[Sairana]

NikkiB I hope you had good night sleep these past couple of days. Happy to report the last two days has been relatively good nights especially last night. Slept from 11 to 4:30 waking up once in between and light sleep till 6:15. My doctor did not give me ambien saying I was more likely to use it chronically for sleep instead of working on my sleep. He pushed me to keep working on the mindfulness. He recommended Trazodone 50mg to keep it as backup in case it got really bad. In heavier dosages it’s an anti depressant. I haven’t used it. Just his words gave me the encouragement to push past my tiredness. Been practicing mindfulness tools especially during the day. I feel like i try them on only bad days and not good days. In fact yesterday, my wife got laid off from work. Normally this would have made me anxious and not sleep for 2 or 3 nights. But I guess practicing mindfulness seemed to give me the strength and I slept better than I ever did in more than a week. I hope you had good sleep. Hang in there. 2021 will be a good year where we Crack through this. I am also taking and Eastern meditation/yoga class this week.

[Panos]

Hallo everyone!
My name is Panos and I have been suffering from insomnia the last three months.
Tinnitus, which was caused by either stress or anti inflammatory drugs, trigered my insomnia. And although tinnitus doesn’t bother me so much anymore, insomnia became chronic.
As everyone I’ve tried everything to resolve it. I found Martins videos very helpfull and i enrolled in the free cbti program.
Unfortunately it didn’t work for me. When I sleep, I sleep deep for a solid 4 or 5 hours but I always wake up very early before the alarm goes on. I also have many sleepless nights. And although I seem do be mostly functional with little or no sleep, anxiety and depression is getting hold of my daily life. My psychiatrist prescribed me tranxene for twenty days and lexapro to ease my anxiety. I am very skeptical about taking these drugs.
Has anyone tried these drugs?
I am currently thinking of trying ACT as my last resort.
I am reading dr Meadows book. I understand that acceptance is the key to ease anxiety about sleep.
The difficult part for me is to stay for hours in bed accepting sleepiness and trying to relax. How do you handle that?
I’m trying to remain positive by reading this thread and how it worked out for you all. I understand that it will take time and practice.

[Panos]

I meant accepting wakefulness! I can accept sleepiness!!

[dgeitner]

Hi Panos –

I was in a similar situation as you starting last March when a health scare (heart related) caused a disruption in my sleep which then caused my insomnia/tinnitus which then caused my anxiety which then caused my depression… I think you get the picture.

Anyhow, after some unsuccessful sleep med prescriptions (atarax, restoril) and my increasing anxiety and depression, my doctor prescribed me lexapro and lunesta, and after a month of my stubbornness, I started taking them on May 2, 2020. I started on 5 mg of lexapro daily and 3 mg of Lunesta nightly. After about 4-6 weeks, my anxiety drastically decreased and the Lunesta was the only med that worked to help me sleep with no side effects.

After 4 months into this, in September 2020 I asked my doctor if I can start tapering the Lunesta as I struggled with still taking something for my sleep, but I couldn’t sleep without it. I tried to taper on my own, but could not sleep without the full dose. He instead recommended to increase my lexapro to help balance out serotonin and not to taper just yet. I increased to 7.5 mg daily of my lexapro and am still on that dose to this day.

Then in late October 2020, I decided to start my tapering of my lunesta. I started taking 3/4 of the med (2.25 mg), had disrupted sleep for a few days then became adjusted to that level of med. then in December I tapered to 1/2 of my dose (1.5 mg), and now I am on a 1/3 of my dose (1 mg) and hope to be down to 1/4 of the dose (.75 mg) before I can quit all together.

I would tell you that this taper wouldn’t have been successful WITHOUT this info on this website. I am thankful to God for Martin Reed and his work. Just reading these forums, watching Martin’s videos, following the sleep restriction protocols, ACT, have helped give me the confidence to slowly taper of my sleep meds. Each time I decrease, I struggle for a few days but I feel more clear-headed and more “awake” after a nights sleep.

Anyway, I would say, do not fear the lexapro. It was one of the crucial elements in my steps to recovery (I am no longer anxious or depressed) along with the LORD lifting me up out of the pit of despair and He gave me a new hope!

I am still in insomnia recovery but I am no longer hard on myself for not “healing” at a faster rate based on my own “goal oriented” mindset (which, ironically, typically goes hand-in-hand with anxiety/depression and does not help sleep whatsoever ?). By the way, my tinnitus resolved itself probably by Octoberish or so? I still have faint vibration at night but it’s hardly noticeable.

I’ll be rooting for you, I hoped that helped somewhat.

[Panos]

Thank you dgeitner for the reply.
I started taking Lexapro 5 days ago but my tinnitus unfortunately have spiked. Tinnitus is a side effect of this drug so today I decided to stop taking it. I don’t think I can handle both insomnia and tinnitus. That’s to bad though because I think that Lexapro did help me somewhat to not overthink about insomnia and the last few days I slept quite well.

[Chen Liang]

in the long run drugs is not the solution never will be. only temporary comfort. if you take it long enough the side effect will give you worst symtoms not only insomnia and i have been there. i will tell you something try reading dr. claire weekes book hope and help for your nerve. also try watch youtube from “vacate fear” also from ” shaan kassam” . insomnia is 100% same with panic attack there is no different just different area where you are fearing. learn this first not dr guy meadow. search also randy gardner also search youtube the podcast from dr daniel with sasha stephen.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 9 months ago by Chen Liang.

