Insomnia- serious question

Medications
1

I have not been enjoying my month off of research. I have been sleeping 2-3 hours a night and having a 1 hour nap in the day. I have tried ambien with not very good results (worked one night then made me a little high and not sleepy the next two nights) and have been through the works with meds (trazodone, outdated antidepressants used for sleep, etc) and I cannot take seroquel for sleep because Geodon does not mix with it (heart problems happen if they mix).

Lunesta has me going to sleep an hour after I take it, but I have been waking up just 2-3 hours after taking it. I see my Pdoc today, but I would appreciate any words from this community of consumers of medications as well.

I want to get back to work soon but simply cannot focus and am not myself with this insomnia. It is really hitting me hard, and has been since I graduated. I am going in for blood work in a week to see if there is some non-psychiatric etiology such as autoimmune disease or toxic/low levels of stuff.

2

Try a nice nightime walk clear your head…might help…ambien does the same to me.

3

I seriously wish I could help. I’ve never understood how people just simply can’t sleep. I can sleep no matter what, more than necessary. my only possibly helpful suggestion would be melatonin, or maybe some green tea before bed. that makes me really sleepy

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4

Only thing that works for me is benzos. I gain tolerance really fast though so it’s really not a good long term solution. Sorry you’re dealing with this, I know personally how much insomnia sucks.

5

I’ve been on 2 different sleeping tablets over the years.

The first was when they first suspected psychosis was Temazepam, as I was also experiencing insomnia! It’s a hard hitter and probably addictive.

The second was once in hospital I wasn’t sleeping much on Abilify so I was prescribed Zopiclone, I didn’t take it for long, but it also helped in the short term.

It’s differently worth a mention to the PDoc, as they will probably have a favourite that they prescribe.

6

A side effect of Geodon ? If so, you may have to switch meds if you can’t find a solution.

7

I find temazepam is the only thing that works for me when I can’t sleep.

8

I’m 57, and I’ve always had the same problem. If you find something that works let me know.

9

I mix Quetiapin, Melatonin, Alimemazine, Nitrazepam and Zopiclone when insomnia hits me hard. Usually it is enough with just three of them. But when I go psychotic that is the only thing making me sleep.

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I’ve been reading this forum over a year now, and have never created an account, but I created one to answer this question. English is not my native language, I’m from Denmark. I suffer from paranoid schizophrenia too and also have some autistic tendencies as well, but not so severe, the paranoid schizophrenia is what I suffer most from. I really enjoy mortimermouse posting and after seeing some posting from him about insomnia I thought I would reply.

I am on 400 mg depot abilify injections monthly and I take 200 mg seroquel at night too sleep, aswell with 600 mg L-theanine. And sometimes I listen to isochronic tones or binaural beats to help with sleep, but the science on that is not so strong, so maybe it’s just placebo.

I’ve have in the past tried valerian root too, but u can only take that for a short amount of time and it doesn’t put you to sleep immediately, like benzos or the seroquel.

I have never tried melatonin, but it works in the same way as valerian root, it doesnt put you to sleep immediately, but should be taken over a period of time, but only a certain amount of time like valerian root, not something you can be on for a long time.

So my advice would be to try melatonin, valerian root, binaural beats or isochronic tones and L-theanine.

Apart from that, even though it sounds silly, if you think something physical is wrong, I take a multi-vitamin so I get the essential minerals and vitamins. But I believe you eat healthy from what I have read of your posts. So just disregard that, if that’s not relevant.

I would also suggest cutting back on the coffee, i know you drink a lot of, so you only drink it when its not evening, but maybe you already do that. Exercise is good for getting physical tired, but if you train late at day, that could also have an impact on your sleep, for some people it do, makes it harder to fall asleep afterwards.

