Benzos Insomnia from hell nothing works!

[cadams122593]

i've been seeing a psychiatrist for about 7 months now. On a 2mg a day clonazepam prescription for general anxiety which is what I first went into his office for complaining about anxiety to the point of have panic attacks about once every week or so and also insomnia (not going to sleep till about 3 or 4am and waking up at 7am). He tried multiple anti-depressants on me. Sertaline, fluoxetine, wellbutrine, mirtazapine all within a short time frame. He he prescribed a blood pressure medication that he said would help. All the anti-depressants did were give me serious migranes the 6 weeks i was on each of them, and just made my insomnia worse. He told me i was causing him a lot of trouble dealing with my insomnia situation and wants to conduct a sleep study on me now. I hear about everyone on here getting prescribed multiple benzo's at a time... say clonazepam/temazepam or ambien (i know not a benzo). I dont think he's willing to prescribe me another benzo. He was scared about it in the first place from his expressions that I saw when he first prescribed me clonazepam. The question i have is that to get said temazepam or ambien or any hypnotic to help sleep, did you have to do a sleep study in a hospital before you got prescribed these medications like my doctor is trying to set up? It just seems weird to go through all this trouble when he already put me on a benzo in the first place, another one probably wouldnt hurt if it was specificallly for sleep. Give me your thoughts!

 

[flyhighk]

Benzos are really bad for long term insomnia. You'll have to increase your dose constantly or they'll just stop working. And coming off benzos is generally worse and harder than coming off heroin. I strongly recommend you look for other options (trazodone, melatonin, TCAs, etc). I've been using doxepin most nights and melatonin once a week for ~18 months, they work amazingly well.

 

[AgonyAndEcstasy781]

I'd first make sure you're getting enough exercise during the day. Try melatonin first, if that doesn't work, I'd ask about trazodone, that works for most people and also has some mild anti-depressant and anxiolytic properties. Diphenhydramine is available over the counter and 50 mg is usually enough to help most people to sleep. If the melatonin doesnt work I'd try the diphenhydramine.

If I were you I would avoid any more benzos or z-drugs (ambien, lunesta, etc) like the plague because if you use them any longer than a couple of months, regularly, it will become almost impossible to sleep without them,also, the quality of the sleep they provide sucks.

Sometimes z-drugs or strong benzos like halcion can be useful for short periods of extreme insomnia but regular use will cause a nasty dependence and horrific rebound insomnia.

If you have access to cannabis that can be helpful for some people, especially in tincture form.