I’ve been taking the occasional 10mg ambien described by my doctor for over 2 years with no issue. Like many people I have a few funny stories about seeing weird things or having crazy dreams but nothing that worried me. Until last night.

I was feeling extremely anxious and upset and took a pill because I thought I wouldn’t be able to sleep without it. Even while taking it I thought “I wonder if this will make things worse?” I suppose I may have just locked myself into that mindset at that point and doomed myself then and there. About a half hour later, oh my god I went totally insane. Total gibberish, wild thoughts. Ended up texting with 2 crisis hotlines at the same time, and since they’re text messages they are preserved for me to read over and over again. The things I was saying were terrifying (75% gibberish which made it scary). And the worst part….I now remember that I continuously would get out of bed, go to the bathroom, and TAKE MORE PILLS. I think my brain thought they “weren’t working.” Had I been a little stupid I could have potentially died. I miraculously woke up in time for work on time the next morning, but it too until noon before I started feeling like myself. And another several hours before I started putting the pieces together.

So yeah…no more ambien for me. At least not for a long time. Let this be a cautionary tale to be careful when taking them in a vulnerable mindset. And maybe put your phone in a lockbox.

Somebody just asked me if I am OK and if I sleep enough, just by looking at my face. Of course I am not surprised because I know that sleeping less than 15 hours a week on average, sometimes less than 10, doesn't give me a rosy complexion, but yes, it's so hard.

This is affecting my health in other ways too. I get sick all the time and without a reason, for example I get a cold when it's warm.

Insomnia is just a curse.

I hate it when icannot fall asleep. How on earth do I rest??? EV1 in my family sleeps so well. Only I have this problem!!!!

This might be kind of obscure but I've been waiting months to do a sleep study. Because it's taking so long and it's so tedious - I was wondering if I could just do it myself. I know the quality may not be the same, but I've seen DIY solutions online. Does anyone know if it's safe - my understanding is you can connect electrodes to an amplifier which then connects to a computer roughly speaking. Is there any real risk of electrocution? I just want to measure my sleep more accurately.

I have a history of being a great sleeper my whole life. The type of person where my head hits the pillow and I’m out for at least 8-9 hours. I did have a week long bout of insomnia when I was 21 that went away.

Last week Monday is when my life changed and I have felt hopeless ever since. Monday night I had issues sleeping. I tossed and turned in bed. I knew I had to wake up early which put more pressure on me to sleep. I maybe got 2 hours.

The next night I felt I had to sleep and I suddenly got very hyperaroused while trying to drift off. Like I was hyper vigilant of the act itself and was in nearly constant fight or flight with adrenaline surges blocking my sleep drive. I slept 3 hours.

The next night I slept 0 hours. Followed by 4.5 hours and 5.5 hours. I believe I had a normal-ish night on Saturday. But still full of adrenaline rush early so I transferred to the couch, felt sleepy and then went back to my bed.

Last night was awful. I didn’t fall asleep until 5am and I slept for 1.5 hours. Every time I closed my eyes to relax, adrenaline surges.

At this point I’m at a loss and it’s only been a week. I don’t want this to become chronic. I have an urgent care appointment to discuss meds like Amitryptaline. But I’m worried that won’t work for me.

Not sure how to ever get rid of this. Any advice is appreciated.

Does anyone else have completely unpredictable sleep?? I can be tired and sleepy, and not fall asleep... or energized, and fall asleep immediately. I often wake up at 1am (go to bed every night at 10pm); sometimes awake only for a few minutes, sometimes need a cup of hot milk or sleepytime tea and it takes an hour or two to get back to sleep. Unpredictable every single night, and it's maddening. I live in a quiet area, very dark at night; routine days (I LOVE routine, thrive on it), walk daily, and eat healthy. Sleep issues since childhood, but nothing has ever been found to be the cause. I just wish it was predictable enough to figure out what would help.

I’ve been struggling with insomnia since childhood. Whenever I try to sleep, my mind keeps wandering. Random thoughts, movie scenes, memories, or literally anything start playing in my head, and I just can’t switch my brain off.
I really want to sleep peacefully, but these thoughts keep me awake for hours. I don’t want to rely on medication, so I’m looking for natural ways to deal with this.
Has anyone experienced something similar? What helped you fall asleep?

I've been prescribed Quviviq, after I've tried around 5 or 6 other prescription sleep medications and several over the counter ones. While Quviviq addresses my main issue of even falling asleep quite well, it has now made me unable to sleep through the night. First night I woke up after roughly four hours. Second night it was the same. Third night it was 2,5 hours and tonight I woke up after 2:20 hours... on top of that I have extremely vivid, realistic and somewhat disturbing dreams and while I can handle those, it's obviously still annoying...

