Benzo not working?

I'm prescribed to xanax .5mg and have been on it (or some sort of benzo) since I was about 15. I haven't suffered horrible panic attacks until the past year where the fear becomes so great that I oftentimes can't go out with my friends or function normally daily like I wish I could. Sometimes the fear clouds my perception so much so that I do nothing but sit and worry about when the next panic attack is going to happen. I'm not sure what to do, and when I do suffer the intense panic attacks (uncontrollable heart palpitations and extreme terror) I need a medication that will work for me. I don't want to fear the medication, as I trust my psychiatrist more than any other human being on earth and I know he has my best interests in mind. But the benzos just don't do anything...what do I do? I find it weird that a pill that has an almost 100% success rate does NOTHING for me. Anybody have similar experiences?

I am not a doctor, but my first thought is to try a different benzo or add an SSRI to the mix. Talk to your doc about it and see what he says.

I've had varying degrees where a med would work for a few years and all of the sudden not work for me. I had been on Ativan for about 3 years because the Xanax stopped working. Now the Ativan stopped working and they switched me to Valium. I had one night of sheer hell when I took that pill so now we're back to Xanax.
Honestly, I would recommend talking to your doctor about a switch. At this time, Xanax might not work with your chemistry and you need to try something different. Could you go back onto something that has worked for you before?

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Originally Posted by theodmic

I'm prescribed to xanax .5mg and have been on it (or some sort of benzo) since I was about 15. I haven't suffered horrible panic attacks until the past year where the fear becomes so great that I oftentimes can't go out with my friends or function normally daily like I wish I could. Sometimes the fear clouds my perception so much so that I do nothing but sit and worry about when the next panic attack is going to happen. I'm not sure what to do, and when I do suffer the intense panic attacks (uncontrollable heart palpitations and extreme terror) I need a medication that will work for me. I don't want to fear the medication, as I trust my psychiatrist more than any other human being on earth and I know he has my best interests in mind. But the benzos just don't do anything...what do I do? I find it weird that a pill that has an almost 100% success rate does NOTHING for me. Anybody have similar experiences?

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.5 MG of xanax is nothing if you have cronic anxierty, i took 12 mg of ativan at one time , but now 4mg

Agreed .5mg is a fairly small dose of xanax if you've taken it for a while. But 12 mg of ativan is huge:(. Glad foxyboy is down to 4.
You likely built some tolerance to xanax which can happen over time. I'd ask the dr. about temporarily upping the dose of xanax and adding an ssri. Taper back down the xanax after a few weeks. Work with your dr. on this. I'm very glad you found one you can trust.