Trouble sleeping

[amandam]

Since my 20's I've been on Prozac. I started taking the Prozac in the morning instead of night. That helped some. I do have some melatonin and some Ativan. When I use the Ativan it helps some. Once I took two and I only woke up once during the night.

I went to my GP and she said she didn't like prescribing Ativan for sleep, so she gave me a prescription for Trazadone. She had said something about Ativan interfering with "good sleep". I took the first one last night and it didn't really help much. I've read online that lots of older people use Ativan for sleep every night for years. I also worry about possible side effects of Trazadone from what I read. Ativan is much safer, I'm not prone to addiction. So, now I'm wondering if I should just discuss this with the shrink before switching from Ativan to Trazadone.

Anyone have experience in this area?

[Dena]

I haven't had any experience with either drug so my knowledge consist of 5 minutes of googling. It looks like Trazadone may be the safer of the two drugs but you should discuss this with your doctor if you have any questions. Some drugs require several dosages before they reach the point of full effect as they rely on the previous half life to reenforce the current dosage. I don't know if that applies to this drug.

I don't know if it applies to you but there are things that can be done to help you sleep. Have a couple of hours of quite time before bed, no caffeine for about 8 hours before bed time and going to bed at the same time. Normally I don't have difficulty sleeping but violating those rules can keep me awake.

[Gertrude]

I haven't had any experience with either drug so my knowledge consist of 5 minutes of googling. It looks like Trazadone may be the safer of the two drugs but you should discuss this with your doctor if you have any questions. Some drugs require several dosages before they reach the point of full effect as they rely on the previous half life to reenforce the current dosage. I don't know if that applies to this drug.

I don't know if it applies to you but there are things that can be done to help you sleep. Have a couple of hours of quite time before bed, no caffeine for about 8 hours before bed time and going to bed at the same time. Normally I don't have difficulty sleeping but violating those rules can keep me awake.

Exactly. No computer, phone or TV. Some say low magnesium will factor into insomnia. IDK. I've been known to take Benadryl occasionally, but my biggest issue with sleep is caused by an enlarged prostate. I get up 1-2 times a night. One of the girls here said that GRS helped a lot with that.


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[SallyChoasAura]

Aye, me too! I have sleep problems and I have taken medication for it, but being a minor I don't know if it'll be the same for you. My medication did work, but it kept waking me up at 4 in the morning and wouldn't let me fall back asleep.

[Kendra]

If you have an iPhone or Mac there's a built-in "Night Shift" mode that adjusts screen background based on sunset/sunrise - replaces the white screen background a warmer (slightly yellow) tint at night.  Some research apparently demonstrated a very minor benefit, but as one additional thing to help I've set my Apple devices to enable Night Shift and find I prefer it.