Anyone have experience with Promethazine (for sleeping)

[Chatative]

My Doctor has prescribed some Promethazine 25mg for my insomnia. Anyone used this for that purpose?

People seem reluctant to acknowledge it's an issue for me, he just says "you go to bed at 22:30, wake up a few times & can't get back to sleep after waking up at 05:30... that's 7 hours of interrupted sleep which is adequate."

Yeah sure, nothing to do with why I'm tired when I get out of bed & why I have trouble concentrating & remembering things. 8)

When the bloody mental health services get back to me (3 weeks since my assessment now) I'll probably do a short course of SSRIs as well. I'm sure they'll probably help too considering anxiety is tied into this somehow...

 

[masaz]

I used it a few months ago for allergies but it gave me ridiculous restless legs. IME it will put you out once you're done kicking about like a donkey. I found even low level doses did it to me but YMMV.

 

[headfuck123]

I always keep some around for when i really cant sleep and i dont want to go near benzos. Definitely sedative but sometimes i still cant sleep on them. Its a weird sedation, not very clean feeling its a kind of empty nod feeling without much pleasure if that makes any sense.

 

[Chatative]

The main thing is that it keeps me asleep... I have no trouble falling asleep.

I already have mild RLS & have had Akithisa before too... let's hope it doesn't make that worse

 

[Sammy G]

People seem reluctant to acknowledge it's an issue for me, he just says "you go to bed at 22:30, wake up a few times & can't get back to sleep after waking up at 05:30... that's 7 hours of interrupted sleep which is adequate."

Yeah sure, nothing to do with why I'm tired when I get out of bed & why I have trouble concentrating & remembering things. 8)

Sounds very much like depression to me, the tiredness upon waking and the problems with concentration.

Promethazine? It works, and it works very well. At least for a week or two, which to be frank is as long as you should be taking any sleep aid for.

People seem reluctant to acknowledge it's an issue for me, he just says "you go to bed at 22:30, wake up a few times & can't get back to sleep after waking up at 05:30... that's 7 hours of interrupted sleep which is adequate."

That's about as much sleep as I usually get on a good day, so I can see where your doctor is coming from.

 

[Chatative]

I don't feel down at all. Can you have depression without feeling down? It's not always that I feel tired upon waking... just sometimes. Other days I am surprisingly lively despite getting little sleep.

I haven't slept properly since December now.

Although the mental health folk never told me exactly what was up with me, they said that my lack of concentration, forgetfulness etc. was probably all a side effect of anxiety. I have no idea what is causing my anxiety though... it just creeps up on me & then suddenly when it's appeared that's when I start worrying about my health or stressing about day to day stuff. The other thing that was an issue, my hyperfocus they seemed to think was Aspergers.

I've no idea whether that might make me prone to anxiety or other things. Funnily I've noticed I feel down when the weather is non-descript... I'll be happy if it's a blizzard, pouring buckets or sunny but if it's a grey sky I just feel meh. I get really pissed off when the seasons aren't what they are supposed to be.

 

[Sammy G]

I don't feel down at all. Can you have depression with feeling down?

Yes. In fact, most severely depressed people would not describe themselves as feeling 'down'. They generally don't feel much at all.

It's not always that I feel tired upon waking... just sometimes. Other days I am surprisingly lively despite getting little sleep.

I haven't slept properly since December now.

Although the mental health folk never told me exactly what was up with me, they said that my lack of concentration, forgetfulness etc. was probably all a side effect of anxiety. I have no idea what is causing my anxiety though... it just creeps up on me & then suddenly when it's appeared that's when I start worrying about my health or stressing about day to day stuff.

Again, sounds very much like the anxiety which almost always goes hand-in-hand with clinical depression.

The other thing that was an issue, my hyperfocus they seemed to think was Aspergers.

You really need to stop self-diagnosing for your own sake. Last time you suspected ADD, didn't you?

When you say 'they' thought your hyperfocus was a symptom of Asperger's, what exactly do you mean? Did a psychiatrist suggest AS as a possible cause of your anxiety or something? If so, what about the other symptoms of AS?

 

[mydrugbuddy]

i used it for sleep a while when i had some left over after experimenting with promethazine and codeine. Turned out that codeine doesnt do anything for me expect give me a severe histamine reaction. I used promethazine on top of etiz for a while, when i had completely blown out my etiz tolerance at one point. Note for HR, this is obviousoly not a good idea to combine 'sleepers' in this way. I wouldnt reccomend it to anyone for safetys sake. It did the job for sleep, i was sleeping about 14 hours.

 

[Chatative]

Again, sounds very much like the anxiety which almost always goes hand-in-hand with clinical depression.

On days when I don't feel anxious & I've slept well, I'm like 100% ... so I'm not sure about that. I suppose that will being considered though... just got to wait & see what they come back with though.

I really do have more reason than others to have pretty severe depression but I've never really felt down despite all the shit I've been through.

 

[Sammy G]

It's an excellent sleeping aid, for sure.

On days when I don't feel anxious & I've slept well, I'm like 100% ... so I'm not sure about that. I suppose that will being considered though... just got to wait & see what they come back with though.

I really do have more reason than others to have pretty severe depression but I've never really felt down despite all the shit I've been through.

