Posted by kinetic on February 18, 2002, at 14:14:51
I am curious as to what the long term effects of sleep aids are. My recent 2 month bout of insomnia was fought with over the counter remedies, which worked well in the beginning and now not so well. They used to KNOCK me out for an entire night and now when I need them I am up for hours after I fall asleep. And now my insomnia isn't as bad as it was, once in a while (maybe once a week) I can get a good unaided night of sleep (7 hours) BUT I am lucky if those 7 hours aren't interupted by short periods of wakefullness every 1-3 hours. This leaves my energy low during the day and makes it much more of a struggle to keep up with daily chores, exercising and eating right. I would take a sleep aid EVERY night if I wasn't so scared about the "effects". I remeber studying in psych 101 back in school about some sort of negative effects that sleep aids have in reducing REM sleep and deep sleep. Does anyone know for sure what these effects are? I have even had trouble sleeping when I was HAPPY, well exercised, and not stressed out, although I do fight generalized anxiety and depression but have just started taking effexor (75mg extended release). My insomnia started BEFORE the effexor was prescribed however. It just doesn't make any sense to me... effexor is prescribed for depression/GAD, but it's side effects can be insomnia. and the GAD is what was keeping me up all night to begin with! GRRR! Anyway, back to my original question....anyone have any information or good websites to direct me to for info on sleeping aides and their effects (over the counter or prescription)?
poster:kinetic
thread:94504
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020215/msgs/94504.html