Posted by GreyCow on February 5, 2004, at 13:06:20
In reply to Re: Xanax and Lowering Tolerance, posted by Chairman_MAO on February 4, 2004, at 10:42:10
Thanks for the advice. I'll try a month and see if my tolerance lowers as a result.
> It is an extremely bad idea to escalate the dosage of a benzodiazepine if you really do need it to function. As the poster previous to me said, tolerance to the anxiolytic effecs of benzodiazepines is rare. Tolerance to the sedative/hypnotic effects develops rapidly if used often. If abused with a passion, you could easily be taking 40mg (10mg qid) alprazolam/day within several and not even be drowsy.
>
> Please, take it from someone who's walked this path before: DO NOT ESCALATE THE DOSE. Be thankful for the fact that someone is even prescribing xanax for you long-term; many doctors won't.
>
> It is not clear to me whether you are taking the xanax as-needed or continuously, but if you're taking it on an as-needed basis, 1 month without xanax should be enough to drop back down to 2mg. It might take much longer, though, and there is nothing you can do to speed up this process. 8mg of xanax is way more than anyone should have to take to get through a presentation; people with panic disorder can usually completely suppress panic attacks by taking no more than 10mg/day.
>
> If you make presentations often, you may wish to consider starting on a low dose of an SSRI after you've gotten your xanax tolerance back to normal. If you can tolerate the side effects, this would allow you to be less psychologically dependent on xanax. Yeah, it's still relying on a drug, but SSRIs don't suppress anxiety completely at low doses so you can develop some non-med coping skills, too.
>
> Best of luck.
poster:GreyCow
thread:309057
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040204/msgs/309805.html