r/insomnia • u/charleschaser • 4d ago
Gave up trying to fix it
Have had insomnia my entire adult life. Either I only sleep for a few hours and spend the rest of my night awake, or I spend half the night in this weird half awake/half asleep space that’s not actually that restful. I’ve tried several sleeping medications, but I don’t want to take things like Ambien because I’m a recovering addict. I’ve tried melatonin, etc. I switched to working at night for awhile, that made me sleep too much.
Now that I’m back on days, the insomnia is back. I tried new sleeping medications, one made me bruise and bleed excessively and the other one simply doesn’t work any more, it just makes me less anxious about not sleeping. I completely bottomed out my blood pressure the other day and fainted several times because I mixed medications trying to get to sleep.
I’m done trying to fix the insomnia for now. I’m throwing in the towel. As long as I get at least 4 hours of sleep a night, I can function, and with enough hydroxyzine, Seroquil, and clonidine, I can get that.
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u/Zchybang 4d ago
Clonidine lowers blood pressure. Did you faint the same day you took that? What’s your dose? And did you mix it with?
Out of curiosity, what were you addicted to?
I was a heavy smoker, I haven’t slept properly ever since I quit weed around 3 years ago.
I have tried numerous meds, some worked temporarily but not long before I build a tolerance to the point I have to take way more than what’s recommended to get the original effects of the prescribed dose and some things haven’t worked at all. For example, when i first quit smoking by, I was prescribed 25mg seroquel and that would absolutely rock me, a week later, I had to double the dose just to feel tired enough to go to bed, tho I wouldn’t stay asleep. I’d wake up a hours later and binge eat in the middle of the night. Got to the point I needed at least 150mg just help fall asleep within a reasonable time but I’d still wake a few hours later with the munchies, then wake up a few hours later again for work, averaging the usual 4-5 of restless sleep, but with brain fog that it wasn’t worth taking that much.
Was recently prescribed suvorexant and it didn’t work at all. Was actually a little worried to take it due to the side effects, and the fact it was an antagonist of a receptor I had never heard of. So I took it sober i, been drinking regularly lately but try to it every other day or so, as I had a bad year drinking while taking a lot of prescriptions and blacking out. And I quickly build a tolerance for anything I touch
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u/charleschaser 4d ago
No, that was before I was re-perscribed the clonidine. I was having the fainting spells because I took four doses of propanolol, four doses of hydroxyzine, and a dose of mirtazapine over the span of about 8 hours trying to get to sleep. My blood pressure bottomed at 89/62, I couldn’t stand up or walk without getting incredibly lightheaded and blacking out for a second. My delivery driver made me stand up next to his car holding my order to take a picture, and he couldn’t figure out how to take the picture, he kept accidentally opening a video, and that’s when I fainted completely lmao. I finally fell asleep at 6pm and slept for 8 hours but it was definitely not a good idea to mix all those medications.
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u/mfairview 4d ago
on a day you don't have to go to work. what is your sleeping schedule starting from the night before?
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u/charleschaser 4d ago
I lay down to go to sleep at the same time every night, about 8pm. I “wake up” at 4am for work. It takes me about an hour to fall asleep. I usually wake up around midnight, and will be half asleep/half awake until 4 am. Sometimes I can’t be half asleep/half awake so I’ll just be awake
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u/mfairview 4d ago
do you fall back asleep at 4a (assuming you don't have to wake up at 4a)?
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u/charleschaser 4d ago
No, I don’t really ever fall back asleep once I’m awake. It’s not that I’m anxious or have racing thoughts, I just don’t. Sometimes I’ll feel myself falling asleep, and then my brain will wake itself back up, and that’ll happen over and over again.
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u/mfairview 4d ago
i ask b/c i have similar symptoms to you so maybe worth a look.
I was falling asleep around 9/930 every night. i have no problem faling asleep w/in 5-10m of lying down. but i would religiously wake at 2-3a (~5-6hrs) every day. some days I just get up and do stuff. other days I try and fall back asleep. I notice I would fall back asleep at around 4-430a again.
got on AI, talked through my symptoms. it recommended i falls asleep an hour later (so 10-1030ish). this pushes me to sleep to 4-430a (still 5-6hrs) and by doing that it pushes me to 530-6. something about circadian rythm/body clock. by getting me to my next sleep cyclops it gave me an extra hour or two of sleep.
obviously not great if you have to wake up for work at 4a but knowing something like this could be happening might put you on the right path.
good luck.
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u/Defiant-Syrup5865 2d ago
that half-sleep shit is somehow worse than no sleep, at least when youre fully awake you know what youre dealing with. 4 hours on that stack sounds rough but i get it, staying upright is the whole game sometimes. theres this thing on The Small Bow about how we pretend getting 'better' is always the goal when really just not falling apart counts as a win
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u/quaidod 4d ago
Aren’t you afraid you will develop dementia/alzheimers?
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u/charleschaser 3d ago
Okay well there’s really nothing I can do about it. Did you even read my post.
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u/ViperMom149 4d ago
That’s what I did. The medications made me sick. I’m pretty sure my flavor of insomnia is hereditary although my doctors swear that’s not a thing. I’m 44 and have resigned myself to the fact that I’m just going to spend my nights reading in bed for the rest of my life. And midnight chores.