Need help with serious insomnia

[Ziiirp]

Low dose melatonine (200-500 micrograms) 1h before going to bed should help with falling asleep and waking up likewise.

 

[mr.buffnstuff]

Low dose melatonine (200-500 micrograms) 1h before going to bed should help with falling asleep and waking up likewise.

Micro grams? I'm sure the tabs I've got are 5mg?

These are what Ive got

https://www.ebay.co.uk/itm/111657225621

 

[Ziiirp]

Then try to get out a tenth out of it. IMHO 5mg is a massive overdose and will cause vivid nightmares.

 

[Valkyrie]

Me and my OH both have sleep problems due to over use of stims and ghb/gbl in the past. Here's what we've found.

Prescription :-

Tamazepam never worked very well for me but he uses small amounts successfully.

Diazepam (Valium) is good to calm a chattering mind.

Zolpidem (Ambiem) gets you to sleep but doesn't keep you asleep for very long. Good to get back to sleep after early hours waking.

Zopiclone didn't help either of us.

No longer legally available :-

Diclazepam we find similar to diazepam.

Etizolam is my favourite. Works well, good sleep.

Flubropazepam will knock you out when all else fails but will leave you very groggy next day, or even a few days if you're my OH.

Phenibut gives the best sleep ever the very first time you use it but tolerance and dependence builds very quickly. I use it 2-3 times a week and it gives me a spring in my step the next day. My OH doesn't use it anymore cos he gets withdrawals from it.

Sedative anti-histamines :-

Nytol (diphenhydramine) not particularly effective for either of us.

Phenergan (promethazine hydrochloride) 25mg, also the active ingredient in Sominex but it's much cheaper if you ask for phenergan at the pharmacy counter. Makes us feel groggy next day though.

Kirkland Sleep Aid (doxylamine succinate) inexpensive and available online.

Other :-

Melatonin is good if your sleep patterns are out of sync, available online.

------------

I have to reiterate the following advice from MDB :-

As with every drug that ive ever encountered tolerance is an absolute bastard if she does decide on any of the above, it would be ideal not to use a single substance more than once a week or so, that way hopefully avoiding building up ridiclous tolerances to any one substance and thus making them permanently innefective. Tolerance may drop initially after a break but very quickly climbs right back up to where it was at the worst point in time. A problem I have found with virtually every substance under the sun.

Also, absolutely NO BLUE SCREEN viewing 2-3 hours before bed or in the night, it really messes with melatonin and sleep cycles. My iPad has a night setting where it turns the screen yellow but I've also got yellow lens glasses so I can look at my phone.

If all else fails download some talking podcasts and get a pillow speaker. Pillow speakers are great at night cos once you're asleep and your head moves you don't hear it. Earphones will wake you up, especially when there's annoying jingles. When I resign myself to not sleeping and put on a podcast I often miss most of it cos I fall asleep.

I recommend :-

Untold: The Daniel Morgan Murder
Serial (Adnan Syed and Bowe Bergdahl)
Criminal
The Untold
Casefile True Crime

All worth a listen even if you're not an insomniac.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

Even before I got stuck on (and thankfully given lots of free) morphine and oxy, nice decent sized dose of opiates of some kind (aside from pod tea, and tramadol, both can be stimulating, tramadol is an SNRI and afaik, serotonin releaser also, and its nasty shit, some love it though, but some hate it. Marmite smack lite. I can't stand the shit, and a large dose lowers seizure threshold and can trigger seizures itself) Pods, or opium has thebaine, which in large doses is toxic, but like strychnine, which in pharmacology it resembles, it is also a stimulant at lower doses, I presume its what gives pod tea, opium, kompot or acylated alkaloid extractions the somewhat different from usual stimulants, not pushy, smooth kind of upper effect. Pleasant but not what I'd choose for a sleep aid. Opiates can do just fine for putting one to sleep.

 

[Wenlock]

Olanzapine should put her to sleep.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

Antipsychotics are a TERRIBLE idea guys. Really, abysmal, nasty, shitintheStyx of an idea.

They are laden with SERIOUS side effects, and indeed can, rarely for some, occasionally for others, be permanent or fatal. Bad news over time, even for those who DO need them, in terms of brain atrophy. Also in the short term, in a great many people they can cause horrible, horrible horrible RLS, and all-over-outside-and-inside full-body RLS, called akathisia. This I've had happen to me off another drug, mirtazepine, and it was awful. Was locked up at the time, but had I been at home, I'd have put my revolver in my mouth and pulled the fucking trigger. Its as bad, easily as bad, as fullblown opiate withdrawal.

Akathisia is utterly miserable. Consider it a temple to perdition, carved in the flesh of the howling, shrieking rotten carcasses of the lost, abominable damned, to which their tortured souls are forever bound, nailed immobile whilst in permanent massive-habit sized fentanyl withdrawal, with burning brands sewn under their flesh and ants crawling through their decaying cardiovascular system, stinging and biting. APs should NOT be used for sleep.