Depression strikes indiscriminately; nobody has more 'reason' to be depressed than anyone else.

For a long, long time I would've thrown a bottle at somebody for describing me as 'depressed', but essentially that's what I was.

 

[Chatative]

That's the important thing.

I'm hopeful that resetting my sleeping cycle will get me out of this little rut & I might not need any further medication...

That's about as much sleep as I usually get on a good day, so I can see where your doctor is coming from.

I'm probably really getting 5-6 hours worth of interrupted sleep on average when you factor in getting to sleep & waking up to go to the toilet. I'm rarely asleep for longer than 3 hours at a time before waking up & needing the toilet at which point I wake up once an hour until I finally can't fall asleep again or on a bad day I'll wake every 30-40 minutes from then on, getting worse until I can't get back to sleep at stupid o'clock.

 

[ld50 vs ssri]

Promethazine (Phenergan) is great for aiding in sleep and winding down and as far as i know there are not many side effects and minimal interactions with most of your common medications and scheduled drugs, I use it regularly sometimes generally 2 x 25mg before bed and they take about 30 mins or so to take effect.

It is not advisable to take Promethazine if you have any known breathing problems. Whilst not a depressant they tend to synergise in unstable ways with some downers and benzo's

Hope this helped.

 

[THECATINTHEHAT]

It's ok(ish), it's a step up from diphenhydramine but barely. Got to agree with the keeping you asleep part, it's not felt particularly sedating when I've taken it but after falling asleep I've had solid nights sleep without waking. It's one off the detox meds I'm being prescribed and in that respect it's like trying to knock down a house with a feather, but every little helps so I won't be turning it down.

With regards to the amount of sleep you're getting, if you are getting seven hours of sleep a night that's more than enough really so I can understand their reluctance to prescribe you anything heavier. Seven hours of sleep is enough, it's not far short of the eight hours a day benchmark (which has shown to be nonsense anyway in more modern studies I believe). That's a pretty normal sleep pattern, and the promethazine should work to help stop you from waking up. If you can sleep solidly from 22.30 until 5.30 that's a pretty good sleep regime, so hopefully this medication will work nicely for you. I used to work a job in which I had six hours a day in which to get to work, get back from work, eat, wash, sleep and relax(lol as if). That's the sort of lack of sleep that actually causes you issues.

Having said that if the medication doesn't help, you can return to your doctor and say that it isn't working and ask for an alternaive, you might get 'upgraded' to zopiclone. Given your sleep patterns are really pretty normal I wouldn't expect anything more than that though. If you're not happy with the doctor's opinion you can always ask to see someone else.

 

[Chatative]

It is not advisable to take Promethazine if you have any known breathing problems.

I have asthma but my Doctor should know that... I'll ask the Pharmacist when I got to pick it up soon.

Depression strikes indiscriminately; nobody has more 'reason' to be depressed than anyone else.

Wrong.

You don't need 'reason' & it is indiscriminate, correct, but you can be much more likely (better way of putting it?) in certain circumstances than other people to develop depression.

 

[mydrugbuddy]

It is quite indiscriminate, Prime Ministers, millionaire sports stars and other celebrities with everything in the world going for them can be as vulnerable to it as someone eking out an existence on the dole, with nothing to fill their time and no money to go places and do things. Im sure rates must be higher amongst the latter group though, that is known as life circumstance reactive depression or something like that, i think, where there appears to be some concrete reason for it, and it is quite an understandable reaction to their situation.

 

[Chatative]

You can't belittle the effect of mental illness whatever the reason for it but as I said, some people have more reason that others.

I've had a major psychotic episode & been pumped full of medication which stole my life away & gave me pretty much every side-effect listed over the course of a year & probably did give me some level of depression or something else for 6 months during which time I had zero quality of life.

I graduated in 2011 & had my dreams taken away from me & still have on-going stuff despite getting past all that on the whole. Pretty fucking big reason to be majorly depressed.

I just get pissed off that someone says I don't have any more reason to have anxiety or depression than your next person because I really do.

But I just get on with life anyway.

 

[Shambles]

You can't belittle the effect of mental illness whatever the reason for it but as I said, some people have more reason that others.

That's an entirely different form of depression. It's perfectly natural to feel down when you have reason to - it's when you don't have reason to that I'd say it is depression in the medical sense.

 

[Chatative]

Depression is depression is depression.

You can have bad depression with or without a cause, it doesn't matter. I thought someone as intelligent as you seem to be would know that...

^ Edit - I suppose you can distinguish clinical & regular depression but they can both have the same effects in the short term.

 

[Shambles]

Vice versa, I thought somebody as intelligent as yourself would know the difference between being down for a reason and being clinically depressed. Yes the former can become the latter but the latter is nothing to do with the former as such. When you are depressed for no reason it's an entirely different thing than if you're depressed cos your dog died, your missus left you, your house blew down in a storm and you just got diagnosed with cancer. Yes you may well be depressed in such a situation but it is a different form of depression than the fella next door who has everything, not a problem nor care in the world, but can't get out of bed in the morning or open the curtains cos is crippled with depression. They're just different things. "Bad" is not a diagnosis but could be used equally for both situations whilst telling you nothing about either.

 

[Chatative]

Right I see what you mean... arguing about different things. I guess that means we are both right & wrong. :D