Thread: For those with REAL insomnia

do you take any stimulants like caffeine or pre-workout stuff?

do you have any consistent schedule like work or school that makes you get up at certain time of the day?

Trust me man, all angles for me have been attacked to try to figure it out, which is why I'm going to specialist. I could drink 10 redbulls or not and fall asleep at the same time, this is no joke.

I'm really just interested in what people have done, not asking me questions (honestly not trying to sound like a dick, cause i'am not) I'm just looking for straight responses to what helped them.

I don't suffer it to your extent.
I workout just before i go to bed so when i am finished i feel tired and doze off to sleep.
Mind you i got to bed at 10:00pm i will wake up at 5:00am.


I would write out what you do in an entire day.
Then look again and again you might have missed something.

i had two years of intense, nearly life-threatening insomnia. i have two things to say in regards to treatment:
1. trazadone will work at effective dosages. it's the only one that worked for me. doctors typically prescribe 10mg or 25mg or maybe 50mg as a sleep aid. but, here's a hint: if you lose your legs in combat, and they want you to sleep, they give you 400mg, or more fuck. this is how i found out about it. so, get a shitload. try 300mg (was my sweetspot). you'll wake up with a cotton mouth, feeling like you got hit by a truck, but gloriously rested.
2. you're not gonna want to hear this, but insomnia has a cause. something in your life/mind is doing this to you. find it and fix it.

i have suffered insomnia (at differing levels of difficulty) for as long as i can remember. i have found 2 things that work:

1 - drinking. i don't mean getting drunk, but 4 or 5 whiskey drinks relax me to the point i can usually go to sleep.

2 - klonopin. it is actually an anxiety med, but works great for helping me sleep if i take it at bedtime. it helps my mind stop racing and allows me to fall asleep.

for what it's worth, alcohol had no effect on my insomnia, just made it worse actually. laying in bed awake while slowly sobering up is deeply unfun.

Originally Posted by stemple

for what it's worth, alcohol had no effect on my insomnia, just made it worse actually. laying in bed awake while slowly sobering up is deeply unfun.

then you didn't drink enough, lol.

i'm just kidding. insomnia is no laughing matter. i wouldn't advocate abusing alcohol to anyone anyway. just sharing what helps me.

good luck bro.

I used Klonopin for awhile, but it does have the potential for addiction. I currently use Trazadone. Doc just kept raising my dose until we found the right one for me. I have good results at 200mg, and doc seems to believe it is a far superior option compared to the Klonopin. Good luck.

Are you mentally stressed out, finances, etc? I ask this because I've been battling for the last 3 years, and I tried about 3 or 4 different drugs, yes they helped, but like another poster mentioned, need to find the cause. I know it's frustrating, hang in there.

I've always stayed up late, even since a baby from what my parents told me. My sleep pattern just got to be later and later to the point where its messed up now. Trazodone makes me sick, as in I wake up the next day and feel like I'm going to Puke for hours, so that's not something I want to do. Hopefully the specialist figures it out.

Sent from my phone.

Try a new mattress maybe.

trazadone aint no joke. my girlfriend has a script for it. she doesn't take. i tried it and it knocked me the fuck out. the problem was the next day, i had such a hangover from it, i felt worse than when i don't sleep good.

I take 5 - 10mg of Ambien every night to sleep. You have to fluctuate your dose. You build up a tolerance to Ambien. That is why I try to stick around 5mg. I bite a 10mg in half then leave the other half on the night stand. If I wake up early or can't feel asleep, I will take the other half. I have tried all the same pills you have. I know Lunesta works for a lot of people I know with sleeping problems. That did not work for me though. You have to get into a very strict schedule before you go to bed. I have read numerous books on sleep. Kelju also suffers from insomnia. He takes seroquel. That did not work to well for me. It helped me sleep for long periods of time but did not get me to sleep. PM if you want to talk more about it.

Ketotifen knocks me out. I'll sleep for 10 hours on it. But I wake up Groggy as hell and meaner than a rattle snake.

Originally Posted by stemple

i had two years of intense, nearly life-threatening insomnia. i have two things to say in regards to treatment:
1. trazadone will work at effective dosages. it's the only one that worked for me. doctors typically prescribe 10mg or 25mg or maybe 50mg as a sleep aid. but, here's a hint: if you lose your legs in combat, and they want you to sleep, they give you 400mg, or more fuck. this is how i found out about it. so, get a shitload. try 300mg (was my sweetspot). you'll wake up with a cotton mouth, feeling like you got hit by a truck, but gloriously rested.
2. you're not gonna want to hear this, but insomnia has a cause. something in your life/mind is doing this to you. find it and fix it.

Trazadone gave me a wicked stupor the next day and messed with my balance I have scrips for 150 mg doc said up to 4 pills but I didn't like the balance issues when I was working construction

Originally Posted by GymRat4Life

Trust me man, all angles for me have been attacked to try to figure it out, which is why I'm going to specialist. I could drink 10 redbulls or not and fall asleep at the same time, this is no joke.

I'm really just interested in what people have done, not asking me questions (honestly not trying to sound like a dick, cause i'am not) I'm just looking for straight responses to what helped them.

I have tried every Rx sleeping pill on the market plus all the OTC stuff valerian root, Benadryl, melatonin you name it I tried it.