Even non-antipsychotic uses type D2 dopamine antagonists such as metaclopramide and domperidone can do it, they do to me and I can't take either, and especially the likes of trifluoroperazine for vomiting/nausea. I get a script for cylizine and ondansetron for my stomach issues, plus two PPIs and a bunch of other stuff, like scopolamine butylbromide quat. salt pills (peripherally restricted anticholinergic and transdermal scopolamine patches, The docs were REALLY reluctant to script me the ondansetron though, because its shockingly expensive, my first script, for 20 pills cost the NHS just below £80 wholesale prices, according to my copy of the BNF.

Nitrazepam is the best benzo for long time being put out due to its long action and unlike diazepam it has a strong and pronouncedly hypnotic action.
Although I still remain a devotee of chlormethiazole, its not as long acting as moggy, but seems to have a much lesser propensity for causing physical dependence at the low end of the prescription dose levels, 2 caps a night, one just before going to sleep (its also very fast acting), I had no physical dependency after taking it twice daily, for seizure prophylaxis (unlicensed, use), and I would never in a million years have gotten away with an equipotent dose of any benzo.

 

[Wenlock]

Don't listen to the ramblings of a guy who thinks he's a vampire and copy pastes random shit about chemistry.

Isn't that what got you banned from sciencemadness.org?

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

I'm not registered there. Used to be but forgot my PWD, no longer have the email linked to the account, it lapsed when I was banged up iirc.

And I haven't actually been registered there since years ago, well, at least, due to the above, not active.

And I do neither of the above. If I copy paste something, then its a reference from a journal article. I don't see how that is an unreasonable thing to do.

 

[Sadie]

It it absolutely not an unreasonable thing to do. Far better than paraphrasing and leaving something out.

 

[Limpet_Chicken]

Why thank you for the vote of confidence my wee 'lil muffin *squeezes and, whilst no fax machine to speak of, texts sadie a rig full of morning breakfast, LC style, plus appetizer and offers to include HIM for dessert)


Depending who the reference is for, I often will break it down into an explanation suitable for the target audience. For example I helped an acquaintance of a friendly sort on another forum with a reference related to some experimental medicine he is taking in a clinical trial for a haematological malignancy, first provided the reference itself, plus some secondary resources and also, then gave him the lowdown on what it meant, explaining everything in detail and providing background on the drug, its mode of action, target, potential side effects, interactions etc. so that he not only understood it, but understood it thoroughly, plus added in all the stuff of the sort that often gets left out in journals intended for academics that they simply expect whosoever other professional biologists/biochemists and big pharma to understand implicitly.

And explained my explanation too, lol. That way he got not only the original reference I sought to provide him, as well as my other supporting refs I dug up for him but lots of background, everything else, within reason I thought relevant, how the drug worked, how its class worked, were discovered etc. and my thoughts on why it should do what it does. That kind of thing, so as to help him out, especially as he uses lots of various herbs and supplements also, so I could provide him with predicted interactions that the study wouldn't have, and did not actively look for.


And also, 'copy paste random shit about chemistry', again, supporting data or references. That isn't random. What might SEEM random more so, is other, nonreference chemistry 'shit'. That, often as not hasn't been stuck up on pubmed, because it is my own fucking work. And sure, I post about chem and biotech, etc. in various fora online. Why? because I have a deep love for the subject and its practice. Always have, although of course it was reading and learning only, at first when very young, bar microscopy and chemical reagent testing of fungi for my mycological side, obviously my old man wasn't going to build me my first lab bench whilst I was still a toddler! although he did give me one when I was still pre-teen, first one in my old house was in my bedroom, lol. And I'd for example, get frustrated about my incompetent teachers in my Kanner's school not even allowing us to come NEAR the 'iodine tincture on potato' crappy excuse for an 'experiment'. Had no glassware in the school, no qualified science teachers etc. So when they did that, I then spent much of my savings and pocket money on lots of iodine tincture and spent all evening after school and all night after that without sleep, meticulously distilling every bit of liquid off some iodine tincture until I finally had before me, a glistening pile of very, very pure resublimed I2. Waited all day in school distracted as hell wanting to go back home and prepare some methyl iodide, only to find I knew not, then how volatile it was, and much had evaporated off the open dish, staining the crap out of one of the reagent cupboards in my bedroom. Had to work all over again, before I got any MeI, doing all of that hard, sleepless work, all over again.

Random? no. I just love my art.

 

[Wenlock]

How is your partner getting on 'ol chap?

 

[mr.buffnstuff]

How is your partner getting on 'ol chap?

Hi mate not too great to be honest she's tolerant to the drugs. She isn't listening to me about letting her tolerance drop.
Thing is I'm offshore again so untill I'm home there's not much I can do to help

 

[Wenlock]

let me know if you need anything