Should I try sleeping pills?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I’ve been having a problem over the last few months where I can’t get a good sleep cycle going. It all started one fateful night when I just couldn’t fall asleep. I used to have everything timed nicely. I’m very anal retentive and tend to follow a daily schedule.

I used to go to bed at 12:15, be asleep by 12:30, and wake at 7:30.

If I had to, I could stay up til 2 or so before I started feeling tired.

Well one night I couldn’t go to be at ALL around midnight. So I stay up til 2 watching TV, I start feeling tired, but just toss and turn until like 5, and finally I fall asleep and wake at like 9 (luckily it wasn’t a work day.)

Since then I don’t really remember the last time I had a good night’s sleep.

I’ll go 2 days without sleep regularly (very occasionally I’ve gone over 60 hours without sleep), unable to fall asleep until I feel completely exhausted physically and mentally. I cannot develop a regular sleep schedule. I’ll find myself asleep at 6pm when I’m home from work, awake at 6:30 am the day of work, having not been able to sleep at all the night before et cetera.

If I could just force myself to go to sleep at 12 or so like usual and actually sleep for the 7 or so hours I need I think I’d be okay, but I can’t. Even on the very rare occasions I fall asleep when I’m supposed to, I wake up after 2-3 hours and can’t fall asleep again for quite some time.

I’ve seen tons of sleeping pills advertised on TV, so I think I’m going to try them out. I’ve always stayed away from them, because I hear of people developing addictive tendencies towards them and et cetera, and I also have a distrust of OTC drugs designed to put me to sleep.

So what do you guys think? Obviously I’m not expecting a real medical diagnosis but so many people have had trouble sleeping I’m sure some dopers have had this experience?

2

Not me but my husband who has regular insomnia…

He tried the OTC sleep aids and while they did put him to sleep, they didn’t keep him asleep. He still woke up after 3-4 hours and then couldn’t get back to sleep and didn’t want to take another pill.

The only thing that’s really worked consistently for him in the past is regular daily exercise and not drinking and not smoking. We went on the wagon for 2 months last year and during that time were working out 6 days a week and he had a good night’s sleep 6 nights out of 7 on average.

My experience with OTC sleep aids is that they leave me feeling very drowsy and lethargic the next day. Like a sleep hangover from which you can’t quite wake.

Good luck. Sweet dreams.

3

I take an antihistamine (Diphenhydramine HCL) if I need help going to sleep and warm milk really helps, too. For sleep, anything really, start by looking at diet and exercise first. I know this is basic, but basics are generally overlooked in problem solving situations.

Are you having problems from sleep deprivation like hearing things that aren’t real or believing things that aren’t real? Are you falling asleep when you should be awake: at school/work, when you are driving. These would be serious. Are you getting at least six hours of sleep, total, per day? What I am getting at is lack of sleep is a problem, awkward sleep patterns are just a pain in the ass. If you often go long periods of time with NO sleep, you might consider if you have other signs of mania (paranoia, impulsiveness, stuff like that). If this is the case seek help, it’s better than waking up naked on a pinkroom floor in some unknown hospital. :rolleyes:

If a doctor prescribes you a sleeping medication, it will likely be some narcotic, likely Ambien, and it will be addictive rather than have addictive tendancies. This should be “last resort”. Don’t go to a doctor unless you start having real problems.

Good luck.

4

Modern sleeping tablets won’t help much. They are designed to get you off to sleep and then quickly dissipate. If you go to sleep for a few hours and then wake up you will be no better off. I suspect that you reasons other than sleep hygiene for your sleep disturbances and I think a chat to an MD may be a good idea.

5

The other thing is - don’t get wound up about it all if you are functioning OK.

I stayed at my brother’s over Christmas and remarked to my sister-in-law that whenever I stay there I get up during the night to go to the toilet and wake up momentarily every couple of hours. I never do this at home but I don’t worry that I do it there - I kind of like the fact that I remember more dreams each morning.

When I was nursing I used to tell insomniac patients that laying quietly in bed was 80% as good as sleep (I don’t know where I learned this but it must have been true) and avoiding the agitation of sleeplessness certainly helped.

6

I would also recommend against sleeping pills highly. Try everything else in the world first, they are very addictive.

Of course, you are talking to someone who *always * thinks drugs are the ultimate last resort. (Unless we’re talking about a glass of merlot or burgundy. :smiley: )

7

Check this out

There’s some good information here.

Good luck.

8

Well, I’m going to throw out a request that you talk to your doctor about Ambien.

