My advice to you is to tell your doctor you don't want to take the Xanax. Ask for his help in reducing the dose (take it very slowly) and get off of it NOW. Then find another doctor. I can't believe a specialist would prescribe it for IBS on your first visit. It should only be used as a last resort.
I don't mean to sound like a know-it-all, but I speak from experience. Several years ago, I went through a very TRAMAUTIC experience. I could not sleep at night. Even with prescribed sleeping pills, I was still unable to sleep. I was mentally and physically exhausted. I was fortunate to find a very good doctor who prescribed a low dose of the Xanax----on a very temporary basis until an antidepressant kicked in. Then he helped me to slowly wean off the Xanax. Even with his careful instruction, I had rebound anxiety and insomnia, and even had a night of hallucinations when I finally did without it. It scared the heck out of me! To think that some of these doctors prescribe it so freely makes me sick. It should only be used as a last resort. As one doctor told me, prescribing Xanax for everything is like using a Bandaid. It would be like a patient taking aspirin every day for a headache instead of the doctor trying to determine the cause of the headaches! It doesn't "cure" anything. It would be like you taking Valium everyday to deal with the stress of life. I don't mean to scare you because you are taking a very low dose, but it can be a very dangerous drug. I have two friends whose family members ended up in a rehab hospital because they could not get off of it. After taking it for awhile, their bodies needed more of it and as they took more of it, they became dependent on it. As Heather said, there are other safer drugs that can be prescribed. I don't know what your situation is, but unless this is the ONLY way you can make it through the day, I would get a second opinion from another doctor before I took the Xanax on a regular basis.
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Re: Can't take it anymore! Xanax?
