed and no Lexapro?

Whatever people say about Xanax, it's you opinion. But it literally saved me from a major nervous breakdown where I almost when to emergency room to get sedated. All because of tinnitus.

 

Make sure it isn't a benzo addict. The path you're taking is a slippery slope. Xanax is BAD for your health in longer term!

 

Your Tinnitus is most likely due to your hearing loss:

There is strong correlation between hearing loss and tinnitus. Your anxiety doesn't help cope with it for sure, but the causality is most likely driven from the hearing loss.

 

I know... I've heard it and read it everywhere. but realize it saved me from feeling like I wanted to kill myself and lose my job at the same time. prob end up homeless. the worst tinnitus sufferers to me are the ones who ALREADY suffer from anxiety and depression and get it. it amplifies it x1000000

 

You believe you'll be an exception who won't get addicted, build tolerance, increase size of dose? You're lying to yourself bud.

Bookmark this page for when you're crying and more anxious than you've ever been because Xanax stops working and you remain addicted to it: http://benzobuddies.org/

 

Too true. I first took it in the ER when I had all the symptoms of a heart attack. Taking it for a couple of weeks saved me. But it made me feel a bit flat the days after taking it and my hearing went through a weird metallic distorted phase - rain sounded horrible and wrong.

Having a panic attack is like someone turning the T up by 1000%. Xanax was like someone almost switching it off completely. How does that fit in with the hearing loss link?
I do think there is almost always a link by the way. Especially when you get to your 40s and develop T - in this modern noisy world it’s impossible to rule out at least some hearing loss.

 

Don't worry about taking a benzo now and then. Just don't take them daily for a longer period of time. It's not the addiction but you soon will be needing more for the same effect.
But always be sure you have a couple in your house. The thought of nowing it's there will sometimes be enough. (For me at least)
I suffer from servere depression and anxiety and benzo's helped me from literary killing my self.

 

right, I am no fan of long term benzos; on the other hand -- severe, crippling, chronic anxiety is also extremely bad for your health in the long term. In fact, as far as I know, there's much more compelling data showing that anxiety states can lead to increased risks of dementia, than data showing benzos causing the same problem.

really, in many cases it might come down to "will the drug continue to work and not cause other, more serious problems at some point?" and unfortunately there's just no way to know. Certainly, many people take benzos for decades and decades (Xanax is the #1 most commonly prescribed drug in America, or at least was as of 2015). On the other hand, some people report running into really weird, scary problems after months/years.

my own experience was that benzos kept working just fine as long as I kept taking them, and I did for years, with no dose escalation -- but when I started to really look into the long term effects and contemplate what might happen if I tried to just keep taking it forever, I lost my nerve and forced myself to get off. The process of doing that was sufficiently painful that so far it has kept me from wanting to resume using them more than infrequently... but I might revisit that idea at some point.

edit: If I was somehow certain that I could go back on Klonopin at the dose I took for ~6 years, and have it continue to be effective at that dose for another 25 years, I believe I would absolutely do it in a heartbeat. That is a pretty big if, though.

 

Upjohn Study Shows Xanax (Alprazolam) Impairs Recovery from Panic Disorder and Agoraphobia

http://benzoinfo.com/2017/01/07/upj...recovery-from-panic-disorder-and-agoraphobia/

Worth reading if you're thinking about taking the drug.

Personally, from my experiences, there are better solutions. While SSRIs are no panacea, they are a better choice, in my humble opinion, than benzos - take longer to kick in, but less likely to cause harm (still can, like all medications, produce harm, however). Of course the correct solution is to resolve the underlying cause of the anxiety and depression. I recognize that the underlying cause cannot always be found and corrected (ex: fear and disappointment from untreatable cancer), but recognize that just taking a medication does not fix the problem.

While I can't back it up with science, and while I am not an MD, a psychiatrist, or psycho-chologist (not a misspelling), as a scientifically trained and observant person who has see a lot of in 60 years life, I feel zero reservation in stating that there is no such thing as panic disorder. Anxiety is a perfectly normal programmed response to what one perceives as a threat to their health and/or life. Remove the concern or threat, and the anxiety will go away. Depression is the ultimate response to unresolved anxiety (in the anxiety state you're frantically trying to find some action to solve the problem; in the depressed state, you've given up, you're out of gas, you can't muster enough strength to even attempt getting out of bed sometimes, or you've resolved that it is better to be dead than continue to experience the constant anxiety, unhappiness, and loss). It can also work in reverse - if depression is the initial symptom to an unresolved problem, it can morph into anxiety (anxiety and depression are simply different sides of the same coin, so to speak). You can talk to a zillion shrinks and psycho-chologists, you can read a gazillion books on the topic, and if they tell you anything different than that, then they are full of ..... well you know what. Plain and simple, that is what anxiety and depression are. (Let me add, that many, many people are incorrectly diagnosed with anxiety and/depression when in fact the problem is an uncorrected medical problem. That very common medical mistake causes what? You got it, anxiety and depression. Patient knows there is something wrong, doctor won't put forth effort to find the real problem, patient feels trapped, therefore patient becomes anxious and depressed).

The solution to all medical problems, even those that are labelled as mental, is to find and fix the root cause. Its a difficult task, and unfortunately it is one that our healthcare system is not up to the challenge of performing. Its more profitable and less work to just hand out drugs.