Is my brain recovering from olanzapine? I wonder?

Last night, for the first time in many many months, I fell to sleep without taking any supplements or sleeping pills, it wasn’t for a long time but it did happen.

I usually go to bed around 11:00pm, I get tired around 9:00pm but I force myself to stay up to 11:00 because if I take my sleeping pills (1.5mg clonazepam, 200mg l-theanine and 10 grams of glycine) any earlier I end up waking up at like 5:00am and that is too early for me to get up, I’d rather go to bed at 11:00 and wake up around 7 or 8.

Anyways, around 9:30pm last night I was getting really tired as usual and I closed my eyes and I actually fell asleep for an hour and a half, I woke up at 11:00pm. When I woke up at 11:00pm I was shocked, but extremely happy, I actually fell to sleep without some sort of pill, that hasn’t happened in a long long time. I couldn’t get back to sleep so I took my sleeping pills and went back to sleep for the rest of the night.

My insomnia started when I lowered and then quit Olanzapine…I wonder if this means my brain is starting to recover from the olanzapine withdrawal. It was exactly 7 weeks ago today I quit olanzapine. All the other weird withdrawal effects I’ve experienced over the last 4 years as I have been slowly lowering my dose from 40mg are gone, just insomnia is left.

I hope this is a good sign and not just a fluke, I would love to recover from olanzapine completely and be able to sleep again naturally.

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I had really bad sleep for awhile… i am sorry… it can really be horrible.

If anyone can help: olanzapine’s brand name is Zyprexa.

Funny is I googled this and got myself pissed off …

when I read a FAQ(like google displays).

It said sz is a mental illness that causes ‘Disturbed’ and unusual thinking…‘

(I look stuff up here and there and this felt new, as though google is getting a little more fresh or negative… a departure from being more p.c. about it, and that word bothers me there.

End rant/

This is good news! May you have many more nights of falling asleep naturally from now on! Awesome!

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Thanks @anon90992146

Most drugs that I’ve had withdrawals from in the past have taken a few months to fully recover from, but olanzapine is a particularly nasty drug. Most other drugs I have been on only target a few brain receptors so you just have to wait until your brain goes back to normal, but olanzapine targets 17 brain receptors! That’s a lot of recovery to do. One day at a time.

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It happened again last night. I fell to sleep before taking my sleep pills, I drifted off at 9pm and woke up just before midnight.

I became wide awake and I couldn’t get back to sleep so I took my sleeping pills, but still had trouble getting back to sleep. I did fall to sleep eventually, about 5 more hours.

A little tired today, but happy because this is the second time I have fallen to sleep without taking sleeping pills. Sleeping pills screw up your sleep architecture (Your sleep stages, especially REM sleep) so these little sleeps I am having are natural sleeps which means they are better.

I hope this becomes a pattern and I sleep longer and longer without sleeping pills. If I can overcome this insomnia problem I will be really happy.

But of course that means I will probably have to deal with benzo withdrawal. I’ve been taking 1.5mg of clonazepam for sleep for about a month now, I don’t know if I have become dependent on it yet.

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I woke up 09.00 today, its unusual for me.
Sleep meds are waste of money imo.

Sounds like U got a good night’s rest @Headspark

But U still shouldn’t mess with benzos (L Theanine as well) cuz they’re addictive and can cause some bad experiences if U were to stop taking them.

:zzz:

@Yellowdiamond @anon57786250

Since I quit olanzapine I literally have not been able to sleep 1 minute naturally. I absolutely need sleeping pills to sleep, mine are free so its not a waste of money, but I would pay for them anyways. I’ve gone days without sleep and it’s not fun, and I still couldn’t sleep so I started takings sleeping pills. I’ve tried numerous medications and clonazepam works the best.

Technically benzos are not addictive, but you can develop a dependency on them, there is a difference between addiction and dependency. I am well aware of it, but if I ever start sleeping the whole night through naturally then I will wean myself off benzos, there are tons of websites dedicated to quitting benzos, its not easy but it is possible.Basically you just take reduce your dose by 10% of your previous dose every 4 weeks and take it slow.

I’ve only fallen to sleep twice naturally in the last many months, and both times it happened just recently, and only for a few hours, so I definitely still need my sleeping pills.

CBT for sleep, melatonin, teas and all of the other herbal crap out there doesn’t work at all.

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Been on Olanzapine (Zyprexa) since 1997. I like that the drug helps me sleep. Yeah I over sleep at times. I had severe insomnia before I started taking it so I like that it helps me sleep. It’s better than staying awake days on end.

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Before I was on olanzapine I slept normally, While I was on it, 40mg for 15 years, I slept 12 hours a day no problem. BUT when I quit it I couldn’t sleep at all anymore.

I researched it on Google, search “Olanzapine withdrawal insomnia”. There are countless people on numerous websites complaining about the same thing, they quit olanzapine and they can no longer sleep. This problem doesn’t effect everyone that quits, but it does effect a lot of people. There is a Facebook group dedicated to people who can’t sleep after quitting olanzapine too.

So what just because you read it online doesn’t make it true. Social media is a disease full of misinformation. Maybe people think they experience insomnia because they’re use to the drug helping them sleep? People with schizophrenia generally experience insomnia.

It’s not true because I heard about it on social media and web forums. It’s true because I experienced it, then my experience led me to research it and it was validated after reading thousands of other people with the same experience.

And the severity of this insomnia problem is only with olanzapine. Research other drugs, none them come close to this kind of problem. There are intermittent cases of insomnia with other drugs for sure, but not to this extreme.