Posted by KaraS on September 10, 2004, at 17:21:55
In reply to Re: Trouble sleeping - please help » KaraS, posted by King Vultan on September 10, 2004, at 9:38:12
Hi Todd,
>One thing you can do that took me years to figure out is to alternate sleep aids.
That was my intent - to vary meds and alternative sleep aids so that my system didn't get dependent on any one or two things. However, I'm having trouble even finding those one or two things that will work for me and not have a lot of side effects.
>I was also wary of stuff like Ambien and even made a 30 pill prescription last over five years, as I was so worried about becoming dependent on it that I rarely ever used it. Obviously, I got very little benefit from it also, and my antidepressant induced insomnia went largely untreated.
Sounds just like me.
> Now that I am on an MAOI, the insomnia is so bad I really have no choice and have had to come up with some kind of scheme to combat the sleeplessness. I just increased the Halcion/triazolam that I take every other night to a whole 0.25 mg pill. Half a pill was sufficient for me on Nardil, but it isn't enough on Parnate. The 2 x 25 mg of Benadryl that worked to some extent on Nardil seems to be woefully inadequate on Parnate, so I am going to have to figure out something else. I was planning on talking to my doctor about trying trazodone again, or maybe doxepin, Surmontil/trimipramine, hydroxyzine, or maybe something even more unconventional.Why are you not worried about Halcion and yet you were worried about Ambien? Halcion seems scarier to me than Ambien but that might just be because of the bad press it got a few years back. Was the hype unwarranted?
What was your experience on trazadone the first time? That would seem to be ideal to me if you could tolerate it. I don't know hydroxyzine at all. I'll have to check into that one more.
>
> Your heart racing on the Benadryl is likely due to that drug's anticholinergic properties; Benadryl is strong enough that way to have some efficacy in treating Parkinson's Disease, but I think more for people with milder symptoms. There is another OTC sleep aid very similar to the molecule used in Benadryl/diphenhydramine, which is the doxylamine succinate that is in the Unisom tablets (there is also another Unisom product that contains 50 mg diphenhydramine, just to be confusing). I don't know how anticholinergic the doxylamine really is compared to diphenhydramine, as neither of them have the effect on me you describe, but I do doubt if the doxylamine is any worse--and it might be better.I have heard of doxylamine succinate. I had such a bad time with the benadryl that I'm afraid of trying it. Maybe I should just bite the bullet. It would be worth it if it worked for me.
> One of the drugs I mentioned, trimipramine/Surmontil came up once when I was talking to my pdoc. I believe he said he uses it particularly for people with stomach problems, so it may have a tendency to make you less sick than the trazodone, but this is another super powerful tricyclic antihistamine, nearly as strong as doxepin. I would expect it to have some of the same chubbiness inducing properties, but I have heard that it is supposed to be unusually good for sleep, though.So Surmontil is between doxepin and maprotiline in terms of strength? If I'm going to risk the chubbiness and the grogginess, then I might as well go with maprotiline if it still works for me.
Thanks Todd! Please let me know how you decide to handle your own sleep issue.
-K
poster:KaraS
thread:388936
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040909/msgs/389323.html