I was having some major sleeping problems awhile back, and Ambien has been a Godsend for me. Yes, it can be addictive if you let it (i.e. you don’t follow the way it’s prescribed), but I’ve been using it periodically for well over a year with no problems. I don’t use it often – maybe once or twice every other week. What I’ve found is that it kinda “resets” my sleeping patterns. I get such a great sleep with it – getting true rest – that it leaves me good to go for a while.

It doesn’t really make you drowsy – in fact, you take it, go off to bed, and a half hour later, you might be like, ok, when’s this stuff gonna work? Then suddenly, click – out go your lights. And I tend to have a black, dreamless, eight-hour sleep from it. The best part about Ambien? Absolutely no residual drowsiness once I awake (you’ve got issues if you don’t allow yourself the full eight hours after you take it, though). I feel refreshed, rested, and better yet, I sleep better for a good while afterwards thanks to it.

Of course, YMMV with any of this, but I do suggest you ask about it. Great, great stuff – true nectar from the pharmaceutical gods. :slight_smile:

9

I forgot to add – someone mentioned diet and exercise. I can vouch for this. Since I’ve started a regular exercise routine and began watching what I ate, I’ve had less need for the Ambien. Exercise especially has played a huge role in this.

Good luck!

10

I would recommend trying an OTC sleeping pill as a first measure. Occassionally I will get into a pattern where I can’t get to sleep. Once that starts to happen, I take a sleeping pill one night, it usually knocks me out and resets my sleep pattern. Sometimes I do it a second night just for good measure, but once I’m back on my pattern, everything’s good again. So from my experience I’d say try it. Don’t do it for more than a couple nights in a row and if it doesn’t work, look for other alternatives. But what do you have to lose by trying?

btw, I haven’t had problems with grogginess the next day, but everyone’s different so you might want to try on a night when you don’t have to go to work the next day. OTOH, if you’re exhausted at work from lack of sleep, how much worse will it be to have gotten some sleep but still be a little groggy?

Good luck!

11

I think I remember something from AP psychology class about sleeping pills depressing the REM cycle, which is bad. But I don’t know for a fact. Anyone else know anything about this?

12

Try some sleeping pills because take my word for it they will give you the best sleep of your life.

13

Not to mention that if you’re one of the unlucky few, it causes hallucinations. Massive hallucinations. And vomiting.

14

No one has mentioned Melatonin yet. It can be found with other dietary supplements and promotes sleep. When my wonderful daughter had problems sleeping, her physician told us to give her Melatonin. It really did the trick… ask your doctor if it would be feasible to try it before anything heavier. It’s not addictive and it’s pretty inexpensive also. I took it myself to see what it was like and the only problem I noticed was a little sleepiness in the morning. IMHO it works better than dipenhydramine.

15

As several others have said, do talk to your doctor, especially if you’re taking any other meds. Most OTC “sleep aids” are basically the same stuff as Benedryl. For some people they work, for some they don’t. In my case, the antihistamine actually keeps me awake – tired, but awake.

Presumably you’ve eliminated the obvious, like caffeine? Tried the obvious, like warm milk, toast, etc.? Boring books?

I had Ambien a couple times, and did not enjoy the effects. Yes, I fell off to sleep almost immediately, but when I woke up I did not feel relaxed. It was just like the hours disappeared, but otherwise I felt the same as before. And I had weird dreams. My daughter tried it once and claimed it had absolutely no effect at all, which I find hard to believe, but there was no reason for her to lie about it.

You also have to be careful, if you do take any sleep aids, that you do so at a time when you will have 8 hours or so before you have to do anything requiring concentration, like driving. If you have to get up at 6 a.m., you can’t wait until midnight to take the pills.

16

For me, it certainly works better than antihistamine sleeping pills…in fact, too well. It works on into the next day and gives me a massive hangover. And thats at the lowest recommended dosage!

If you get the go-ahead to try melatonin, perhaps try the lower doses first (100 mcg?) as that is plenty enough for me, and the larger ones may be too effective. But they have a good likelihood of being able to help you reset your sleep schedule.

17

I think your symptoms do suggest that sleeping pills may help you - if you just need to get started back on sleeping right, that’s what they’re good for. See a doctor and ask about Ambien. It just helps you get to sleep, and it dosen’t give you the hangover some of them do. It’s not addictive if you just use it every so often to help you get to sleep - my doctor gave me 20 and said I should try to use them to set up a routine but he wouldn’t give me any more for at least a month. He was very leery of giving out medicine with a potential for addiction, but he felt that sleeping pills could be very effective when used appropriately. In this particular case I needed then partly because medications had messed up my normal sleep schedule. (This was a psychiatrist, not my GP.) They were very helpful to me and I did not need more than those 20.