Xanax to Valium medication switch

[billcosby]

I've been taking Xanax 1 mg five times a day for about a year and a half. I've taken klonopin and ativan but xanax seems to be the only thing that works really well for me. Recently it has become less effective, probably due to tolerance. I discussed taking a "vacation" from xanax with my doctor and she replaced it with 2mg of Valium four times a day. From my understanding, this is a fairly drastic reduction. Am I misunderstanding something here? The plan is to switch back to xanax in a month or so, so the intent is not to reduce my overall dosage, just to give me a break so that my tolerance will decrease again.

[chrisz]

I've been on Xanax for 30 years. First 10 was .5mg/3Xday, but I still had panic attacks. My new doc put me on Xanax 1mg/4xday, I took 3mg and had 1mg extra just in case. 3 years ago I had to move up to 1mg/4xday, Pdoc prescribes 5mg/day so I will have extra.

I have tried everything SSRI's, SNRI's, TCA's, anti-seizure/epileptic, etc. nothing works as well as Xanax.

From what I've read, 10mg Valium = 1 mg xanax. So you have cut it quite a bit. How are you doing ? I wish I could stop it but I have a inherited form of panic disorder from my mothers side. 2 members of the family take xanax, 1 take valium, 2 take ativan, all along with a SSRI.

Me, I take Xanax, Inderal, and Visteril (Atarax). Still not completely calm
I have ups and downs, but I made it to age 57. Sister is 62 and has been on Benzo's since they invented them.

Chrisz

[billcosby]

The 10mg of diazepam = 1mg of xanax is what I had always heard to.
8 mg of valium a day does nothing to manage my anxiety. I'm going to try to hang in for a couple of more weeks, but will probably switch back to the xanax at that point.

[atomic811]

Dr. Heather Ashton and expert in the field says that 0.5mg of xanax is equal to 10mg of Valium. There is charts that list which pills are equal to which doses when crossing over. Just search on google for "benzo equivalency chart" it is the first link that comes up. Hope that helps.