Posted by toodlebug on December 2, 2002, at 18:18:50
In reply to Re: insomnia/getting off meds/help please!, posted by Mr Cushing on November 27, 2002, at 13:24:08
Thank you for the suggestion, but I have already tried Klonopin. (I can't believe I forgot to mention it!) It does help me fall asleep when I have racing thoughts, but it does not help me *stay* asleep which is the problem. (I have totally baffled my doctors.) I also have had problems with insomnia since I was a very young child, so this has been pretty much a life-long battle with me. However, until I started taking Celexa two years ago I never had problems staying asleep, just initiating sleep.
Fortunately, this problem may not be as bad as I thought. In the past week I was able to work myself down from 150 mg. trazodone to 50 mg. I am so excited! And very surprised after my previous experiences, esp. since I had so much trouble in Oct and Nov. Maybe by Christmas I will be drug-free!
I think the worst of my depression is over (hard to say while I still have prozac in my system though) and I am going to try to keep it at bay with lots of fish oil and exercise. I just think all the side effects I have had to cope with are worse than depression. That is, unless I get in a really bad way, but I rarely have depression that bad.
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> I've suffered from insomnia pretty much since I was born. The one drug that has always helped me was Clonazepam (Klonopin). If I take somewhere between .5 and .75mg every night, I sleep like a baby.
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> I'm Bi-Polar so Trazadone, though it helped me sleep at first, would eventually have me hypomanic and in no way wanting to sleep. I've tried a number of different benzos but the one that I found that would give me like 7-8 hours of sleep was Clonazepam. It doesn't really "knock you out" if that's what you're looking for though. It basically just stops the racing thoughts (having your mind wandering all over the place except trying to sleep) which constantly kept me up all night. It also has a half-life of like 8 hours so it should keep you under long enough to get a full night's sleep.
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> My PDoc also is trying to book me an appointment at a Sleep Clinic (?? Don't even know what happens here) to try and see what the underlying cause of my insomnia is. I've been recently diagnosed as being Bi-Polar, however, I can seem to trace my insomnia back a LOT further than I can my mood cycling. In fact, my Dad claims that I never could sleep as I used to keep him and my Mom up all night every night when I was like just 2 years old.
poster:toodlebug
thread:129591
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20021127/msgs/130298.html