Hi all, sorry for another stopping benzos question. I know they get asked a lot, but I commented mine in another thread and it got lost a bit so I had to make my own thread for it.

I‘ve been taking Xanax since 2017. I get prescribed 15/year by my GP in Ireland and just took them for flying. However my anxiety got worse over the years and since 2019 my GP in my home country prescribes me 60/year. I took like one 0.25mg per week just to have a day I could go out and get a bunch of stuff done.

This year is really where I went a bit farther with them. At Christmas I had family over at my house for 3 weeks and I didn’t want them to be affected by my anxiety so I took a 0.25 ever day for 3 weeks, which was enough. Then I went back to once a week.

In February I started having daily vertigo. I’m fine moving around, but when I lay down particularly with my eyes closed it’s like my whole body bounces. I think it’s more anxiety than anything else ’cause when I get flooded with anxiety the vertigo gets so much worse. Anyway I started treating that with Xanax and took 0.25 once, sometimes twice a day for 5 weeks. Then I took nothing for 10 days because I barely had anything left. I had bad rebound anxiety but no withdrawal symptoms. Got 15 more and went back to like 2/week until June when I went back home to my GP. Then I took it again daily for 5 weeks but never more than 0.5 in total.

But since reading a lot on here about possible seizures, I’m now terrified to stop all together. I can’t really taper because I’m already taking the lowest dose. I haven’t built up a tolerance because 0.25 still works for me. But such is anxiety that now I’m so afraid of seizures that I keep taking them. I’ll stop for 2 or 3 days, feel fine and then take one just to make sure I don’t get a seizure.

I‘m looking for advice from people specifically who’ve taken Xanax and their short half life, whether if I stop and feel fine after 3 days I’m good. And whether with how I’ve been taking it I’m even at any risk for seizures. Sorry for the long post!