Xanax and other medications: how long till negative side effect?

Question

This probably goes along with have generalized anxiety disorder, which incidentally just appeared out of nowhere, but I am very nervous about taking my xanax (just .25 mg twice a day) with any other medication, or even close to when I took any other medications.

I had an intense headache today followed by an intense panic attack. I immediately took my one dose of xanax, which calmed the panic by not the headache. I could not function so I ended up in the emergency room. They gave me a shot of something, they said it was similar to motrin and a script for vicodin.

I am so terrified of having a negative reaction to medicine that I'm sitting wondering if the shot I had earlier is going to kill me because I just took my second dose of xanax (roughly 5 hours apart.)

How long after you take a medicine can you be fairly certain it will not kill you?

Might seem like an odd question, but I needed to get it out there.

Answer 1

It depends on the medicine.  Your dose of Xanax is very small and you can be confident you're not going to die.  The shot that they gave you is not going to kill you, nor will the vicodin if you take it as prescribed.  The xanax is also safe with the vicodin as long as you don't take more than you are supposed to.  Most medications are absorbed within 1 to 2 hours taken orally, while injections are almost instant.  If more than an hour has passed since you took your xanax, you would have noticed getting very sick.  

Bottom line: benzodiazepines are very safe medications, most oral medications will show negative effects within an hour and definitely within 2 hours.  Injections will show bad effects much more rapidly; seconds to minutes.  You can take a bottle of xanax and not die (don't do it, your doc won't like it and you'll sleep for a long time.)