I’ve taken mild sleep aids before (like Sominex and Simply Sleep), but now I’ve been prescribed Temazepam/Restoril, which isn’t an over the counter drug, so I’ve heard it’s a lot stronger and more potent. It kind of makes me more intimidated of it. Anyone ever try it or know someone on it?
And what sleep aids/drugs (legal, of course) have you experience with and which works best for you?
ETA: I’m not looking for medical advice, by the way, just experiences with various sleep aid pills.
I take 1/2 an Ambien and melatonin every night. I’ve never been a good sleeper, and if I take one or the other but not both, I won’t sleep . They start kicking in about 45 minutes after I’ve taken them, and they make me drowsy, but I can ignore it if I have to. I don’t feel dopey the next day.
StG
50-100 mg of Trazadone for me and I am out like a light, every night.
I use temazepam most nights … I can stay wide awake through it if I choose though (can keep reading a book all night) … but do find it helps a bit. I do have an odd sleeping disorder though.
When I first started taking it I found I had to ensure I had at least 8+ hours to sleep or I would wake up all dopey and find it hard to get going for hours. Now it doesn’t have that effect … if I’m desperate for sleep I’ll take more tablets to try to really knock me out (approved by my doctor).
Remember that OTC sleep aids rely on the side effects of antihistamines. I never like them because the sleep they give me isn’t good sleep. And I wake up with a tired effect the next day. I’m awake but my body feels tired.
One really odd thing that effects me is novocaine or whatever drug my dentist used. It didn’t make me tired, but I tell you after I have a dental procedure where I get my tooth numbed, I sleep SO WELL that night. I guess it’s a psychological effect, but it works for me
I take a timed release Ambien. It works reasonably well for me. But I’ve been having more bad nights lately than I was used to, so I spoke to my doctor about it and he figured I could try something else to give the Ambien a rest.
I tried Lunesta. Once. I went right back on the Ambien afterwards.
I used to sleep really, really well, until I started taking Chantix two years ago when I quit smoking. That interrupted my sleep severely, so then I started taking alprazolam to get and stay asleep. That worked so well that I kept taking it to sleep way after I stopped the Chantix. I quit the alprazolam a few months ago, and I still have problems getting to sleep. Now I take an over the counter thing, called doxylamine. It doesn’t make me feel really sleepy like other things, but I do fall asleep really fast. It works as well as the alprazolam but I feel much safer with it.
I use ambien on some nights, temazepam on others (mixing those, I gather from alarmed looks on druggist’s faces) is potentially fatal.
Having been using the nasty drugs since 2000 - I always develop a tolerance - which is why I have the 2 scripts - I now need 1 1/2 or 2 pills/night (2 ambien failed to work last night), and no doc will prescribe more than 1/day.
Whether or not these pills are better for me than the alcohol + diphenhydramine (the antihistamine listed as active ingredient in Sominex, et. al.) I was using is open to debate.
I have used (and still do) Ambien (gen) on occassion. Works fine if you dont take it every night.
You will have no weird problems if you follow this one simple rule: once the pill is past your lips, you do NOT, under any circumstance do anything but bedtime stuff. Brush yor teeth, some tea (but do NOT use the stove, nuke the water instead), watch TV, read a book, maybe a little snack. ** Never, ever get in the car, **leave the house, or do anything where it would be a disaster if you fell asleep in the middle of doing it (which is why you don;t use the stove to boil the water).
The worst thing that will happen then is that you will wake up and not remember the last few pages you read, have a untouched cup of tea, and so forth. Sometimes, you think you are awake but go to bed and don’t remember the last few minutes. Sometimes you know you need to go to bed right now.
Really, as long as you follow that simple rule, you’ll be fine.
Oh, and no booze, I guess half a glass of wine might be OK if your MD sez so.
If you use OTC sleep aids, it’s cheaper and perhaps safer to just get generic benadryl, and take a mild OTC pain reliever of your choice.
One other good choice is Celestial Seasonings Sleepy Time, I add half a shot of booze after it’s done steeping.
Be careful with booze and sleep. As little as 1 drink, (more often 2) can cause you to go to sleep- but then it’s poor quality sleep and you often wake up several times, then are not refreshed in the morning. Some can handle one bottle of beer (really dark beer makes me drowsy) or a modest glass of wine.
You should consult your MD.
I tried melatonin. It gave me all sorts of scary side effects, like sleepwalking.
I had a couple of really great nights’ sleep while using codeine. Hardly any side effects the next day either.
Nyquil is a good one, although I would recommend trying to find one without acetaminophen.
I’m one who will tell you to avoid benzodiazepines if you possibly can. Do remember that Restoril is only supposed to be used on a short term basis, or as needed. There are many other types of prescription drugs that can be tried first, as well as “natural” remedies.
That said–the short amount of time I took Ambien (a non-benzodiazepine, which means it’s actually similar for some reason), I found it didn’t do anything for me. Klonopin merely removed my anxiety, which helped me sleep–until I got addicted to it after a couple years of not being told that you aren’t supposed to take it on a continual basis. And then they put me on a higher dose, which really messed me up.
Sorry–it seems I’m bringing up my withdrawal a bit too often lately. But surely it’s relevant here.
Ambien seems to work pretty well for me. And I’ve never had the “did something I can’t remember” issue. They just make me feel sort of pleasantly relaxed and I sleep through the night, something I don’t generally do on my own.
My doctor has me on occasional “as needed” dosage and likes for me to stay at around 10 or fewer pills per month. My insomnia tends to go in cycles. It’ll be bad for awhile and then “normal” for several weeks to a few months, and then will start getting bad again.
Hope that helps. Ambien is the only prescribed sleeping meds I’ve ever used. Other than that I’ve occasionally used OTC pills.
