[BlueTank]

New Psychiatrist wants to try Gabapentin for sleep. I'm guessing this is related to telling him that I wake up early and that sometimes there is a lot of CNS activity including feeling like somebody is grinding a screwdriver in to my spine or spine pain and stuff.

I don't really expect this to fix or be a DP/DR thing (outside of how sleep helps). But more to help me fall asleep and stay asleep.

I expected to see more stuff on the internet but not seeing too much, including for sleep. I do see a lot about needing to taper slow and problems people have, but also reddit posts about it really helping for sleep.

Wish me luck. Its 600mg. Take 1-3 about 2-3 hours before bed. Kinda odd. I'll start by taking 1 and see how it goes.

The 2-3 hours before bed thing is crazy. Everything else I've taken is like a 30m 1 hour at most.

Any experience is appriciated - Also if you guys know of other forums than DPSELFHELP that are good for Panic Disorder or Insomnia that are active. DPSELFHELP is awesome but also i'm often just focused on Anxiety, Insomnia, and the CNS stuff.

 

[BlueTank]

600mg 2-3 hours before. ~.6mg Clonezepam. ~12mg seroquel. Advil PM. Melatonin.

I think I slept good. I know I had some dreams and sorta nightmares. I woke up and was super tired and drowsy. It was super relaxed and I just didn't/couldn't get up. I would get up and be drowsy and kinda stumbly. It faded over the day but just overall feel out of it. It had that feeling like I stayed up all night actually heh.

Later in the day I think there are some twitches going on. Little jerks and twitches which is largely new.

Gonna cut to 300. Take it earlier. .5 Clonezepam. no seroquel.

From what I can tell docs don't want to prescribe benzos and i'm guessing Gabapentin is this alternative.

I hope to get sleep going better but overall the anxiety and agoraphobia stuff is not good and don't want to add drowsy to it too. It really did feel like I didn't sleep but to my recolection I did. That or I was just so out of it I didn't know what was goin' on.

 

[forestx5]

My depressive episodes occur on intervals of about 8 years. They usually begin with early waking. I had a significant stressor in early December.

By February, I was waking up after 2 hours of sleep, and the rest of the night was filled with anxious thoughts. This is a recipe for disaster, so I had my doctor prescribe me 100 mg

of Seroquel. I immediately began to get 6+ hours a night. After a couple weeks, I switched to 20mg of Tamazepam and last night I slept

6 hours, and fell back to sleep for 3 more. No anxious thinking. My appetite is good and I'm walking 3 miles a day. I think I dodged a bullet.

I have had severe insomnia with depressive episodes in the past, and found elavil (amitriptyline) was also able to open that elusive sleep window.

Good luck.

 

[neutralmilkdissociation]

I did not find Gabapentin to really help much with sleep. I think I was at 900mg at the most (long time ago so i dont remember). If I were you, I would try to simplify your list of meds for sleep. The benzo will of course help a ton, but that opens pandora's box of problems. Melatonin is always a decent thing, but no more than 1mg. No Advil PM. I can't comment on the Seroquel because I don't know if you are using it for other things.

IMO the best sleeping drug on the market is Trazodone. It's the only med that I've ever taken that replicates a natural sleep. You don't feel drugged or anything, but rather you just drift and stay asleep.

 

[BlueTank]

Thanks. Yeah I'm no longer taking Seroquel. I actually started with Trazodone but it made my nose close up really bad. Like it just about defeated the purpose. I have some still here and was thinking I might try it again. one night when i took 100mg It really made me drowsy going to the bathroom. I about fell.

Really wish it didn't clog my nose up. I had nights of waking up with really dry mouth and drink a little water and try to fall asleep again.

Thing is docs don't want to prescribe Clonezepam anymore. The GP really doesn't like to and then i got a new Psychiatrist and he's like "Gabapentin" and I said i can't just stop Clonezepam so he prescribed these 25mg Oral dissolvable ones.

I think I've gotten used to a lot of the meds I'm taking. I'm tapering on the Clonezepam and then the other stuff I take is pretty much not as effective I think.

Perhaps when I taper some of these down I can try the trazodone again. But even after a while of taking 50 it was still clogging my nose up.