MissAmazingRachel
Greenlighter
Hey ya'll,
This is an obnoxiously long post, and I apologize in advance for it...
I'm ridiculously inexperienced in these areas, and I'm having the damndest time finding any answers...
I have chronic insomnia - it started in middle school (no real explanation behind it; the fuck does a middle schooler have to stress out about?) and ever since, it's popped up on its own every few months or so (I'm 27 now), but during periods of extreme stress/traumatic events, oh brother, forget it; it'll be weeks before it subsides.
Naturally, I've taken a lot of steps to cure/combat it - practicing healthy sleep hygiene, etc. And yeah, sometimes that works. But more often than not, it just gets to a point where you're like "If I don't get one - JUST ONE - long, deep, healthy, great night of sleep this week, I'm going to literally lose my mind. And take everyone with me" and try to knock yourself the fuck out before that happens.
I have a bit of an iffy tolerance and a lot of experiences with different pharmaceuticals/herbs:
(Feel free to skip all this shit; just figured I'd get the "I've already tried that"s out of the way)
Pharms:
OTCs - used for years and have a crazy tolerance; I usually take a few 2-3 hours before taking a prescription sleep aid, to help me wind down even further
Z-drugs - all of them, at various doses, and they've been hit-or-miss (or have been recently rescheduled so I can no longer obtain them from my doctor without a fight; Sonata worked BEAUTIFULLY, and I didn't develop much of a tolerance for months, but now that it's been rescheduled, my doctor refuses to write for them, and she'll give me baby doses of Ambien or Lunesta that do nothing but piss me off)
Antidepressants - low-to-moderate doses of everything under the sun; trazodone (useless), doxepin (useless), Seroquil wasn't horrible, but it made my heart race, as did amitriptyline
Muscle relaxers - I was prescribed 10mg Flexeril when I got off of my opiate pain medication back in November, and was warned about it kicking my ass...I can take 30mg and finish out the day like a hummingbird. Never tried Soma, but there aren't many doctors in Colorado who will prescribe it (which I'm glad for; it looks kind of scary)
Gabapentin - I also used these when getting off the pain meds, and the first few times (in various doses), they made me feel weird enough to where I just wanted to lay down, but even after all these months, they still somehow don't effect me much.
Benzos! - yaaaay, benzos...I don't feel much with Valium, Ativan, or Xanax, but klonopin is sexy as hell; 2mg of klonopin knocks me OUT for the night. However, since I don't have a script for them, I'm very rarely afforded the luxury of having them. Which is kind of a good thing; I've seen my mother go through benzo withdrawals, and it looks so painful and scary. No thanks.
Herbs and Bullshit:
I'll just cut to the chase. Passionflower, skullcap, valerian, catnip, magnolia bark, ashwagandha, in various forms, combinations, extracts, and doses? - I want my goddamned money back. In moderate-to-high doses, yes, I felt a little something, but I'm 90% sure it was the grain alcohol in the extracts. Complete rubbish for me. Which really bummed me out; I really, REALLY wanted to be able to turn to herbs instead of pharmaceuticals.
Kava, Phenibut, and MMJ, in various doses, ROAs, both alone and combined with all these other herbs, yes, these three kind of work, to some degree...like, 1 degree...and, being a Coloradan with a card, I've consulted dispensaries and budtenders in a 20 mile radius, and still haven't found a strain that has the sleep-inducing and anxiolytic properties I need without making my heart race (for some reason, if my heart is pounding while I'm trying to sleep, it freaks me the fuck out and keeps me awake).
It doesn't really belong in this post, because none of the strains/extracts induce sleep for me, but, kratom absolutely saved my ass when I got off of narcotic pain meds. No bullshit. Like, tapered-from-no-less-than-210mgs-of roxicodone-and-80-120mgs-of-oxycontin-a-day-for 4-5 years-down-to 60mgs/40mgs-in-just-over-a- week-and-then-jumped-off-at-40mgs-two-days-later kind of no bullshit. Find a quality vendor with quality product, and I promise you, it can be done painlessly. Thanks, kratom
**If you skipped all that bullshit**
Since klonopin works so well (and is smartly unobtainable), I've been researching herbs that contain/deliver similar properties/effects to benzos. The three that have continuously popped up have been mulungu, dan shen, and corydalis, but there's so much differing information and experiences, and I'm in over my head trying to make decisions.
Does anyone have any experience/reports regarding these three?? Everyone seems to agree that extracts are the way to go, and that mulungu 5x, dan shen 5x, and corydalis 10x-40x, will be the most effective in helping me, but I've found only a few vendors who carry the extracts, and none of them are in stock. I've found even fewer vendors who carry the whole bark/roots (so far, I've only been able to order 1oz of shredded mulungu bark; the vendors who are carrying dan shen extracts look sketchy, and the corydalis is on weeks-long backorder). I'm Polish as fuck, which makes me a bear in attempting something as delicate as making my own extract, and I'm scared to death to waste money on a shitty product. Or, worse, fucking up and ruining a decent product.
Any experiences, words of wisdom, advice??
