So I had been on trazodone for about a year, to help me sleep. It worked great, I’d fall asleep quickly and stay asleep all night. But lately I’ve been trying to pare down the number of medications I’m on, so I asked to be taken off the trazodone. I expected to go back to how I was before being on it, where it would take me an hour or so to fall asleep, but I’d mostly stay asleep all night. But apparently, I’d grown dependent on it to sleep properly, because these past few nights have been horrible. Takes me forever to fall asleep, and I keep waking up, and staying awake. I got maybe 3 hours of sleep last night, if that, and I’m the kind of person who can’t function on less than 8. I hope eventually I’ll get used to being off the trazodone and start sleeping semi-normally again, but for now I guess I just have to deal with it.
It’s kinda like quitting an addiction. I feel wrong without it, like something’s missing. I don’t function right without it. If I had known quitting trazodone would be like this, I might’ve never gone on it at all.
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It’ll take your body a long time to adjust without a sleep aid. I took trazodone once; it made me feel like I’d entered an alternate reality. I stopped taking it after that.
Try some natural sleep aids, like magnesium (melatonin never worked for me, but it might work for you). Cut out caffeine. Exercise.
You could try something like benadryl, on a temporary basis, if you don’t want to become dependent on another sleep aid.
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I remember looking up Trazodone when my son was first put on it and reading that a lot had trouble getting off it. Becoming dependent on any sleep aid can unfortunately run this risk. I don’t know what dosage you are at but maybe titrating down instead of stopping it completely may help. I do believe that it will eventually even out but in the meantime finding other ways to get your sleep like Melatonin could be looked at?
I was at 100mg, which is a moderate dose from what I understand. I’ve thought about trying melatonin, but that has the problem of being another pill I take daily. I really just want to pare down my meds to the bare essentials, but between the stroke, my thyroid, depression and anxiety, sz, and trans stuff, I still have a lot to take.
I take trazodone in conjunction with other meds a lot, yet last night I didn’t and woke up at least four times from my hallucinations and what not. I hope things get easier for you. Sometimes I don’t like taking sleep meds cause I sleep so hard that I could sleep through anything lol. Makes me wonder sometimes.
I would confirm with either your doctor or a pharmacist/chemist but it appears that you can cut Trazodone tablets in half so cutting the dose to 50 mg might ease the insomnia.
Sounds like you are on a lot of medications and I can certainly understand wanting to cut out some.
I try to look at things like Melatonin and vitamins/supplements as being a part of a healthy diet.
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