| Topic: |
Sociology > Depression |
| User: |
"Jack Ricci" |
| Date: |
03 Apr 2004 09:45:27 PM |
| Object: |
3 nights without sleep... |
After taking sleep medication off and on for several years,anti-anxiety
meds. anti-depressants to help me sleep also, all prescribed, and
finding it more and more difficult to achieve any kind of restful sleep,
and not seeing much improvement in the depression that overwhelms me at
times, I slowly gave everything up, fed up with having to take more to
achieve less, and finally stopped altogether a few days ago. I threw the
medications away so I wouldn't become tempted.
I was apprehensive the first night. I also had a lot on my mind, mostly
business affairs. And so I didn't sleep. I saw 11 pm, midnight, 1, 2, 3,
4, not 5, but at 6 I was again wide awake. I expected a terrible day but
it didn't happen. Next night same thing, no sleep, I read, I walked
around, and didn't particularly feel bad. Third night, i thought for
sure would bring me sleep. And that was last night. And still hardly any
sleep, and still not feeling all that bad during the day. I exercise,
not excessively, and I am good and tired when I go to bed.
My question to you good people: what in the world is going on with me?
during my one fitful hour of sleep, I do dream for the first time in
years, not nightmares, just ordinary dreams. Wouldn't you think I would
be exhausted by now? Am I going insane? Are there people who require
little if any sleep? Is that why most medications didn't really work for
me? And yet how long can I go without hardly any sleep?
Meds. taken before I gave everything up:
Ambien, Halcion, Xanax, Sinequan, Effexor and others I am sure, all
provided by doctors to help me sleep and address the depression. All
fairly useless, really. I never oversoed, but realized that I seemed to
be wanting more as they stopped working after a short while.
Thanks for whatever advice any one can offer...
Jack
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| User: "BGumm" |
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| Title: Re: 3 nights without sleep... |
04 Apr 2004 10:42:26 PM |
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Are you manic yet? I would be fully manic by this time. What is happening to
you? Well if you are coming off of a long usage of nightime sleeping meds then
I would guess (and only guess---no doctor degree here) that your body has been
so used to having something help put it to sleep that it has forgotten on its
own how to do it on its own.
It might take some time for this to work itself out, meanwhile you go
completely around the bend without sleep......
I have this problem. I use Seroquel to sleep and believe me on the nights that
I do get to sleep from it, it knocks me out. I have been on it for over a year
now. It was a savior because I simply do not sleep otherwise and when I don't
sleep I go manic.
I will be up for days if I don't take the meds.
That is because my body is used to taking the Seroquel and without it, it
doesn't understand that it has to perform on its own.
Scary. I have heard from several people that had their doctors tell them that
we don't become addicted to our night-time meds and I am like--HUH? Are they
crazy or have they never went down the list of drugs?
We do become addicted---maybe not madly crazily addicted--but our bodies who
used to fall asleep when we were tired or worn out now has a replacement doing
all the work. The meds take care of that urge and that natural body function.
Without it we do not sleep.
This is just my opinion for what it is worth, I just know what I have gone
through over the years trying to find meds for sleep and finally hitting on the
one that works----realizing at some point when I am off of it---I don't
sleep---for days.
Becky
"I have seen the sea when it is stormy and wild;
when it is quiet and serene; when it is dark and
moody. And in all its moods, I see myself."
-Martin Buxbaum
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| User: "Bev Thornton" |
|
| Title: Re: 3 nights without sleep... |
04 Apr 2004 01:04:17 AM |
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Jack Ricci wrote:
My question to you good people: what in the world is going on with me?
during my one fitful hour of sleep, I do dream for the first time in
years, not nightmares, just ordinary dreams. Wouldn't you think I would
be exhausted by now? Am I going insane? Are there people who require
little if any sleep? Is that why most medications didn't really work for
me? And yet how long can I go without hardly any sleep?
Five or six days with none at all. No one ever died from not sleeping, they
just get all messed-up until they pass out. If you even just rest a little,
forced rest, you can keep it up indefinately.
The medications don't work for me either.
Did you ever do a sleep test?
