Assistance with Insomnia, any help?

Hi guys, as some of you are probably aware (probably from the wording of my posts if nothing else) I suffer from a few mental conditions, mainly, "Bi-polar disorder" but also "aspergers" and during bouts of psychotic manic states also "Auto-skitzophrenia" (pffft how bad is that I can't even spell the name of the illness i have lol)

Anyway as anyone who has experience with mental illness will know, the illnesses can cause many varying symptoms sometimes randomly.... Lately it's been a bad one for me.... INSOMNIA! (my arch nemesis, we meet again!) (and if any of you noticed, yes i've been on ATS all night again..... now 6 am here)

i'm still taking all my medication (80 mg Zeldox, 90 mg Cymbalta and between 50 - 125 mg of serequel, for those interested, daily) in addition I am also taking the work out supliments "Gaba" and "ZMA" (these are supposed to aid in sleep quality, and I have noticed a difference) I excercise as often as I can, and eat well. for mental stimulus I am constantly listenin to music or playing music, and I meditate at least an hour daily.

So any sugestions would be of great help, i'll leave it at that as i'll probably just be rambling from this point on.

thankyou all in advance

Love, Light, and all that crap....

fish oil!

reply to post by blazingdefiance


Chamomile tea and Melatonin.

sad eyed lady

reply to post by blazingdefiance


Melatonin. Take it about 2-3 hours before you want to sleep. That's what has worked best for me. I'm a life-long sufferer, did the sleep clinics,sleep labs, sleep classes and tons of pharmaceuticals.

I know your pain!

reply to post by sad_eyed_lady


Great minds. . . .

reply to post by Gwampo


sure thing i've tried everything else, as soon as the store opens i'll go buy a bottle. (no offence, but i'm not holding my breath)

things just got worse, just poped a dose of meds in hope of a day sleep, that was about 45 mins ago, and nothing yet, starting to get head spins, a pins and needles numbing thing over the whole body, not to mention i just looked in the bathroom mirror and my pupils are the size of the moon lol

yeah been on the melatonin for a while too and as with the supliments it definatley helps but it's not full proof. it's also surprisingly hard to find here, everywhere either doesn't stock it or they're sold out, hence why I don't have any right now..... ok thats it tracking down a box of that today too, NO MATTER WHAT THE COST!

reply to post by blazingdefiance


I have a few suggestions, but you will want to call your doctors office or talk to a pharmacist before trying any. The two medications you list can interact with many over the counter compounds.

A doctor would probably suggest Benadryl. I never had much luck with this compound.
Valerian root works OK.
Melatonin is pretty good.
Chamomile also works.

The good news is that you can find combinations of Valerian, melatonin, and chamomile in a lot of dollar stores - in the health and beauty section, marketed under names like "Sleep aid". And Wal Mart sells the above for $4.00 a bottle for enough to last at least a month.

You could also ask your doctor about prescribing Ambien, or another sleep specific med - or even something like Trazodone - an antidepressant that causes drowsiness.

Again, however, the key really is to double check with your doctor. There are a LOT of options!

~Heff

Originally posted by Gwampo
fish oil!

edit on 25-9-2012 by Gwampo because: (no reason given)

Fish oil doesn't do a thing for me .. I've had insomnia issues for a long time.

Melatonin helps me but it causes strange, ultra realistic dreams which is a little too much for me lol ..

I've tried 5-hydroxytryptophan ( 5-HTP ) and that has helped a bit! GABBA has helped a little bit .. Magnesium and calcium have helped a bit.

I will even resort to one of the two forms of Unisom out there if all else fails.. the tabs come in the form of doxlymine and the gel caps come in the form of diphenhydramine .. I avoid the use of those two unless it's a last resort.

I've also tried valerian, kava and a few other natural options as well .. I have CFS though so I think sleep issues for me are more than rule than the exception.

Two of the best things that I always combine with any of the things mentioned above are to keep your room as dark as possible and I also like to use a white noise generator.. if it's too quiet then I don't sleep well at all because my mind wanders

Unisom by the way now provides a "Unisom Natural" which works well .. it contains B6, Melatonin and Calcium.. combined with valerian or something might make a good combo .. just keep in mind that I and quite a few others out there report vivid dreams.. many of those people report really horrific nightmares.. horrific mostly because they are ultra vivid .. so if you're prone to nightmares you might want to try that option last.

Originally posted by Hefficide
reply to post by blazingdefiance

 

I have a few suggestions, but you will want to call your doctors office or talk to a pharmacist before trying any. The two medications you list can interact with many over the counter compounds.

A doctor would probably suggest Benadryl. I never had much luck with this compound.
Valerian root works OK.
Melatonin is pretty good.
Chamomile also works.

The good news is that you can find combinations of Valerian, melatonin, and chamomile in a lot of dollar stores - in the health and beauty section, marketed under names like "Sleep aid". And Wal Mart sells the above for $4.00 a bottle for enough to last at least a month.

You could also ask your doctor about prescribing Ambien, or another sleep specific med - or even something like Trazodone - an antidepressant that causes drowsiness.

Again, however, the key really is to double check with your doctor. There are a LOT of options!

