Posted by King Vultan on August 19, 2004, at 20:16:56
In reply to Lexapro, Celexa, Prozac -- what to do?, posted by wolo on August 19, 2004, at 16:51:36
I used to feel the same way you do about sleeping meds but have come to the conclusion in the last couple of years that I made a grave mistake in avoiding them for so long. Since most of the antidepressants I've taken have given me insomnia, I wound up limiting the dosage to what I could tolerate from an insomnia standpoint, which generally fell well short of what constituted a full therapeutic dose. Even at the lower dosages, I was still very susceptible to insomnia and daytime sleepiness and was miserable a fair amount of the time.
If you're concerned about developing dependence on sleeping meds, you can alternate between different types, such as taking something like Ambien or a sedating benzodiazepine (Halcion or Restoril would be good choices) one night, and a sedating antihistamine, such as Benadryl or Unisom, the next. When I was on Nardil, I suffered from the worst insomnia I have ever experienced, combined with severe daytime drowsiness, and both of these problems were dramatically reduced once I started using sleep aids. I never would have been able to maintain a full therapeutic dose without them.
Todd
poster:King Vultan
thread:379578
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20040817/msgs/379642.html