Do You Use Sleeping Pills?
- Thread starter PuppetPup
- Start date
Interesting Raindog. Colorado just made it legal.I take Simply Sleep every night (which is basically benadryl) except for about two nights a week, where I take Ambien one of those nights and Xanax another one of those nights. I have tried sleeping without anything and I sleep about 5 hours and then I'm wide awake. With two kids who frequently wake me up, I have to have something that makes me groggy enough to fall back asleep.If I'm under a lot of stress/anxiety - my Xanax intake increases, but never by more than 2-3 times a week, on really bad weeks.I'm trying to wean myself completely off of Ambien and only take Xanax once a week.
StockholmSiberian
New member
Yep, I take 30mg of Temazepam nightly since January. Having major insomnia since December. Developed a tremor under my left eyelid when I closed my eye. This was a major cause of insomnia. Temazepam worked well for about 8 weeks but gradually is losing effectiveness (like I thought it would - not a good long term solution). Just had botox injection under eyelid to freeze nerve. Supposed to take a few weeks for full effect to kick in. Will likely need to have injections every 3-4 months or so. If this works I will try to slowly ween myself of the Temazepam. I knew benzos are potentially very addicting and only recommended for short (1-2 week) periods but sometimes extenuating circumstances require chemical intervention. I really would not recommend benzos if you can avoid it. But like many here, I was suffering from major anxiety and for a while they did the trick. As my anxiety level decreased, I found I was sleeping better. Still having issues but not as bad as before where I would routinely be unable to sleep at all a few days a week.
Also in respect of sleep i was diagnosed recently with quite significant central sleep apnea (hypoapnea) apparently its even happening while i'm awake like when i'm on the PC watching tv etc its like i subconsciously take long pauses in my breathing then take a few really deep breaths. Its also very common in neuromuscular diseases. When i was first diagnosed i kind of freaked out a bit because i though that i may have been developing respiritory failure but the consultant reassured me i wasnt but it can be troublesome to treat. I did try a CPAP device but i never get on with it because it was a major problem for me to exhale like i wanted to. At the moment i'm not on any meds or cpap bipap or asv device and its something i may have to just put up with. 
I was sporadically using simply sleep and Tylenol pm type products. In April I could not rest well at all, so for around three weeks I used the products every night, interestingly that's when my twitching started. I have found some articles that mention muscle twitching can be a side effect of long term use of dyfenhydramime which is the active ingredient in those products. I rest great using them, but am now scared to.
christinasgirl123
Well-known member
None at all. I was given a sleeping pill once in hospital and I got really bad hallucinations and double visions. I spray lavender oil scent around when I cannot sleep . I know, I am a hippie 
. Personally I would for sure prefer a joint to a chemical drug if it is legal in your coutry. My alternative neighbour always wanted to cure my BFS with weed , and he was so obsessed with it I hardly dared to eat something over there. Cannot be stoned when caring for my toddlers and in Germany you need 48 hours after weed before you are allowed to drive my car, so I never had the chance to try this as a sleeping aid.
. Personally I would for sure prefer a joint to a chemical drug if it is legal in your coutry. My alternative neighbour always wanted to cure my BFS with weed , and he was so obsessed with it I hardly dared to eat something over there. Cannot be stoned when caring for my toddlers and in Germany you need 48 hours after weed before you are allowed to drive my car, so I never had the chance to try this as a sleeping aid.@Magnetizzum... I use Simply Sleep about 5 days a week (maybe more). I also read that muscle twitching is a side effect. When I first started twitching, I stopped taking them completely (and took Ambien, Kavinase (natural Gaba supporting supplement with phenibut in it) etc. instead and my twitching has never stopped. And, I notice I twitch less when using Simply Sleep rather than Xanax or Ambien.I have horrible sleep issues. If I take nothing at all, I get about 4 hours of very restless sleep.Mitra
I used ambien right after all of my symptoms started. It made me very depressed. Of course, I was already extremely depressed because of my symptoms. After the ambien I tried remeron (antidepressant) as a sleep aid one night. Never again, I had vivid scary dreams and I woke up with my pulse beating around 140 times a minute. Next, I tried resterol, which worked well but I felt tired all day. I also took the extended release version of ambien and it was okay. I took all of those sleep aids within about a 2 week time frame. I could not sleep because I had intense nerve pain in both of my forearms and tingling in both of my hands. For me it was a downward spiral of anxiety, depression, insomnia, and BFS symptoms that just began to snowball. I was able to sleep better after I got on Effexor and klonopin. Effexor got rid of the pain and klonopin calmed me down. It was just a matter of finding what worked for me. We all have different brain chemistry's and it is hard to tell how a drug will affect you until you actually take it. It also depends on the source of your insomnia. For me it was multiple things. A year and a half later and I sleep like a baby. I still take 1.25 mg of klonopin, but it is spread throughout the day. Hopefully one day I won't take anything. Once you go into that deep depression it takes a while to come out of most of the time. I hope that you find something that works for you. If at all possible don't take any drug to fall asleep. If you stay busy during the day physically it usually helps (ie. exercise). Also, if you can calm down in the evening with meditation or prayer or reading a boring book it might help. I will be praying for you. Trust me, I know what you are going through. It might not seem like it now, but it will get better. God bless.Jerad
I know this is a dead thread but i just thought it interesting as i am up trying to calm myself and sleep.I have been taking ambien for years along with a antidepressant trazodone. both a pretty high levels with little or no side effects or drowsiness next day. I still have to take a pill to relax but I have thought about trying weed, just never had the guts to try to get any as it is illegal here. Anyways I don't have any symptoms when on the drugs but I often wonder if taking them for so long made me prone to twitching, I never used to have neurological issues ( except ocd and insomnia) before the pills and since have had tinnitus, mal dembarqment, and twitching! the Dr and Neurologist dont believe this is a side effect of the pills but I wonder if they are just covering their buts so I wont try to sue them for malpractice. I am always trying to find out if others had been on heavy meds before thier twitching started to compare their stories to mine. I feel like if i could just get this crap out of my system I could heal faster but I would go days possibly weeks with little or no sleep, which would make the twitching worse. Ugh its a paradox for sure! I have tried every single thing out there for sleep that is non prescription but have had no success.
Adamk -Hey man,Thanks for keeping the thread alive, I think a lot of folks on here have sleeping problems and have to take stuff for it. Heck, the whole population has sleeping problems. Just my opinion, I would not worry about taking the sleeping pills right now. It is just one more thing that your mind has to process and worry about as a possible cause of what is going on with you. Get the sleep while you can and don't feel guilty about taking the pills. They, most likely did not cause what's going on with you. Maybe they were a factor, but who knows. Keep what you're doing constant and don't mess with the sleep now. Once you get more stable with what's going on, if you wanted, you could try to taper off those. I know when I went off ambien, even when I did not twitch, it was tough and it made me very jittery all day and restless when I slept; it took 2-3 weeks to get that sorted out. So don't worry about the sleeping pills now, just get the sleep where you can. Thinking about "if they have caused this" just makes everything worse. Go with what you know. Again, just my opinion. I have done the sleeping pill dance and would rather get the sleep than try to battle the symptoms; the self induced worry about what the drugs are doing to me; and the lack of sleep all at once. Hope it works out.