Thoughts on Xanax?

[Viking 60]

Ok, so I've been dealing with social anxiety alot along with a few sleep problems for a while now and recently my doctor said he wanted to put me on something called Xanax, and from what I've looked up it is more of a drug addict drug then an actual medication. As of now I'm Klonopin which has helped a bit, just enough so I'm not visibly shaken by people so I'm curious if anyone here has gone from Klonopin to Xanax and if it helped anymore. If anyone thinks it is better and won't get you into an addiction with one pill per day let me know  because this stuff has me pretty confused.

[Creamy Arty 6,251]

Xanax is alprazolam, which is a medication for people with anxiety and sleep problems. It's potentially addictive and has some very strong and very severe side effects. Alprazolam is one of those drugs that most would say should be outlawed due to the severity and probability of complications. Having seen it do some terrible things to my mom firsthand, I'm inclined to agree.

 

 

Regardless, your best course of action would be to seek the opinion of another doctor or doctors rather than strangers on a forum. Whenever your doctor makes a recommendation that you aren't comfortable with, consulting another physician is a good idea, and be sure to tell him what your primary doctor wanted to do and about any misgivings you have.

[Thunderchild 875]

This stuff is effective, but as @Artemis pointed out it is addictive as all get-out.

 

It belongs to a family of drugs called benzodiazepines. Valium is another one you might have heard of-the original 'mother's little helper' which hooked thousands in the '70s and was prescribed for everything from headaches to stress ad-nauseum.

 

I used to have panic attacks, and the Dr put me on low dose Paxil for a couple of years-he also gave me a scrip for Xanax as a 'Break glass in case of emergency' kind of thing. I took them a few times-they were effective for stopping the attacks but made me crash out. Later, I would have trouble sleeping. I ended up throwing them away-Imo they're more trouble than they're worth. The Paxil was pretty effective most of the time, and I stopped needing that after a couple of years. Still get the occasional attack, but deep breathing seems to work to alleviate them these days.