This is part of the vicious cycle of insomnia. Yes, you certainly feel like taking a nap during the day but if you do, then you practically guarantee being unable to get to sleep at bedtime. It sucks. So you stumble thru your days in an insomniac fog, hoping that you’ll be exhausted enough to overcome the usual stumbling blocks involved in getting to sleep. Sometimes it works but many times it doesn’t. It can suck your willpower to white knuckle it thru the groggy days right away.
This is me. I think it’s called “terminal insomnia”, as in the insomnia kicks in at the end of your sleeping time.
I use Lunesta, but limit it to once or twice a week, as I don’t want to get dependent. It keeps me asleep until 5 a.m. or so, and I feel so much better after a full eight hours of sleep. I like to take it the night before I expect to have a busy day at work, because I’m rested and alert and able to handle the big workload.
Sounds like it really sucks! I consider myself very fortunate that I don’t have any sleep issues. I do wake up a lot during the night but I just look at the clock and go right back to sleep. I can’t sleep in on the weekends because I’ve had 8 hours and am wide awake by 7 or 7:30.
Thank you to whichever mod moved this from the Pit. I thought I was in MPSIMS. :smack: Some days I can function on only a few hours of sleep, but other days are like this.
Helena330 thank you for starting this thread. 
I’ve tried the liquid melatonin. I’m thinking that it’s not working for me, but I’m still playing around with dosing. I also got a few different brands, since I know quality can vary quite a bit.
Many of my very best days occur when I have no gigs and am simply working on my own projects. During these times, I will often go to sleep around 4am and wake around 8am. I then go back to sleep around 2pm and get up around 6pm. This schedule works well for me and leaves me feeling rested and alert when I am awake. Sadly, I have thus far been unable to convince the rest of the world to accept it or to allow me to continue with it.
That is such good advice. I seem to be out of the insomnia cycle at the moment, but a couple of years ago my body was doing the ‘sleep every second night’ thing, and it totally sucked. My mantra was “I may not be sleeping, but I’m relaxing. Relaxing is still good for me.”
My current sleep pattern, which is a little weird but is working for me, is to harness my natural sleep times to have two sleeps a day. I’d noticed for years that the two times of day when I could fall asleep, no matter how badly my insomnia was kicking up, were around 6am and around 2pm (10pm or so was another good time, but not as reliable as those two - if I left it till 11 I was sunk). So I’m currently harnessing the 2pm sleep window - I often have an hour long nap about that time. (This works for me because I work form home, obviously if I had to go into an office every day, then no go.)
This then gives me enough energy to function till midnight or so, then I can get to sleep fairly easily and get up about 7 the next morning.
So…naps. Not all bad!
ETA: Ha! Ninja’d by Bo!
I have talked to a number of fellow insoms and find a lot of agreement that the phrase “sleep whenever the body demands it, for however long the body demands it” is good advice.
But how does this comport with real world responsibilities like a job? Even just personal relationships? Sure, most insomniacs could find some relief if they were able to sleep anytime they wanted. Unfortunately, the number of insomniacs who could adopt this strategy would seem to be the minority.
One drug changed my life wrt sleeping issues…Ambien. It’s been an incredible help for me. My only real issue is my doc will only prescribe it one month at a time, and they have some sort of issue between the doctors office and the pharmacies (they are still using faxes, of all things :smack:), so maybe a quarter of the time there is some issue where I have to call the doctor, call the pharmacy, then make them work and play together. I’ve learned though to basically take half pills on the weekends to have a few pills held back for when they fuck up and make me wait a week or more for the cluster fuck to be sorted.
As I said, I have thus far been unable to convince the rest of the world to accept an 8-on/4-off schedule.
Ok but you characterized it as “good advice” from fellow insomniacs.
As in “yes, if I do that I also feel rested and alert”; much like Aspidistra’s post. I’m sorry if that wasn’t clearly expressed.
I took a fantastic sleep program. They call it sleep restriction. You go to bed only five hours before you’re going to wake up (so past midnight for most people), and believe me you go right to sleep.
Every week or two you go to bed 15 minutes early. It turns out the human clock cannot shift very fast at all. This means you need to prepare a month in advance for Daylight Savings Time (and getting out of it). I found it worked pretty well. I probably don’t sleep two nights a week still. Unfortunately Ambien is prescription only, so I can’t get a few pills for nights like that 
In the morning, I take a low dose of an old-school ADHD med. It keeps me from micronapping during the day, so I’m ready to sleep at night.
At dinner, I take a low dose of a relatively new anti-seizure med. It relaxes my startle reflex, so I’m not the world’s lightest sleeper.
1/2 hour before I go to bed, I take 5mg melatonin, a very low dose of a new antipsychotic-- so low, it actually is below what people with things like schizophrenia take, but in me, it seems to increase REM sleep, so I sleep more effectively, and I also take an old-school (tricyclic) antidepressant, because it stops my brain from racing, so as soon as I go to bed, I fall asleep.
(My husband is a morning sex person anyway.)
I have two PRNs in case I don’t fall asleep-- I have the occasional week of super-insomnia, and then I have days of jet lag, and the once a year Fall back. I need Ambien then. But I have to admit, just knowing that I have it, and can take it if I need it, keeps me from worrying myself into wakefulness. My other PRN is a benzo. The bottle actually says “for sleep and anxiety,” so I can take it before I go to the dentist.
I slepz gud now.
Anyone wants to know the exact names of the meds, PM me. It took a lot of trial and error to find the right mix, but I’ve been taking the “cocktail” for almost 15 years, except when I was pregnant.
This is basically what I was talking about when I referred to needing to stay up late enough and get up early enough to develop a normal sleep pattern. It doesn’t matter how much you did or didn’t sleep the night before, you go to bed at the same time regardless. Likewise with the time you get up in the morning; it doesn’t matter if you can sleep in, you just don’t. Every morning get up at the same early time. Eventually you will develop better sleep habits. But it’s pretty fucking difficult, IME/O.
(my bold)
Given the number of powerful medicines you are taking, are you even positive that the melatonin is doing anything? Like, have you taken out that ingredient and judged the effectiveness of the prescriptions alone?
ETA: I’m not suggesting that it applies to you but I’m reminded of the cancer patient who attributes their newfound health to the “miracle cure” that they used. That chemo and radiation? Phsst, it had no influence. 
Ugh.
Oh, yeah? Then why is ZzzzzQuil 20 proof?
In less stressful times, 50-150mg of trazadone and 2 otc Benadryls. The capsules because they work better (insomnia treatments are half witchcraft).
That’s really not prudent. Please be careful.