Other than that I know you are very smart and have possible thought about some of this too, so I’m not sure if I can really help you other than those remedies I’ve mentioned. My best advice would probably be to switch to an anti-psychotic that can be combined with seroquel, cause that stuff is potent. I also know you take benzos, and that is, as you probably know a hypnotic, and used as sleeping pills, but maybe you have taken it for so long that it’s effect have somehow been reversed, like headache pills can too if you take them for too long. In my country (Denmark) they are very strict on given benzos and never for long term treatment. So to be honest I’ve always wondered when it would crash for you, cause you’ve taken benzos for so long, and that is very much advised against in my country. I’ve read wikipedia to have anything concrete to say about it and it says that it can worsen psychiatric problems when taken for too long. So maybe the problem is the benzos, even though I know you take it to control anxiety and movement related disorders because of the geodon, the kicking leg etc. I am really rooting for you cause you done what many of us, atleast me personally haven’t done and that is going for your dreams and fulfilling your education. So I would hate to see this problem being a major issue for you, on your way to become a doctor or psychologist or what the specific term for your final education is.

I myself is 26 years old and had to discontinue my education partly because of my schiz symptons and because I got disillusioned with the education system, but maybe that had to do with the schiz symptoms too, or maybe I just got lazy, anyways I’m not studying anymore, long story short. The education is free here and you get paid to study, so you have to be an idiot not to, and that’s prob what I am for not studying anymore. it’s kinda insane how much money I would get paid to study cause I can get disability help, so I would get 1500 us dollars a month for studying for free. That’s Denmark. I also get my meds free, apart from a very small fee for the seroquel, which I would have gotten for almost free too if it was more expensive.

I hope some of it helps, that’s the reason why I created this account and posted, but as you surely know, you are very smart and I wouldn’t think you can teach a person as smart as you much, but you asked for help from the community and this is my best response I could come up with.

So sleep well, I hope

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11

very thoughtful post, my friend, I appreciate it! Don’t beat yourself up for not studying so hard, it isnt for everyone.

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I take benzos, quetiapine and If I find it hard to sleep for several days, I take a first generation antipsychotic on low doses. I don’t know the name of the drug in English, but look up for “levomepromazina” and ask your doctor. Hypnotics don’t make you sleep, they just take care for your brain while you are awake all night

13

My pdoc prescribed me zolpidem, it knocks me out.

14

For a while i couldn’t sleep until morning and i would sleep the day away. I took clonidine for a while and knockede out at night. Now i take l theanine and melatonin and it helps

15

I have trouble sleeping even with a small dose of Seroquel.
Recently had some success taking a small part of an l-tryptophan tablet. Taking the whole tablet made my heart pound.
Am also sensitive to noise and sometimes wear ear pluggs and have white noise machine.
Good luck.

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I would say your insomnia is from Geodon itself. It’s one of the side effects. When I took Geodon I was on a bunch of sleeping pills. The one that worked for me was Ativan 0,5 -1 mg at night. Now that I have switched meds, my insomnia simply went away. Hope you find a solution soon.

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I use a combo of tranxene and trazadone that’s worked for several months now. I hope I don’t develop a tolerance to tranxene but the pdoc said it was one of the less likely benzos to do so.

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I had a hellish week of insomnia maybe a few months ago. Anything you can think of that could have triggered it? Mine was that I’d run out of my clonazepam script and the doc was on vacation which they didn’t tell me so I’m going between the resceptionist and the pharmacy and eventually after two hours sleep at best a night for a week couldn’t function or even drive. I lost my mind eventually.

The longest I’ve gone with insomnia was three months or more, worse than last time, I was lucky to get an hours sleep a night otherwise I would just lay there and spend my days pacing in my apartment. I ended up in the ER and they didn’t ask me a damn thing all they wanted was half the blood in my body for unknown reasons. I asked what it was for and if I’d get to see the results and the nurse just smiled all creepy and said “you might some day” I told them I’d had maybe 12 hours sleep in the last 3 months and they just ignored it, didn’t say anything.

Time before that I landed in the ER I hadn’t slept enough in just about as much time to have any amount of judgment left plus I was absolutely terrified, we were being dumped on with more snow than we’d ever had, those ISIS creeps were all over the news and in the paper and I had no idea what I was going through. They had me sign all these documents half of which I could read, like I could read a few lines and then one word would be blurred, I’d ask “what is that word” and they just told me to sign it or I couldn’t be admitted. I remember one of the documents had the state seal on the top. No idea what these papers were and didn’t make sense in hind site that papers that were “just for signing yourself into the psych floor” would have the state seal on them at all.