I love The Traz. My doctor told me it is an old anti-anxiety drug that is rarely used for its original purpose because it makes most people too drowsy. For me, not being able to fall asleep because all of the day’s doings kept running around my brain, it was ideal. It’s also relatively short-term. I don’t wake up feeling “drugged up.”
I did not like Ambien.
I used temazepam for an extended period and found it worked great at first, but tolerance rose very quickly. Quitting it was quite unpleasant, with rebound insomnia and other withdrawal effects.
Both it and Ambien cause me severe rebound insomnia even after short-term use (or even a single dose). I won’t take benzodiazepines or Ambien-like drugs at all anymore if I can at all help it—the sleep it allows is just borrowed time that has to be repaid with future tosses and turns.
None of the OTC meds are worth much, IMO. Valerian did zero, melatonin had a brief period of efficacy followed by a drop-off (and a surge in vivid nightmares), and the brand-name stuff (pretty much all of which is diphenhydramine, I think) just makes me feel like complete crap the following day.
These days, a couple of drinks does the trick most nights.
I’ve had fairly good luck with melatonin (the sublingual, 1-2 mg, from GNC) when I need to push my sleep schedule earlier or am changing time zones.
I also recently took some Lunesta on a long red-eye flight (to New Zealand): heaven. I actually slept for a few hours and got there fairly rested, instead of crazed with tiredness. In contrast, I’ve had absolutely no luck at all with over the counter sleeping aids – they just make me feel weird, not tired.
I’d highly suggest against taking double the recommended amount.
While I was deployed I had a really messed up sleeping cycle, so I would be given Ambien.
After a while I felt that it wasn’t having the desired effect so I took two. After about an hour of not falling asleep I got up to get some water, I immediately laid back down, I got insanely dizzy.
I also took I think 6 in a two day time period. I wanted to sleep for two days straight, and I did.
Should probably not do that either.
I tried Trazodone. Once. Made me miserable - it isn’t supposed to be a diuretic, but it was for me. Big time. May have to do with my (advanced) kidney failure and water retention.
Generally, I also vote NO on benzo diazepines (I’ve had several for various reasons) they are just bad news - addiction, withdrawal, the usual.
Lunesta is a gorgeous non-benzo, but at $200/mo, and not covered by insurance…
Like others have mentioned…I go through phases with insomnia. I will be fine for a month or two or three, and then go for several weeks where it’s constant, to the point that I feel like I’m underwater during the day. Like even 3 hours of sleep is a blessing.
I’m also rather terrified of sleep aids, to the point that the only one I’ll take consistently is two Benadryl. However, they take a couple of hours to work for me. And I can “fight them” if I want to. Usually I don’t; if I take them two hours or so before I expect to be remotely sleepy, and do something to distract myself, I will find myself relaxing enough to “allow myself” to go to bed and sleep. (I don’t know if that makes any sense, but sometimes–in the midst of a bad insomnia bout–I will put off going to bed because I dread it so much. Like I can nod off on the sofa but I can’t fall sleep in bed, because my brain associates my bed with not sleeping.)
Imagine my surprise at Walgreens when I looked at the ingredients for Benadryl and a lot of “sleep aids” and realized it was the same active ingredient. Generic Benadryl is cheaper, so that’s what I buy. 
Mr. Levins occasionally takes Unisom, and he says it works but it gives him horrible dreams. And half my problem is staying asleep, so that wouldn’t work…
I was prescribed Vicodin after surgery several years ago, and it made me sleep like a baby…but that isn’t its purpose and it’s highly addictive so I threw it away. My boss takes some prescription combo of Vicodin and Xanex that he swears by. But he’s had multiple back surgeries, and he drinks a lot, and prescription drugs plus booze freak me out also.
I’ve thought about going to a doc to get a sleep aid scrip, but right when I get desperate enough to try it, my sleep pattern shifts and I’m able to get a good night’s rest.
And I’m not gonna lie…alcohol kills my menstrual cramps and on occasion I use it to sleep at night also. Two vodka lemonades, or a stout glass of Grand Marnier on the rocks, can generally make me sleepy enough to get the job done.
I don’t like using anything as a crutch; I will be following this thread along with the OP.
I’m currently trying Klonopin (.5 - 1 mg per night) to kill the anxieties I have at bedtime. Results are so-so. It takes hours to kick in and I wake up between 3-4 AM every single night and have trouble falling back asleep until it’s time to get up and then all I want to do is sleep. I’m able to shake off the feeling pretty quickly though.
Frankly I’m not so sure that my sleep doc is the right one for me. We had a long talk about how I only got anxious when trying to sleep and at no other time, yet he wrote “possible diagnosis of GAD” on my encounter form. Gah! I’m no mental health professional (and neither is he) but I know that it’s not GAD. He really wasn’t listening to me and seemed to be throwing out random solutions. I’m thinking of asking to see another doc at the same clinic but am not sure how to go about doing that. I’m pretty sure the Klonopin isn’t the answer. Maybe I need a non-benzo to just knock me out.
I have been to multiple doctors for sleep issues.
I am concerned that you are taking Klonopin to sleep. My sleep doctors all refused to prescribe benzodiazepines for sleep problems except as a last resort because of the huge potential for physical addiction. Benzos are very hard to withdraw from and require an extended tapering-off period that can be utterly miserable.
The doctors I saw wanted to start with psych meds that make people drowsy because they have far less potential for physical addiction. Low doses of trazodone (an antidepressant) can work. If you have anxiety problems at bedtime, as I did for awhile, a low dose of an atypical antipsychotic like Risperdal or Seroquel can work very well. The only reason I stopped taking those was that I have an unusually strong reaction to anything sedating, even at a very low dose, and I couldn’t wake up the next morning in time for work. I had no other side effects.