Most medicines for conditions such as depression, anxiety, and panic disorder don't come in the perfect dose. Mood altering drugs such as these are not like antibiotics. They have a subtle effect on body chemistry, while also being potentially very dangerous. That's why doctors tinker and monitor doses so often. They have to figure out just how much (or little) medicine you need for it to do the trick. There are a few reasons for this.

High doses:

• Increase your chances of experiencing harmful side effects

• Are more likely to harm your body

• Make it more addictive

• Take a longer time to come off of

This does not mean you should settle for the dose at which you feel something. There is very little point in taking a potentially harmful medicine if you aren't going to get much of a benefit. When you consider that the potential to really help is so high, then you almost have to fiddle with the dose to get the most from it. However, only do so with help from your doctor. Because you could run into some serious health problems, you should talk to the men and women who spent years of hard study on these topics.

Why do you have to tinker in the first place? Because every body is different and everyone's condition is unique.

Modifying your Regimen

There are essentially two ways to go about this:

1. Changing dosage size

2. Changing dosage frequency

It would be too general to say that modifying dosage size increases the effect and increasing dosage frequency makes the effect last longer. In fact, while increasing size usually makes the drugs effect stronger, it might not be the effect desired. It may simply strengthen side effects while not making you any less anxious. However, if they are not the most dangerous side effects, you may want to push on in order to relieve anxiety.

These drugs only stay in the blood stream with effect for a certain number of hours. With dose frequency, the trick becomes controlling the times that the effect of each dose overlaps. Even though you are only taking a few milligrams, if you take the doses 6 times a day, you could have some overlap in which the level of the drug in your body is dangerously high. However, if you can schedule a slight overlap for the times when you feel the most anxiety - say, the first two hours of work - then you can make this work for you. DO NOT TRY TO DO THIS ON YOUR OWN. You have to work with a doctor who is conducting blood tests.

If you are taking Xanax for specific episodes or situations, such as panic attacks or funerals and other especially stressful life events, do not modify your dose or frequency.

Otherwise, it is unlikely that the first regimen of Xanax your doctor prescribes will be the best for you. If you aren't satisfied, you really should talk to your doctor to either be taken off of Xanax altogether or to see if modifying your dosage size or frequency is an option.