[dgeitner]

To Panos, yes my tinnitus did get worse when I took the lexapro, but I had it prior to the lexapro, so I went with it and here I am 9 mos later with just a trace of it remaining. I find my tinnitus is triggered by the stress, and once my stress is lowered, it gets better.

To Chen, yes, the sleep meds just dealt with the symptoms of insomnia, not the cause of my insomnia, but was helpful for the short term. I read and sometimes re-read Dr. Claire Weekes book as I did find that helpful.

As I am tapering off, I am trying to be gentle with myself as I wanted to be off of my meds within a few weeks, not going on three months now ?… but I am much further along now than where I started! I have to remember that.

[Mac0908]

Hi Deb, how are you doing?

[Manfred]

And you, Mac – how are doing?

[Mac0908]

Hi Manfred. For the most part I am doing very well these days. I consider myself 90-95% recovered from the nightmare that (on and off) took over my life for the better part of several years. There are still a few issues though.

One, and this one is rather innocent- I still have the occasional odd night where for no reason I’ll just have poor sleep, but like so many other recovered people, I know this is just that, an odd night, and that this isn’t and never was a permanent thing.

Two- I STILL to this day cannot seem to get over my final battle of “special event insomnia”. I spoke about this many times in some of my previous posts. Whether it be a job interview, a hot date, or even just something of significance the next day, that old awful feeling will typically creep in the night before. I’ll think about said special event and even in the smallest of ways, the anxiety will be there. It scares me honestly bc I think about the future. What would I ever do if let’s say I have a kid one day. I’m an anxious person in general. That’s part of the reason why I ended up in this mess. I’ve spoken to my therapist about it all and she suggested possibly trying medication at this point ONLY on these rare nights when anxiety creeps in. (Benzos)

I’ll admit that one on hand it seems like a step backwards and in the wrong direction, but on the other- this has gone on for so long now that who knows, maybe this is just the way it is. I have anxiety, and maybe, just maybe I need a little extra help. It’s just hard when all I’ve ever read about and heard about is “stay away from the sleeping pills” while also knowing I’ve recovered huge, but still, I’m talking about medication.

But all I know is that something has to give, because this special event insomnia continues on, rarely ever failing to strike me.

[Manfred]

Hi Mac,

I am very happy to hear that you have recovered so well from this nightmare.

I can need your advice since I am in this nightmare right now. I am in a deep hole not knowing what to do.

HOW did u recover exactly? I find it so hard, and right now impossible, to do this ACT thing. When I lay down, I get very anxious and my mind is “bomarding” me with negative, dark (intrusive) thoughts. I try to accept, observe them.. whatever, but this anxiety looks to be engrained.

All this give me sort of existential fear. What if I am stuck? What if it never goes away? What happens to my job, my life? WIll I get depressed (it drags me down)? aso. A huge vicious circle.

Thanks in advance and stay healthy

Manfred

[Chen Liang]

hei manfred…

you seem to have read a lot about acceptance , problem is you seem to use acceptance to control insomnia and try to heal insomnia which is not what acceptance mean…. i joined many acceptance community with many people healed in there and guiding many more getting healed and each week i see new people healed. You know what acceptance is? you are right if you let anxious thought and feeling be. But insomnia and panic is the same the more you dont want to have panic attack by using acceptance you will get more panic attack. Instead why not just let the panic be whenever it want to come whether today tommorow or even everyday and just live your life with it there without trying to heal or fix it. When you get so anxious let yourself be more anxious dont try to get rid of anxiety . Acceptance is the same with surrender be gratefull in suffering be gratefull in happiness. You can sleep you are happy you dont sleep also happy. I think you should already know this much. Dont fight sleeplessness and the suffering that come with it. Dont try to heal it let time and God heal you. Dont ask for healing instead live the life you want without concern of your condition. Do not engage fear with fear but with accepting love they want to torment you let them do it. When you choose not to fear suffering instead come to it , anxiety loses its grip.

• This reply was modified 3 years, 8 months ago by Chen Liang.

[delv-x]

I might as well bump this thread up as I would like to give an update to those who were active on this thread. Thank you for all the advice and support. It’s been awhile since I’ve posted and wanted to update that for the past month/year+, most evenings have been good. I had a precipitating factor that triggered all this and since that factor has passed, I slowly returned to normalcy.

I don’t want to go into long specifics but ACT to some extent or just doing as I did before all this happened worked much better than a strict CBT regimen. Looking back I think it did more harm than good. Not saying it doesn’t work but rather the approach or results may not be as good as an ACT approach. Trying to log, think, worry and fix my sleeping problems was counter productive.

I know it’s easier said than done but laying in bed and doing nothing or letting your mind wander even if it’s good and bad stuff is ok, you will get tired either way and will fall asleep. On good nights smile and remember you can sleep. On poor nights, remember we all have them and just keep going through your day.

[Hbhigg]

Hi delv-x
Thanks for the update. Like you I found the logging, judging time and worrying about strict stimulus control was detrimental to me. I find just lying calmly in bed or if I feel like it reading or sometimes getting up (I empty the dishwasher) is much easier to deal with as it stops me thinking of ‘insomnia’ it is all Just in a nights sleep and just like the days no 2 are the same.

[delv-x]

Agreed Hbhigg,

Logging, judging and worrying wasn’t productive. Letting it all go was better especially since I believe most of us would misjudge how many hours we were awake/sleep.

[Author]

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