What WORKS for me is 3 mg Ativan (lorazepam) @ bedtime sublingual
and I sleep 8 hours feel great! Been taking that for 4 years now.

Hope that helps

Just lower your tren dose, dick

lol.

Originally Posted by jagbender

Trazadone gave me a wicked stupor the next day and messed with my balance I have scrips for 150 mg doc said up to 4 pills but I didn't like the balance issues when I was working construction

Takes the body a few weeks to get used to it. Doc started me off on a low dose and built it up over time. I understand it can come with a host of sides if you just jump right into a higher dose. I started off wth 50mg and built up to 200 over the course of a few weeks, and didn't have much problem with the sides mentioned. But then again, my insomnia is very bad; I had whole weeks where I hardly slept at all. Glad you found something that works for you.

Originally Posted by MDR

Takes the body a few weeks to get used to it. Doc started me off on a low dose and built it up over time. I understand it can come with a host of sides if you just jump right into a higher dose. I started off wth 50mg and built up to 200 over the course of a few weeks, and didn't have much problem with the sides mentioned. But then again, my insomnia is very bad; I had whole weeks where I hardly slept at all. Glad you found something that works for you.

I used to take 1/4 of a 150 mg the stuff would knock me out. I couldn't imagine taking 600 mg LOL I had some awesome dreams on the trazadone! almost like trippin.

I love the Ativan it works and I don't seem to built up a tolerance

My mom has had sleeping problems and just recently had some lab work done to test for cortisol levels, I believe. It involved saliva testing at specific times throughout twenty four hours. The results showed that her levels were out of wack, and the doc wrote a script (dunno, sorry - could ask if you were interested), and she is now sleeping for the first time in years.

Not sleeping pills, but something to effect her levels so she could sleep. In other words, not just treating the symptoms, but addressing the root cause.

for me,
otc shit sux
restoril- latent effect, wake up drowsy
serax- latent effect
ativan- latent effect
valium- latent effect
xanax- works well but loses effectiveness
ambien- trippin ballz but then would sleep great and wake up energetic. quit bc i was calling fam/friends and trying to cook in middle of the night sometimes.
opioids- i can accomplish tasks all day and sleep all night but way too addictive
i'm sleeping better now that i'm on ritalin. my brain never shuts off and this does help. still not where i wanna be.

you can always go to a psych doc. they tend to listen and are more liberal with prescribing methods....meaning they will sometimes use older/cheaper drugs off-label instead of using new/on-patent drugs that are expensive and heavily marketed.

Originally Posted by GymRat4Life

Okay, for you guys who really do have insomnia, have been told by a doctor you do.

I've tried literally every sleeping pills on the market, nothing seems to work. For you guys whos tried pill after pill, what finally worked for you and what did you have to do to get it?

I'm seeing a specialist for my sleeping problems, its became so bad, that I don't sleep until the sun comes out and I sleep in until 4-5PM because I feel sick if I don't. It has started to effect my life.

Ambien seemed to have worked somewhat at 10mg, but then my other doctor decided to stop giving me them because I said it wasn't really working (he only wrote for 5mg when I was doing 10mg). A friend told me about a website to order them, i'm thinking of buying some and trying 15mg and going from there.

I have tried, ambien, trazodone, lunesta, rozerem, otc, tea, etc etc. The only thing that seemed to work somewhat is ambien. A least I was falling asleep 3-4 hours earlier then i'am now.

What the fuck do I do fellas?

Don't drink any caffeine after about 2:00pm. If ambien worked, but your doc stopped prescribing it, maybe you need a new doc. Although sleeping pills like that are addictive and may eventually stop working as your tolerance builds up. It sounds like there's some underlying issue causing the insomnia; perhaps depression or an anxiety disorder. You might be a good candidate for an antidepressant, like Lexapro or Zoloft. I'd talk to the doc about that. Basic sleeping pills aren't meant to be taken long term.

I also notice I get tired around 10-12, and fall asleep a least an hour without any medication but then I wake up and can't fall back asleep for hours. Tonight that happened, I think I slept for about 2.5 hours.

U probably need an anti-depressant. Don't feel shamed or embarrassed to go that route. It will probably help and your quality of life will be a lot better.

Originally Posted by GearsMcGilf

U probably need an anti-depressant. Don't feel shamed or embarrassed to go that route. It will probably help and your quality of life will be a lot better.

I got tested for various things from the specialist I saw, so those tests will tell me however I can tell you I enjoy life more then most people, so for them to come back and say "yes your depressed" would be very surprising to me, but I guess you never know.

Taking an antipsychotic drug (such as an anti-depressant)
does not necessarily mean that you are depressed.
Many of these drugs have off-label uses which are used to
treat a variety of problems.

I suffered from extreme insomnia problems for several years.
Ask your doctor about the possibility of taking Seroquel.
Without this medication I honestly cannot sleep. Others have
reported results with Zyprexa.

it's funny to hear all these stories of trazadone hangovers. i had those for years, but i actually learned to love them -- i saw them as the fog of heavy sleep, i guess.

but yeah, at my worst, i remember taking 450mg of traz and it was nasty, woke up feeling like my brain had been in a vice grip all night.

anyway, for op, i guess the answer is to keep searching for the right chemical at the right does. be systematic in your approach and it'll be quick.