Posted by chdurie2 on October 12, 2000, at 20:19:19
In reply to Re: Link to insomnia from going through chronic pain?, posted by Racer on October 12, 2000, at 1:53:39
> Many sleep drugs are habit forming, and many can be addictive in very small amounts. Tolerance can be caused by a lot of factors, too. At the worst of my depression and anorexia, when I weighed about 110#, I could take 80mg of valium on rare occasions and still walk and talk as though normal.
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> My experience is that valium will relax me, but not put me to sleep. Xanax will put me to sleep, but after a short time, like two weeks, I go through such awful withdrawal that it's not worth taking.
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> The drug that works for me, which I take rarely, is an anti-histimine. It makes me groggy the next day, but it puts me right to sleep.
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> As for long term, have you tried behavior modification? That's worked great for me. I was a chronic insomniac, sleeping a couple of hours per night, after tossing and turning for hours and hours. It's hard to remember what happened or how I did it, but I know that part of it was only getting into bed to sleep. Any other time of the day, any time I wanted to stretch out and relax, I'd choose the sofa rather than the bed. Then, getting into bed, I'd read for a few minutes, to relax myself. Then, if I wasn't getting sleepy, I'd tell myself a pleasant story. In the midst of depression, that's damn hard to do -- but it's possible if you force yourself. Let's see, some I remember were giving riding lessons to the cast of the X-Files, teaching them the real way to ride, not just the sit here, hold this that actors usually get. Another was being swept off my feet at a dance by a tall, dark and gorgeous hunka man. (That one was particularly nice: he heard me discussing favorite slow dance songs with a group of friends, and had the dj play them all, so that he could dance to them with me. By the time they got to Miracles by the Jefferson Airplane, I was melting. Couldn't stay awake for the denoument!) Some of the stories got to be so familiar that I'd drift off before I got through to the end.
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> Oh, and the most important part of all this: I get that wild thinking, where you list compulsively all the things wrong with you, everything you've ever done wrong in your life, and how awful and worthless you are. That will keep you up, days on end! I had to learn to breathe, to stop the train of thought, and to force my mind onto another track. That was the hardest part for me.
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> Good luck, and may your pain stay far away.Racer: Thanks for this. i know what you're saying about the difficulty of weaning off even small amounts of sleep meds. for a while, a long time ago, i could do .25 of klonopin and be okay but i couldn't ditch it altogether. then i had to give it up for my sleep study, and i practically went berzerk, but decided to use the chance to try to stay off. for a couple of weeks while waiting for results, i could go without about half the time. then i listened to the doc who said forget about even trying.
the last two or three years i have been so sleep deprived and screwed up my circadian rhythms so badly that i'd be afraid now to try to go without. (although i did unsuccessfully try last nite after reading this when sleepy - but i forgot to tell myself the stories.) the last few weeks on seroquel have been a blessing. but while driving today, i found myself thinking about your dj story and how nice that sounded. and i just reminded myself not to get obcessed about everything i've ever done wrong in my life. i need to remind myself and get reminders of that all the time, night or day.
but when my sleep is stable enuf, i think i'm going to try your "fairy tale" mode of going to sleep. giving myself something to have sweet dreams about would probably do me good.thanks again.
caroline
poster:chdurie2
thread:993
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20001011/msgs/1013.html