Need Some Advice (Wife Is in Fear of Me Taking Xanax, She Said Zoloft Was Safer)

Hey everyone,

So I'm on my second month now with T. The last 10 days it has been low to the point it was not bothersome, but I credit that with the Xanax my ENT gave me. The first night I took it the T went away. After a couple days taking it was back but not as loud.

My wife is in fear of me taking Xanax because of the addiction problems people develope from it. She's getting so worked up about it and it's causing issues between us. I don't want her upset so what should I switch too? She said Zoloft was safer and it would make her feel better knowing I wasn't taking Xanax anymore. Any advice on an alternative?

Thanks again!

 

Hi Mike,
I would talk to your doctor about your fears of addiction and may be he will decide another option.
For now keep taking them till you have spoke to your doctor.....lots of love glynis

 

xanax in general is safe , more than the other benzos but all benzos has the power to make someone addict . but if abused , like using high doses 1 or more months , if using little doses , is easy to cut them but tapering , so in practice you must not fear if not abused . zoloft /sertraline , acts in differnt way . totally different one is for relaxing the other is antidepressant . With zoloft one begin to stop feeling , like stop caring for the tinnitus , stop caring for this for that . with xanax one dercrease stress but still cares . If xanax was good for you , no problem if used correctly , this means use it little time , little dose . any way ask you doc if more doubts .

 

...stressam 50mg (etifoxine) has no ability to cause addiction , it acts by another way . it relax same as xanax but it not so powerful , but many people prefer stressam here in my country than alprazolam , problem is much more expensive and for some people is not so powerful . thats an option .

 

@tinnitube


I'm not really worried about abusing it. My wife is worried because she works for a psychiatrist and she sees the worst of people all day and I guess she thinks I'll end up like that. I keep reassuring her but it's not getting anywhere. I would hate to get off Xanax and Zoloft not work.

 

yeah shure , zoloft dont do the same . hmm woman sometimes more problem that T . jajaj . any way try to explain the difference doses you will use and different time

 

Lol.

 

@Mike L
I'm a little surprised an ENT prescribed Xanax. Was it prescribed to deal with tinnitus or anxiety?

 

Dude, I see the irony, but in my opinion, don't listen to internet people about taking meds. Talk to a psychiatrist.
Really.

 

I couldn't sleep and I was in the early stages of my T and I fell apart. So he gave me Xanax for sleep and anxiety, but it made my T drop dramatically.

 

Xanax helped mine too. Unfortunately it isn't a long-term solution though it can be a life-saver in the right situation.

How long have you been on the Xanax? What dose?

 

Your wife is right that some can develop dependency, addiction and withdrawal from Xanax, but low doses for a few weeks or perhaps a few months may not be problematic. Zoloft has other issues such as side effects for some and withdrawal issues for others and while some feel it helps their T others will say it worsened it. I had anxiety and insomnia from the onset of T that settled down after a few months and I suspect the same will happen to you. In the interim, if you are having trouble coping, that is understandable and you should really talk to your primary care doctor about the best treatment. I found mediation and deep breathing exercises helped me at night and I still do. Good luck.

 

I've been taking it for about 10 days now. .50 is the dose. I take one in the AM and one before bed. I quit taking it though so I can switch to another medication.

 

I was at my wits end and had T for three monthes and was really struggling. I could not sleep over two hours straight then lay there for hours and felt like a zombie the next day. ENT had me on valium and tried also palemor which was not working for me at all. My T was caused by loud sounds over many years in the printing industry. I read Buddy the musician tried 0.5 zanax one hour befor bed then 1/2 a pill 10:00 in the morning then another half 4:00 in the afternoon. {Half of the 0.5} Bingo my T reduced in volumn and slept decent and actually 7 hours straight last night. I now can forget about my T for hours at a time now my hands stopped sweating from the anxiety and feeling like my old self. I also take 12o mg ginko bilopa, zinc, B12 once a day. Tell your Dr its for anxiety and you are a nervous wreck for sometimes they dont want to give it to you for T. But anxiety and T usually go together. Works for me and it is relatively a low dose of zanax if your worried about addiction to the drug. Thankyou Buddy the musician you saved me and I hope this helps others. I also play oceans sounds on my laptop at night to mask the T. You can find all kind of T masking sounds on you tube....

 

I hear where you're coming from, but I got severely hooked on benzos taking them as prescribed by a psychiatrist, and I only managed to get off of them because of access to good information online.

Be skeptical of everything, including this post.

@Mike L my only advice is to take as few drugs as you can stand to. Taking Xanax a couple times a month causes problems for very few people; taking it every day for months is unsafe for most people.

 

Ok, we can tweak it a bit: You can get opinions with Internet people, mostly about their own experiences, but don't do anything before checking with a doctor first. Better?

 

..somewhat? I'd say, along with that caveat, "don't be afraid to fire your doctor and find a better one if you think you're getting bad advice".

You would not believe the number of people I have encountered over the years who have ended up horrifically dependent on one drug or another after following well-intentioned medical advice.

Ultimately I had to go through several doctors before I found one who was willing to slowly withdraw me from benzos without wanting to cram a ton of other garbage down my throat. Which was, you know, disheartening given the fairly staggering volume of research on the subject which almost universally encourages slow withdrawal and discourages adjunct drugs outside of true cases of co-morbidities. It was okay for me because I was in a situation where I lived some place that had a lot of options for any given medical specialist, and I was able to pay out of pocket when I needed to. Both of those things are signs of privilege.

There are 50,000,000 Xanax prescriptions written in the US every year, and over the past two decades, antipsychotics have become the most profitable class of drug in the US, now widely being prescribed off-label for stuff like simple insomnia. Meanwhile, research has cropped up showing that even for people with actual psychosis, long-term outcomes for people who remain unmedicated or withdraw from medications, are superior to people who take anti-psychotics.

There are many, many things wrong with the picture. You do not have to be a conspiracy theorist to look at the current state of affairs and quickly come to the conclusion that things are not headed in a happy direction. So, again, be skeptical of everything.

edit: to be clear, I absolutely agree with you that people should not make medication decisions based on internet advice without consulting a qualified, knowledgeable doctor... I am merely suggesting that finding such a person may not be as trivial as calling your PCP and saying "I have a concern about this medication".

 

I see your point. The first doctor I went to after getting T told me to "pray to Jesus" - After noticing my last name and asking if I was jewish (I am). I promised myself never to just walk in an emergency room to any available doctor.

Even so, let's agree that the Internet is not the best place to get advice on which medicine to take, dosage, etc. It's good to know about other people's experiences.

So maybe: "Ask people about people's experiences, then get a good doctor and get his take on your particular case."