Insomnia cures, please.

In My Humble Opinion
21

Yes.

January before last, I fell on the ice and severely sprained my ankle. In the ER, they gave me Darvocet. I asked them if I could take it with my other meds–and specifically asked about the Ambien–and they said yes, yes, yes, Ambien is soooo mild, and Darvocet is soooo mild, that it won’t matter.

I had my annual review at work about a week later. I almost never take sleep meds, but I was in the middle of a raging bout of insomnia. My mentor scheduled my review for 8 a.m., pretty much because she knew mornings were a problem for me, and she had a beef with this.

Lucky her, I ended up giving her a lot of ammo.

So, in order to sleep the night before, I took an Ambien.

The next morning, I apparently did get up sometime after my review–at 9:30 or so. I don’t remember much of what I did, but I do remember a few snippets. Specifically, me calling both the head of the litigation department and my mentor and babbling off a lot of obvious lies about why I hadn’t been at my review. Think along the lines of “the dog ate my homework.”

When I finally sobered up, I called my regular doctor, who flipped out about what the ER doc had done. She wrote a letter to my boss and my mentor to explain that I was the victim of gross malpractice, but the damage was pretty much done.

22

At least an hour of somewhat vigorous exercise (walking is fine) in the early evening OUTDOORS, IN FRESH AIR AND SUNLIGHT. A half glass of milk and a light snack about 1/2 hour before bedtime. Sweet dreams :slight_smile:

23

Lessee, is your bedroom really dark? The more light, the worse your quality of sleep. Go to bed and wake up at the same time every day. No naps. Keep your room cool (I think I remember 72 degrees being optimal). Quiet is important, I’ve used earplugs for years and it really helps. If you’ve got a bed partner (sounds kinda silly), or pets that sleep with you, you might want to look into seperate rooms, for a while at least, and keeping the pets out.

Though you’ve already ruled out melatonin, I wanted to add that it can give you nightmares. Really bad nightmares. Other things to try; hops, skullcap, and wild lettuce among others. A good herbal remedy type of a book can provide a long list of things you might want to look over with your doctor in regard to side effects and their actual proven effectiveness. The best I’ve ever gotten was ‘somewhat effective,’ but YMMV of course. Good luck, insomnia sucks doesn’t it?