Posted by bleauberry on May 6, 2008, at 18:09:35
In reply to sleep, posted by Sky Brite Line on May 5, 2008, at 23:17:17
I sure feel for you. It was a solid year I went through the same kind of stuff you describe. Hell on earth. Weird, but it wasn't until I weaned off all meds that I actually started sleeping good and anxiety came way down. The very meds that were to help anxiety actually were fueling it.
Anyway, contrary to what makes theoretical sense, you know what have made the best anti-anxiety and pro-sleep meds for me? Meds with serotonin and norepinephrine reuptake, not one or the other. The best was milnacipran, second best nortriptyline, third best duloxetine. All the ssris made things worse. All the receptor blocking meds, such as remeron, antipsychotics, trazodone, they all made things worse by stimulating the release of more neurotransmitters. I found things much better when I "shored up" the release with SNRIs. Granted, the first 2 or 3 nights were actually worse and I was worried, but after that it was calm and serene and blissful sleep. How can boosting norepinephrine through reuptake do that? I have not clue. Doesn't make sense. You would think more norepinephrine would make things worse. I think what happened was it shut down the excess release of neuros.
Anyway, just a thought. The basic message here is...don't always assume that what a drug is supposed to do is what it will actually do, it could do the opposite, and don't assume that a different unlikely drug won't work wonders.
Hey, you have tried everything that "makes sense". So forget that. Pure logic says you need something else, something that doesn't make sense? Take an snri for sleep and anxiety? A mood stabilizer maybe? Or whatever. Heck, I remember someone here last year who was on megadoses of klonopin with no relief and they found huge relief when started on lithium and the klonopin dose came down real fast. Go figure.
Forget the logical stuff. You've been there done that. Look to the illogical. Psychiatry is too complicated to explain, so please don't fall prey to be stuck in one limited arena. Try different stuff.
poster:bleauberry
thread:827438
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20080430/msgs/827581.html