How Long Can Xanax Be Detected In Urine

MJ_Prototype / Getty Images

Xanax (alprazolam) is a benzodiazepine medication that's used to treat anxiety disorders, panic disorder, and panic attacks. It's also sometimes prescribed for other conditions like agoraphobia and astringent premenstrual syndrome (PMS). Xanax works by slowing downwards your nervous organization, giving you a calm feeling.

Considering it can be habit-forming, it's oftentimes used as a short-term handling. Xanax tin can exist detected in your body from one to 90 days after use, depending on the type of detection test every bit well equally other factors similar dosage, age, weight, ethnicity, and apply of other substances like alcohol.

Xanax is a Schedule Four drug, meaning it has a lower potential for misuse and lower risk of dependence relative to Schedule Three drugs. While the take chances is insufficiently lower, the drug still carries these risks.

Furnishings of Taking Xanax

The furnishings of Xanax depend on the dosage, just in full general, you can expect to feel calmer within an hr. People who use Xanax heavily can build a tolerance to these effects equally well as feelings of euphoria, which is why the drug is highly misused.

Xanax can cause side effects that often go abroad in one case your body gets used to the medication, including:

Clumsiness or unsteadiness
Dizziness or lite-headedness
Drowsiness
Dry mouth
Sleepiness

Serious side furnishings aren't very common, only if you experience any of the following symptoms call your doctor right away:

Difficulty animate
Hallucinations
Issues with retentiveness, spoken language, or coordination
Seizures
Severe rash
Suicidal thoughts

Drinking alcohol and/or using illicit drugs makes the chances of life-threatening side furnishings of Xanax higher.

How Long Does Xanax Stay in Your Arrangement?

Xanax is considered an brusque-acting benzodiazepine drug. After taking Xanax in pill class, elevation levels are found in your blood i–2 hours afterwards. The boilerplate one-half-life of Xanax in the blood is eleven.2 hours in healthy adults, meaning that half of the drug has been metabolized and eliminated in the urine in that fourth dimension frame.

It takes about five half-lives for 98% of a drug dose to clear the body, and so Xanax takes ii–4 days to be fully eliminated from the torso.

Xanax is detectable in your claret, urine, saliva, and pilus, but how long it'south detectable depends on a variety of individual factors. Xanax is cleared from various parts of the body at unlike rates.

Here are the general timelines:

Blood: Upward to 24 hours
Hair: Up to 90 days
Saliva: Up to 2.5 days
Urine: Up to 4 days

Blood

Blood levels may be done as a screening exam or in cases of treatment for a suspected overdose, simply they can merely find if you've taken Xanax in the last 24 hours.

Pilus

Every bit with all drugs, Xanax tin can be detected in your hair starting 2–3 weeks later and for up to ninety days after your last dose.

Saliva

Xanax can exist detected in saliva for upwardly to 2.5 days.

Urine

A urine drug screen, such as those that are done for employment, will exam positive for benzodiazepines for five days and up to a calendar week after a dose. For populations who metabolize Xanax more slowly—such every bit the elderly, obese, and those with alcoholic liver illness—that time maybe even longer.

False Positive Testing

There are some medications that may cross-react with immunoassay urine drug screens. The antidepressant medication Zoloft (sertraline) and prescription non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug Daypro (oxaprozin) tin cause imitation-positive urine screens for benzodiazepines like Xanax.

If you are taking Xanax by prescription and you have a drug screening or test, tell the testing laboratory so they can properly interpret your results. If you're being screened at work, you lot may want to let your employer know that you're taking Xanax ahead of time.

Factors That Impact Detection Time

Your age, weight, body fat, other medications, dose, length of time taking Xanax, hydration level, and metabolism all bear on how long it takes for the drug to be eliminated from your arrangement.

Hither is a breakdown of these factors:

Age: Your historic period can play a factor in the half-life of Xanax. For case, the average half-life is roughly 11 hours in young, healthy adults compared to a little over 16 hours in healthy, senior adults.
Alcohol: Alcohol and Xanax is a unsafe duo that can lead to a fatal overdose. Booze can increase the effects of Xanax likewise as the time it takes for the drug to leave your system.
Ethnicity: Studies show that people of Asian descent take longer than Caucasians to excrete the drug from the torso—the one-half-life of Xanax is approximately xv% to 25% higher in Asian people.
Liver disease: People with chronic liver disease due to years of booze use or other health conditions have a harder time breaking downwardly the drug in their bodies, resulting in a half-life of nearly 20 hours versus 11.two in healthy adults.
Metabolism: People with a higher metabolism, for example, those who are physically active, tend to be able to excrete Xanax faster. Hydration, age, and other health atmospheric condition may also play a role in a person'due south metabolic rate.

Smoking cigarettes: The concentration of Xanax in the claret is up to l% less in smokers than non-smokers.
Weight: When y'all're overweight, it's more difficult for your torso to pause down Xanax, which can increase the half-life of the drug.

The half-life of Xanax tends to be longer for older adults, people of Asians descent, people with obesity, and those with liver disease.

Symptoms of Overdose

Because Xanax tin can create feelings of relaxation, at-home, and well-existence. Because it doesn't take long before your body builds a tolerance to the dose you're taking, information technology has the potential to be addiction-forming. Your doctor volition likely beginning yous on the lowest dose possible to see if it's effective and aim to keep you on the lowest effective dose.

Take your prescription on the schedule and dosage your md prescribed. Do not cut or beat out extended-relief pills equally this gives you a larger dose all at once and may crusade an overdose.

Symptoms of Xanax overdose can include:

Clammy skin
Blackout
Confusion
Dilated pupils
Drowsiness
Shallow respiration
Weak and rapid pulse

If you doubtable that someone has taken an overdose of Xanax, call 911 or the Poison Control Center at one-800-222-1222.

Medication Interactions

Interactions with other medications can lead to serious, life-threatening breathing bug, sedation, and coma while you are taking Xanax. Discuss with your dr. all prescription and over-the-counter medications you're taking, program to take, or program to discontinue.

Some medications of special concern are opiate medications such as codeine, hydrocodone, fentanyl, hydromorphone, meperidine, methadone, morphine, oxycodone, and tramadol.

Getting Aid

You may experience withdrawal symptoms if you of a sudden stop taking Xanax. Don't end or decrease your dose on your own every bit this can exist unsafe, and tin increase the take chances of seizure. Talk to your physician, who will prescribe an appropriate tapering schedule that volition minimize or eliminate any potential physical or psychological symptoms of Xanax withdrawal.

Many people who are prescribed Xanax worry almost becoming addicted to the drug. While Xanax is safe for nearly people when taken equally advised, people with a history of alcohol or drug use disorders may be at greater risk.

If you or someone y'all beloved is misusing Xanax, it'due south important to go assistance. Talk to your main care provider or a mental health professional about treatment options.