[believer123]

Taper update:

I have officially been off restoril for about 2 months. In the beginning of the taper I was so happy to be sleeping without it that I was fine w my average sleep being about 4.5 hours a night. At first the sleep was light/fragmented and then it became more and more consolidated. My first challenge was my husband going on a work trip and having my cat back at home. I slept all 3 nights! Slowly my sleep has averaged closer to 6 hours a night with occasional 5 hour nights and more and more 6.5-7 hour nights. At this point my psychiatrist and sleep therapist are okay with my tapering off kolonopin. I was taking .5 at 3pm while my Zoloft got on board which I’m fine w being on and don’t have plans to taper off that for at least a year. They all say the kolonopin has nothing to do w my sleep imporoving as I take it at least 6 hours before bed, but the SRT is what has done the heavy lifting. In fact my sleep has improved significantly since being off the restoril. However much of that is bc I find myself getting sleepier earlier. I went from getting tired around 12, to 10, and now I’m almost regularly passing out around 9 (albeit on the couch) and often waking up between 4:30 and 5:30. I can’t seem to shift my hours to sleep in later a d stay up later which to be honest I was fine with until my sleep therapist said it’s going to cause a relapse if I can’t stay up until 11/12 and if I keep falling asleep on the couch and then moving to bed (which I don’t understand bc it’s what I’ve been doing all along and all the whine experiencing healing). I just finished my first taper week off the kolonopin. For two weeks I alternate between .5 and .25 every other day and it’s a 6 week plan in total of titration. So far, my average sleep is 6 hours with the nights on .25 being a little less. My first triggering night was the night before when I fell asleep at 9 and woke up at 1 and was unable to fall asleep at all. It felt like the early days of insomnia when I was getting 0 and staying up through the whole night while my husband and cat slept soundly and I felt so alone a d scared. Last night (on the .5) I bounced back to a 7 hour night but I don’t want to link my sleep w the kolonopin as I take it so much earlier in the day and I’d like to feel sleep confidence that both the “bad” and “good” nights are my own. I still can’t stay up till 12 a d last night passed out around 9 again, my husband apparently shouting to wake me up and I couldn’t. Even though I’m not falling asleep or waking up at the exact same time every day I still consider myself doing SRT as I’m not spending days in bed and get up close to the time I awake and only get in bed when tired or transferring to couch from bed. Still, this all feels like progress and even though I had two tough nights on .25 I also had two regular nights on .25. All this yo say, I just wanted to post my journey for anyone else tapering off these medications and also doing SRT/CBT-I. Would also love any inisights from those who have done it 🙂 overall it has been a much better experience than I thought. I was positive I’d get no sleep once off the restoril, and then once off it I figured I stick to 4.5 hours which only got better with time and am now averaging 6 with more and more 7 hour nights. Now that I’m on my final leg of tapering I’m trying to be positive that it’s once again a bit up and down but still overall trending upward.

[Martin Reed]

Thanks for sharing! You are taking action and you are learning from what you are doing.

You have learned that you can sleep without medication even though you thought that was not going to be possible.

Taking meaningful and important action (in this case, tapering off the medication) is moving you closer to where you want to be. That compares to taking action solely in response to whatever thoughts your problem-solving mind might generate as it does its job of looking out for you (such as “you’ll never sleep without medication”!).

You are moving in the direction you want to be heading. That’s progress, no doubt about it!

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