by NeuropathicGuy » 15 Jun 2010, 11:22
All benzos have muscle relaxant properties (in addition to sedative, hypnotic, amnesic, anxiolytic, and tranquilizer properties). But for this type of problem, Valium is going to be superior to Xanax for most people. At an equivalent dose, Valium scores considerably higher in muscle relaxation than Xanax. It also has a much, much, much longer half life and also produces several (I believe three but may be wrong) active metabolites that each also have very long half lives. If you happen to have Xanax for some reason, I don't see why it would hurt to try just to see. But if you're going to ask for something from your doc, it would definitely be Valium over Xanax. If you're interested you can look up benzo equivalency tables online and see what dose of Xanax is roughly equivalent to a dose of Valium that's usually used for sphincter spasms. AFAIK as I know most people here took anywhere from 2.5 mg to 10 mg of Valium as needed. I've taken both before and would doubt you'll get too much sphincter spasm relief from low doses of Xanax, though, by the time you achieve the desired muscle relaxation using Xanax, the anxiolytic and amnesic effects will probably be undesirably high :)