It'd be greatly appreciated!
This is an obnoxiously long post, and I apologize in advance for it...
I'm ridiculously inexperienced in these areas, and I'm having the damndest time finding any answers...
I have chronic insomnia - it started in middle school (no real explanation behind it; the fuck does a middle schooler have to stress out about?) and ever since, it's popped up on its own every few months or so (I'm 27 now), but during periods of extreme stress/traumatic events, oh brother, forget it; it'll be weeks before it subsides.
Naturally, I've taken a lot of steps to cure/combat it - practicing healthy sleep hygiene, etc. And yeah, sometimes that works. But more often than not, it just gets to a point where you're like "If I don't get one - JUST ONE - long, deep, healthy, great night of sleep this week, I'm going to literally lose my mind. And take everyone with me" and try to knock yourself the fuck out before that happens.
I have a bit of an iffy tolerance and a lot of experiences with different pharmaceuticals/herbs:
(Feel free to skip all this shit; just figured I'd get the "I've already tried that"s out of the way)
Pharms:
OTCs - used for years and have a crazy tolerance; I usually take a few 2-3 hours before taking a prescription sleep aid, to help me wind down even further
Z-drugs - all of them, at various doses, and they've been hit-or-miss (or have been recently rescheduled so I can no longer obtain them from my doctor without a fight; Sonata worked BEAUTIFULLY, and I didn't develop much of a tolerance for months, but now that it's been rescheduled, my doctor refuses to write for them, and she'll give me baby doses of Ambien or Lunesta that do nothing but piss me off)
Antidepressants - low-to-moderate doses of everything under the sun; trazodone (useless), doxepin (useless), Seroquil wasn't horrible, but it made my heart race, as did amitriptyline
Muscle relaxers - I was prescribed 10mg Flexeril when I got off of my opiate pain medication back in November, and was warned about it kicking my ass...I can take 30mg and finish out the day like a hummingbird. Never tried Soma, but there aren't many doctors in Colorado who will prescribe it (which I'm glad for; it looks kind of scary)
Gabapentin - I also used these when getting off the pain meds, and the first few times (in various doses), they made me feel weird enough to where I just wanted to lay down, but even after all these months, they still somehow don't effect me much.
Benzos! - yaaaay, benzos...I don't feel much with Valium, Ativan, or Xanax, but klonopin is sexy as hell; 2mg of klonopin knocks me OUT for the night. However, since I don't have a script for them, I'm very rarely afforded the luxury of having them. Which is kind of a good thing; I've seen my mother go through benzo withdrawals, and it looks so painful and scary. No thanks.
Herbs and Bullshit:
I'll just cut to the chase. Passionflower, skullcap, valerian, catnip, magnolia bark, ashwagandha, in various forms, combinations, extracts, and doses? - I want my goddamned money back. In moderate-to-high doses, yes, I felt a little something, but I'm 90% sure it was the grain alcohol in the extracts. Complete rubbish for me. Which really bummed me out; I really, REALLY wanted to be able to turn to herbs instead of pharmaceuticals.
Kava, Phenibut, and MMJ, in various doses, ROAs, both alone and combined with all these other herbs, yes, these three kind of work, to some degree...like, 1 degree...and, being a Coloradan with a card, I've consulted dispensaries and budtenders in a 20 mile radius, and still haven't found a strain that has the sleep-inducing and anxiolytic properties I need without making my heart race (for some reason, if my heart is pounding while I'm trying to sleep, it freaks me the fuck out and keeps me awake).
It doesn't really belong in this post, because none of the strains/extracts induce sleep for me, but, kratom absolutely saved my ass when I got off of narcotic pain meds. No bullshit. Like, tapered-from-no-less-than-210mgs-of roxicodone-and-80-120mgs-of-oxycontin-a-day-for 4-5 years-down-to 60mgs/40mgs-in-just-over-a- week-and-then-jumped-off-at-40mgs-two-days-later kind of no bullshit. Find a quality vendor with quality product, and I promise you, it can be done painlessly. Thanks, kratom
**If you skipped all that bullshit**
Since klonopin works so well (and is smartly unobtainable), I've been researching herbs that contain/deliver similar properties/effects to benzos. The three that have continuously popped up have been mulungu, dan shen, and corydalis, but there's so much differing information and experiences, and I'm in over my head trying to make decisions.
Does anyone have any experience/reports regarding these three?? Everyone seems to agree that extracts are the way to go, and that mulungu 5x, dan shen 5x, and corydalis 10x-40x, will be the most effective in helping me, but I've found only a few vendors who carry the extracts, and none of them are in stock. I've found even fewer vendors who carry the whole bark/roots (so far, I've only been able to order 1oz of shredded mulungu bark; the vendors who are carrying dan shen extracts look sketchy, and the corydalis is on weeks-long backorder). I'm Polish as fuck, which makes me a bear in attempting something as delicate as making my own extract, and I'm scared to death to waste money on a shitty product. Or, worse, fucking up and ruining a decent product.
Any experiences, words of wisdom, advice??
It'd be greatly appreciated!