Has anyone else experienced this and maybe has any tips? Maybe my sleep hygiene is bad? Though I try my best to wind down properly, put my phone away and have a familiar audiobook on, very quietly (I'm used to this my whole life and it does calm me down). I don't drink caffeine hours before going to bed, I make sure to have dinner at least 4-5 hours before taking Quviviq. I just wanna sleep.

I have been taking Trazodone for roughly 14 years. I have always had sleep issues. For a while the Trazodone felt like a miracle drug for me because I was finally able to fall asleep and sleep thru the night. Recently I began to wonder if the Trazodone was part of the reason I was so tired during the day and causing me to have issues getting up in the morning. I sort of did my own experiment with taking half of my dose of Trazodone with a 10mg of baclofen (muscle relaxer from years ago) I had the best nights sleep and woke up ready for the day the next morning in a way I never have before. Im wondering if theres a medication I could talk to my Dr about that would better suit me the way that combination did. I know it can be controversial to play around with medications but when you have struggled with insomnia and sleep issues for as long as I have, you become desperate for relief. I will be seeing my dr next week and I just want to have some information before hand that I can look into myself to prepare for the conversation with my doctor. Any advice or experiences, positive or negative, wpuld be appreciated!

Does the savings card actually bring it down that much? I really want to try either one of these, but I'm worried that the price is going to be insane. I have Carefirst insurance through my employer, but I'm worried they might not cover it or something

Hola, como les ha ido con trazodona para dormir?

Mi medico está haciendo el cambio de eszopiclona a trazodona partimos con 25 mg, rs mi primera noche, les contaré.

Con Bupropion tuvimos que dejarlo porque NO hubo caso que mi cuerpo lo aceptara. Me hizo sentir triste y muy ansiosa. Volvimos q sertralina a baja dosis 25 mg.

Asi que estamos con sertra y trazodona por las noches.

Les cuento que tal !

I've had this issue on and off for years and have been debating which to try first. His program is less expensive than paying a therapist $150 per session. Have any of you had luck on his program? Or is it more like "you get what you pay for"?

Hi y’all! I have dealt with endometriosis for twelve years and sleep issues pretty much the entire time. I have GAD and CPTSD. I was finally able to get a hysterectomy last November and since then sleep had been non existent! My doctor put me on 15mg Mirtazapine and 4mg of tizanidine (I take half most nights)

Since starting these two medications I’m finally able to sleep all night! I would lay in bed replaying events in my head then amping myself up about needing to be up early for work and the cycle would just go on repeat every night. I know medications aren’t for everyone but these two medications together have changed my entire world! I just wanted to share what’s helped me. Melatonin sleep aids etc have never worked for me in the past.

Hey everyone

I'm hoping there are people here who have experienced something similar to what I've been dealing with over the past 12 months and, hopefully, have managed to find a solution.

I've never been a particularly great sleeper, but historically my main issue was always falling asleep. That's completely changed now. These days, I generally fall asleep without much trouble, but almost every single night, like clockwork, I wake up after 3–4 hours of sleep and struggle to fall back asleep for at least another 3 hours. Even when I do eventually drift off again, the sleep is usually incredibly light and fragmented.

I've tried quite a few medications and supplements, with varying degrees of success. By far the most effective has been zopiclone, but I'm very conscious of the risks of tolerance and dependence, so I try to use it sparingly. If I'm being honest, I've probably already relied on it more than I'd like.

Other things I've tried include THC, doxepin, Dayvigo (lemborexant), and just about every sleep supplement you can think of. Unfortunately, nothing has consistently addressed the problem.

I'd genuinely love to hear from anyone who has experienced this specific pattern of sleep disruption and managed to overcome it. What worked for you? Did you ever figure out what was causing it? I'm also really interested in hearing any theories or possible explanations for why someone might consistently wake after 3–4 hours of sleep and then be unable to get back to sleep, despite still feeling tired.

I can't overstate how much this has started to affect my quality of life. The difference between days when I've slept properly and days when my sleep has been fragmented is enormous. On the rare occasions I get a full night's sleep, I feel absolutely amazing, like a completely different person. I'd honestly give just about anything to experience that more regularly.

I'm not necessarily looking for a miracle cure, just some hope, personal experiences, or ideas I might not have considered.

I'd be incredibly grateful for any advice, experiences, or insights anyone is willing to share. Thanks so much for reading. ❤️

I've had insomnia for past 30 years. 20 years ago I was prescribed Ambien. It was the best sleep of my life, but after one too many sleepwalking incidents I decided to stop taking.. & was too chicken to try it again..since then I've been on everything else from Seroquel trazodone Quetiapine Doxepin Lunesta nothing ever worked as good as Ambien. So after 20 year hiatus I decided to cautiously give Ambien another shot.. boy oh boy am I glad I did.. I wonder if my body chemistry changed over the years since I'm in my 50s now cuz now there are no sleep walking incidents. I've been on it for 6 months now and best sleep ever..