<http://www.sleepnet.com/sleeptest.html>
--
Compute Free: <http://debian.org/> <http://minix.org/> <http://openbsd.org/>
<http://peacebrigades.org/><http://greenpeace.org/><http://refugeecamp.org/>
<http://www.icrc.org><http://rawa.org><http://seruv.org><http://www.msf.org>
<http://www.whalewatch.org><http://www.icbl.org><http://greatapeproject.org>
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| User: "lisa in mass." |
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| Title: Re: 3 nights without sleep... |
04 Apr 2004 10:16:01 PM |
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Bev Thornton wrote...
Jack Ricci wrote:
My question to you good people: what in the world is going
on with me? during my one fitful hour of sleep, I do dream
for the first time in years, not nightmares, just ordinary
dreams. Wouldn't you think I would be exhausted by now? Am
I going insane? Are there people who require little if any
sleep? Is that why most medications didn't really work for
me? And yet how long can I go without hardly any sleep?
Five or six days with none at all. No one ever died from
not sleeping, they just get all messed-up until they pass
out. If you even just rest a little, forced rest, you can
keep it up indefinately.
The medications don't work for me either.
Did you ever do a sleep test?
<http://www.sleepnet.com/sleeptest.html>
thanks for this site, bev. it has some very good links as well
as being useful itself.
-lisa
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| User: "Stain Of Mind" |
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| Title: Re: 3 nights without sleep... |
03 Apr 2004 09:50:46 PM |
|
|
Jack Ricci wrote:
After taking sleep medication off and on for several years,anti-anxiety
meds. anti-depressants to help me sleep also, all prescribed, and
finding it more and more difficult to achieve any kind of restful sleep,
and not seeing much improvement in the depression that overwhelms me at
times, I slowly gave everything up, fed up with having to take more to
achieve less, and finally stopped altogether a few days ago. I threw the
medications away so I wouldn't become tempted.
I was apprehensive the first night. I also had a lot on my mind, mostly
business affairs. And so I didn't sleep. I saw 11 pm, midnight, 1, 2, 3,
4, not 5, but at 6 I was again wide awake. I expected a terrible day but
it didn't happen. Next night same thing, no sleep, I read, I walked
around, and didn't particularly feel bad. Third night, i thought for
sure would bring me sleep. And that was last night. And still hardly any
sleep, and still not feeling all that bad during the day. I exercise,
not excessively, and I am good and tired when I go to bed.
My question to you good people: what in the world is going on with me?
during my one fitful hour of sleep, I do dream for the first time in
years, not nightmares, just ordinary dreams. Wouldn't you think I would
be exhausted by now? Am I going insane? Are there people who require
little if any sleep? Is that why most medications didn't really work for
me? And yet how long can I go without hardly any sleep?
Meds. taken before I gave everything up:
Ambien, Halcion, Xanax, Sinequan, Effexor and others I am sure, all
provided by doctors to help me sleep and address the depression. All
fairly useless, really. I never oversoed, but realized that I seemed to
be wanting more as they stopped working after a short while.
Thanks for whatever advice any one can offer...
Jack
who knows, maybe you're cured.
maybe, you're on the verge of a break down.
maybe, you're in a manic state.
i did this not long ago, ended up blacking out- doing some stupid *****-
getting drunk, thrown in jail...
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| User: "Franz Bestuchev" |
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| Title: Re: 3 nights without sleep... |
04 Apr 2004 12:47:24 AM |
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Jack Ricci wrote:
Meds. taken before I gave everything up:
Ambien, Halcion, Xanax, Sinequan, Effexor and others I am sure, all
provided by doctors to help me sleep and address the depression. All
fairly useless, really. I never oversoed, but realized that I seemed to
be wanting more as they stopped working after a short while.
Thanks for whatever advice any one can offer...
Jack
You could be experiencing rebound anxiety, two of those are benzos.
Xanax is pretty wicked addictive and Halcion is rather long lasting.
I've been taking Ambien for about a presidential term now and find that
I can go up to 40mg if I need a knock out or go without the next day.
For me it's not a problem. No experience with Sinequan. If you just
dropped the Effexor without a taper I can imagine that to be *very*
unpleasant. My own taper off that drug took me over a month and in the
end I was taking incredibly miniscule doses.
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