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Friday, December 30, 2005

My dog takes Xanax

Normally calm, relaxed Smokey Bear had full blown panic attacks from rain on the roof, thunder, lightning, leaf blowers and fireworks. This is not a reaction to loud sounds. Lawnmowers, power saws, pots and pans, trains, planes - all seem to be fine. He developed this at the age of 4 years old as a result of some unknown thing I suspect my rear neighbor did to him (since he also had panic attacks when he heard her in her yard) after her and I went to court over a dispute. Smokey's attacks, though intermittent and far between are very distructive when they occur. He hyperventilates and shakes uncontrollably and then tries to find a "safe" place which he thinks is anywhere behind a door. He has detroyed 5 doors this way - 2 of them, solid wood. The behaviourist says the destruction can't be trained out since a panic attack is as uncontrollable by dogs as it is for humans - and more so because they don't understand - so the idea is to use Xanax as an anti-anxiety drug to try to break the pattern, make him happy during rainstorms and such and change the way he feels about them. He went to see Dr. Maxwell at Adobe today and Dr. Maxwell agreed and wrote him a prescription. I will try this and hope it works.

The disturbing thing today is that Smokey ran and jumped in the car to go to the vet. When we got to Adobe, he excitedly jumped out of the car. He was very happy in the office and a couple of people commented on what a calm dog he is. Afterword, he jumped back in the car. When we got back home in the garage, he didn't want to get out of the car and go in the house. :( It made me feel so bad. I finally coaxed him out and in to the house, gave him a Xanax, and now we are waiting for the rain. Lets hope this works. (fingers crossed).

1 Comments:

At 12:23 PM, Anonymous Anonymous said...

My name is Robert Kegan and i would like to show you my personal experience with Xanax.

I am 19 years old. Have been on Xanax for 60 days now. I have periodic panic attacks, particularly at social gatherings, riding in cars, and walking into rooms full of people (i.e. late to class). I felt that the medicine worked, but I felt that it created urges to take more than directed when the rebound anxiety hit, so I switched from alprazolam to clonazepam (Klonopin). I think xanax is great for airplanes and adjunctive treatment with ssri's, but by itself I don't think xanax has much too offer except as a short term treatment for panic attacks, klonopin is less sedating and seems to prevent future anxious episodes without causing cravings, and tolerance seems to build up much slower than xanax does.

I have experienced some of these side effects -
I sometimes felt invisible, like nobody could notice anything I was doing. Occasionally it would make me fall asleep if I had to stay in one spot for too long. After a fairly short period of time I would feel moderate rebound anxiety.

I hope this information will be useful to others,
Robert Kegan

 

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