I've looked at the posts that mention napping and most people say to avoid or keep them short. I can find information on how short naps don't typically help you if you're sleep deprived and how you need to enter SWS to see improvements in cognition (which aligns with my experience). The thing I'm finding most people say is that naps reduce sleep pressure at night and it's better to avoid them, but in my case avoiding naps reduces sleep pressure.

In my experience, whenever I've felt tired enough to sleep and have been able to fall asleep for a nap but pushed through so I could fall asleep at night, I'd end up having later sleep onset.

Example: If I tried to fall asleep at 11 PM on Monday, fell asleep at 2 AM and woke up at 6 AM. If by 3 PM I was feeling tired enough to fall asleep and tried to push till 10/11 PM before getting into bed and trying to sleep, wouldn't be able to fall asleep till 4 AM.

I don't know how to word but avoiding the nap makes the wired feeling when I try to sleep worse.

A sleep diary for two weeks tells you a lot: when you got into bed, roughly when you fell asleep, wake-ups, when you got up, and how rested you felt. People are often surprised how much time they spend in bed awake. It's also the starting point for setting a sleep window in CBT-I.

Hey everyone I'm having problems related to sleep. Ive been using cannabis for a few months regularly and i noticed drastic changes in sleep quality. Even though for most people weed causes them to be sleepy and helps with sleep thats not the case with me because i very often cannot fall sleep.

Yesterday i slept for 2 hours woke up and when i fell asleep again i had a nightmare woke up had a panick attack had so much anxiety from nowhere. I dont remember alot from yesterday but i fell asleep after that.

This panick attack could be linked with short withdrawals since ive already experienced 3 panick attacka in the past week and a half and i think it could be linked with cannabis use.

I know this is not your usual post about insomnia and i wen a bit off theme but i wanna see if anyone has had something similar.

I came back home to my mum's house almost two months ago after living abroad for years, something happened so I just had to come back even though I wasn't willing. I've had great sleep all my life till I came back. (Backstory, my mum was narcissist and horrible when I was a child) My sleep has been horrible since I came back, I moved into my sister's room a week and a half ago because she's not here and I slept great for a few days but then I'm back to struggling. I'm so sleep deprived, I feel like crying everyday. I feel so unsafe during the night time, any small sound outside or even inside the house makes me alert and then i get so scared because i think l'll get attacked so I lose sleep more and then when i get a little bit of sleep my mum wakes up and she's usually very loud when preparing herself for work. I feel like this area is not safe at all compared to the suburbs I lived in abroad. Any advice would be appreciated because I'm so tired of this, it's affecting me both physically and mentally

I heard sonata can’t be taken long term and has a short half life though. Currently i take seroquel at 50mg and have sleep hangovers since I only sleep 5-6 hours. Mirtazapine gives me irritability and ambian doesn’t put me to sleep. Also trazadone gives me horrid sleep hangovers along with zyprexa. Any advice for hypnotics, antipsychotics etc?

Hi! I'm honestly pretty uneducated, and just need advice at this point.

I am 22F, I struggle with anxiety/ptsd; I have had very few sleep issues until recently. I slept fine Tuesday night, then Wednesday night, I couldn't sleep until around 10am the next morning, and slept until 2pm, Thursday I slept I believe 4 hours, Friday I slept for 6, but then Saturday I slept for 2 hours and now Sunday(last night) I slept for 1. I have been taking 5mg of melatonin since Thursday, upping it to 10mg last night.

My issue is my heart will jump awake when I get close to sleeping, I assume that it's due to anxiety, as I'm anxious currently about my lack of sleep. I also don't eat the best, so it could just be my body needing food. I have also been using my inhaler more than I should, having some flare ups right now.

I really don't know what to do, I am very worried about things I've heard about, such as FFI/sFI. Or just generally not sleeping again.

I'm looking for tips/reassurance. I am honestly open to trying anything other than melatonin.

I have been waking up around 5am lately and cant tell if I am going back to sleep or not. Time seems to pass quickly when I look at the clock, say in 40min increments, but I feel like I am just laying there worrying about not sleeping! I dont remember dreams during this time, just adrenaline and racing repeat thoughts. I also feel a real need to move my legs/rub my feet against the sheets during this time. Anyone else?

2 years ago I was lifting weights and doing cardio for 3 hours a day. 2 years ago my arms started shaking violently from any amount of heavy lifting and now my endurance is gone. This was after 7+ years of slowly intensifying poor sleep. Anyone experienced similar?

What has your experience been?

I've recently been prescribed Trazodone 50 MG to deal with insomnia and I noticed that once the drug starts to kick in my breathing becomes increasingly labored. Like my nasal passages feel tight and narrow and for a little bit of time I get the sensation I'm not getting enough air before it finally evens out.

At first I thought it was just nerves with taking the drug, but it's happened each night I've taken it.

Is this a temporary side effect and eventually go away? or should I be concerned and/or bring it up with my doctor? Has anyone else experienced this and what did you do?