Posted by halcyondaze on January 19, 2007, at 23:00:55
Okay, here's a little brief history: I have chronic insomnia. I've had it since I was a newborn and can remember it from the age of five. For a while, I took Benadryl every night and that worked but eventually I had to keep upping the dose I was taking for it to work. I was put on a tricyclic antidepressant and then eventually replaced the Benadryl with Seroquel at 25 mg. This used to knock me out beautifully and I slept like I never had before, falling asleep quickly and waking up rested.
Then I went on Parnate and my whole world collapsed. Seroquel was like a placebo. I raised it to 100 mg but I still had trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. My doctor added Ambien (10 mg) and Ambien CR (6.25 mg), and reduced the Seroquel back down to 25 mg. It worked but I had some weird side effects like blacking out and binge eating. So we tried Temazepam (Restoril), which didn't do anything in terms of helping me fall asleep but caused me to pass out for 12 hours after I finally did get to sleep at 4 a.m. I also tried Rozerem, which did absolutely nothing. And then I went off of Parnate for a while.
Since having been back on it for three months, I've had to increase the Seroquel back to 100 mg. I've also been on Lunesta, which didn't help me fall asleep and Ambien, but I had to take 20 mg to fall asleep and my doctor was not comfortable with that dosage. So now I am on Sonata, which doesn't really help me sleep and definitely doesn't help me stay asleep, as I am waking up four hours later, and my doctor doesn't want me taking it in the middle of the night in addition to before I go to sleep.
ANYONE have any ideas of other sleeping meds I can try? I cannot take the newer benzos because of my past Xanax addiction but I was thinking maybe Halcion? It's abuse potential is comparable to Ambien, from what I've read in the literature. At this point I will try anything that helps me fall asleep and stay asleep.
Oh, yeah, and if anyone has any advice about what to do about the terrible acne induced by Parnate (which has recently taken over my back, shoulders, and chest as well - ugh! - and doesn't seem to be responding to Differin and Duac), that would be great.
poster:halcyondaze
thread:724283
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20070119/msgs/724283.html