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Opinions on Trazodone for insomnia

hatrix

hatrix

Bluelighter
Joined
Dec 10, 2011
Messages
1,141
Location
House by the lake
I'm looking for people's opinions on using Trazodone for insomnia. My doctor prescribed me it today when I told him I suffer from occasional insomnia, didn't offer anything like ambien first which I'm not surprised at.

I won't be trying it tonight but if it works, I'll stick to it. I read though that sometimes if you don't fall asleep within 45 minutes or so it actually keeps you up because it converts to mCPPP in the body. Is this true ? My dosage is 50mg. I'm aware it acts on 5-HT which would lead me to further believe it has the possibility of causing me to stay up. Also that it causes extreme grogginess in the morning.

I'm not depressed in any way and the doctor knows that. He told me it was an old anti depressant no longer prescribed as such and that it causes, in my case, wanted drowsiness.

I'm not looking to get high off of whatever drug works for my insomnia, just to get to sleep right then and there, so whether it be Trazodone or Ambien, I don't care.
 
its very good to knock you out. i was prescribed 100 mgs and i would take it and an hour later i was out for 10-12 hours but it lost its effectiveness after a week plus i had crazy ass nightmares.

it works but loses potency quick and for me the negative effects outweight the positives. my trouble sleeping went away once i found a job that i work from 6am-230 pm so its much easier to sleep after being active, which is my best suggestion for getting rid of insomnia.

also, if i took it without being able to have 8-9 hours sleep i was extremly groggy the next day. in my case i took it at 10pm and had to get up at 5am for work. needless to say i was very groggy and tired the next day.
 
Tolerance will build quickly, 1-2 weeks of nightly use is normally long enough to make it stop working, so if you only have occasional insomnia (and therefore only use it occasionally) it should work well. Increasing the dose is not a good idea and will just cause more side effects. With these kinds of drugs (the sedative properties come from the histamine blockade) less is more IMO, taking too much will increase the effects from its other mechanisms of action (and can be more stimulating than sedating).
 
Well my job has my working shifts from 4PM and I don't get home until about 1 AM. So I tend to be a little restless, though I feel tired, when I get home. It will be occasionally, my Clonazepam will do a good job hopefully too in place of it sometimes.

Is tolerance to z-drugs like Zolpidem the same in regards to Trazodone ?
 
Hey man I took 50mg every night for 28 days straight in my inpatient rehab and it worked everytime. If I didn't take it I didn't sleep, so it certainly did it's job. Look at the social thread I also wrote something there in response to your trazodone that you definitely want to read.
 
Is tolerance to z-drugs like Zolpidem the same in regards to Trazodone ?

No, they're in completely different drug classes. Trazodone is an archaic anti depressant and the z drugs are structurally similar to benzos.
 
Well clearly everyone is very different since we have one person in the thread saying they developed a tolerance after 10 days and another saying they thought it worked fine for 28 days, one person saying they had side effects like nightmares and daytime grogginess from 100mg, another saying they take 200-300mg :) So I guess it's important to remember we're all different when it comes to drugs.

There are studies that have found tolerance to sedation from antihistamine based sedatives develops very quickly but that it can continue to give a placebo effect after that point.

As far as tolerance to Z-drugs, if you are asking if there is cross-tolerance, no, because - as mentioned - they have entirely different mechanisms of action. If you are asking if tolerance to Z-drugs develops as quickly, in my experience it doesn't develop as quickly, but they are more dependence-causing (meaning you can get withdrawals if you take them chronically and then stop) so should also only be used occasionally as well.
 
This was the default insomnia drug in rehab - every person had it on an as needed basis. I heard that if you don't lay down and let it put you to sleep you will "miss the window" and not be able to sleep. I also heard a lot of bad stories about the extreme grogginess and nightmares and stuff. But all in all it seemed to work for just about everyone at getting them to sleep.
 
I took one once. Put me down like a sick dog. I lasted maybe 45 minutes, then I was done fer...
 
Ive been prescribed trazodone 50mg in the past for insomnia. Its knock you out, no doubt about it. Its like the chemical equivalent of being hit on the head with a brick ie. your unconcious but it wasnt pleasent and you will really regret it the next morning. Only tried it twice, 1st night I had nightmares and woke up with sleep paralysis. Second night i slept fine but woke up feeling like I was poisoned and had brown coloured piss for half the day. I had to draw the line at brown piss...everyone has their limits I guess.lol mirtazapine is the best med ive ever tried for sleep, makes you feel really mellow and you just drift off to sleep.
 
bunge said:
Ive been prescribed trazodone 50mg in the past for insomnia. Its knock you out, no doubt about it. Its like the chemical equivalent of being hit on the head with a brick ie. your unconcious but it wasnt pleasent and you will really regret it the next morning. Only tried it twice, 1st night I had nightmares and woke up with sleep paralysis. Second night i slept fine but woke up feeling like I was poisoned and had brown coloured piss for half the day. I had to draw the line at brown piss...everyone has their limits I guess.lol mirtazapine is the best med ive ever tried for sleep, makes you feel really mellow and you just drift off to sleep.
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Yeah mirtazapine at around 30mg was good a few times and then it stopped working even though I only used it very infrequently. IME Benzos work best for sleep but unfortunately as we all know they come with a lot of baggage.

I tried 50mg of Trazodone once and it did nothing apart from give me a raging erection!
 
^
Got to agree that nothing beats a strong hypnotic benzo for sleep but unfortunately the best drugs always the most addictive!lol luckily I never suffered any priapism from the trazodone, but a friend of mine had it so bad (not sure what drug did it but it wasnt trazodone or viagra.lol) that it had to be corrected surgically. Still makes me cringe when I remember it.:-o
 
Trazodone is great for this, IME, and hasn't ceased effectiveness over many months, perhaps almost two years. Though I also take mirtazapine and olanzapine.

It really works, at least for me. If I take slightly more than a standard dose, I can be overcome with tiredness so rapidly that I can't get to the bed fast enough to satisfy my need for sleep. Pleasant sleepiness unless you take too much.
 
Druidus said:
Trazodone is great for this, IME, and hasn't ceased effectiveness over many months, perhaps almost two years. Though I also take mirtazapine and olanzapine.

It really works, at least for me. If I take slightly more than a standard dose, I can be overcome with tiredness so rapidly that I can't get to the bed fast enough to satisfy my need for sleep. Pleasant sleepiness unless you take too much.
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How can you be sure that it's not the other meds that are helping you sleep?
 
^
This. mirtazapine is likely more potent then trazadone and olanzapine is an anti-psy so will almost certainly be heavily sedating. Still I suppose everyone different when it comes to sleep meds.lol
 
i use 50mg trazodone on a everyother night rotation with xanax and it works fairly well.
my insomnia has some to do with my adhd and the xanax helps alot more with slowing my mind down, but the trazodone definitly makes me drowsy and keeps me asleep when i time it right. its fairly effective. but i do get very lethargic in the mornings
 
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