~Heff

oh yeah man, for sure always check with the doc before changing anything
gonna check out some of that sleep aid stuff today too, sounds pretty good!
thought about asking for sleeping meds, but thats the next step
also the Anti-depressant i'm on (Cymbalta) is (supposed to be but i've never noticed) a drowsiness causing medication of which i take 90 mg max dose being 100 mg, so almost at the end of the road on that one.
the seroquel is supossed to be sleep aiding as well, I take it in combo with so many other things though that I can't tell specifically, but others I know on the medication say it's definatley true.

thanks for your help all, applying to life today

Originally posted by miniatus

Two of the best things that I always combine with any of the things mentioned above are to keep your room as dark as possible and I also like to use a white noise generator.. if it's too quiet then I don't sleep well at all because my mind wanders

^^^^ THIS!

White noise generator and black-out curtains. A must that I completely forgot to mention. If you don't want to buy a white noise generator, just take the antenna off of an old radio and tune it until all that you can hear is static - works the same exact way.

Fancier white noise machines can make sounds like chirping crickets, running water, wind, rain on a roof... but I've always preferred the straight static noise.

~Heff

Originally posted by miniatus
Unisom by the way now provides a "Unisom Natural" which works well .. it contains B6, Melatonin and Calcium.. combined with valerian or something might make a good combo .. just keep in mind that I and quite a few others out there report vivid dreams.. many of those people report really horrific nightmares.. horrific mostly because they are ultra vivid .. so if you're prone to nightmares you might want to try that option last.

actually to tell you the truth the other suppliment i take along with the GABBA, (ZMA) is dream enhancing in itself, but I allways have a rad time in my dreams, allways incredibly vivid and when i DO sleep i've actually been having the same recurring dreams for going on 2 months now.... I've got the damn place maped out in my head.

and yeah I totally wouldn't discount your CFS in that man, as I said in another topic I watched my mother with the disease and Fybromyalgia for the majority of my childhood, and her sleep patterns have allways been anything but normal.

Originally posted by Hefficide
^^^^ THIS!

White noise generator and black-out curtains. A must that I completely forgot to mention. If you don't want to buy a white noise generator, just take the antenna off of an old radio and tune it until all that you can hear is static - works the same exact way.

Fancier white noise machines can make sounds like chirping crickets, running water, wind, rain on a roof... but I've always preferred the straight static noise.

~Heff

I use a free program called Aire Freshener on my computer which has surround sound speakers in all corners of my room.. I love it because, well, it's free.. and it comes with a number of "environments" like campfire, crickets, rain, thunderstorm ( personal favorite ) .. It's a windows program and like I said it's entirely free..

peterhirschberg.com...

I have no affiliation with the guy, I've just been using this software for years..

Originally posted by Hefficide

Originally posted by miniatus

Two of the best things that I always combine with any of the things mentioned above are to keep your room as dark as possible and I also like to use a white noise generator.. if it's too quiet then I don't sleep well at all because my mind wanders

^^^^ THIS!

White noise generator and black-out curtains. A must that I completely forgot to mention. If you don't want to buy a white noise generator, just take the antenna off of an old radio and tune it until all that you can hear is static - works the same exact way.

Fancier white noise machines can make sounds like chirping crickets, running water, wind, rain on a roof... but I've always preferred the straight static noise.

~Heff

yes this is true also (i've kept my room as dark as possible for as long as i can remember) and I was using a "Rain CD" which I loved and definatley helped, but it ticked the wife off.... so can't really do that anymore (i'm such a crazy sleeper that I don't think headphones are even an option)

Thanks guys, YOU ROCK!, by the way heff, love the Avatar, Lemmy for President!

Originally posted by blazingdefiance
oh yeah man, for sure always check with the doc before changing anything

gonna check out some of that sleep aid stuff today too, sounds pretty good!
thought about asking for sleeping meds, but thats the next step
also the Anti-depressant i'm on (Cymbalta) is (supposed to be but i've never noticed) a drowsiness causing medication of which i take 90 mg max dose being 100 mg, so almost at the end of the road on that one.
the seroquel is supossed to be sleep aiding as well, I take it in combo with so many other things though that I can't tell specifically, but others I know on the medication say it's definatley true.

thanks for your help all, applying to life today

I suppose I already get the "benefits" of ZMA since it's basically Zinc and Magnesium isn't it? .. I take both just separately ...

Anyway - good luck! it's time for me to head offline and leave the matrix for a little while =)

reply to post by Hefficide


I've always preffered a little techno music in the background. Quiet and hypnotic.

reply to post by miniatus


cool thanks for that man since were on the topic I find it quite interesting how sounds can alter your mental state, really cool. Have you heard of Idoser? you may want to do a bit of your own research on that one, (I don't wanna post too much about it here in fear of getting in trouble) didn't really work for me, but I was using some pretty bad headphones, but have a look none the less, very interesting theory to say the least

Question.

Do you sometimes fall to sleep but then wake and can't go back?

Are you a large person?

Do you snore loudly?

Do you kick your legs when falling to sleep?

reply to post by Frankenchrist


yes all of those things are true, I do wake sometimes and am not able to return to slumber, Yes I'm a big man (not huge but bigish) hell, my wife often says it's very hard to sleep next to me, because I kick and thrash about constantly, and she often feels the need to wake me from sleep, as apparently I make noises akin to that of a dying person (or so i've been told)

anticipating your next question YES i've had a sleep study done, and was told I MAY have sleep apnia, However my sleep during the study was so poor that not much information could be gatherd.... mabeyI should try again...