lilia: How to get rid of terrible insomnia?

[lilia]

Hello to everyone, hope to find help here.

 

I took antidepressants (paroxetine) 13 years because of panic attacks and at the end of 2015 I began to stop it. After 6 months that was a fact. During this period I started to struggle with insomnia and constipation, but it wasn't so terrible at the begining. Few months later new symptoms were added - palpitation and tachycardia (even heart crises especially after eating), physical weakness, tightening in solar plexus. It was so severe that during a period of 7-8 months I did not live but exist. To shortened my story I will tell you that almost all symptoms have passed ( somethimes it comes back briefly for hours or days) except insomnia. It's a great whip for me and I feel that could no longer bear this.

 

 This insomnia have 2 variants - impossibility to fall asleep till 3-5 a.m. or fast asleep at 00h and early wake-up at 4-6 a.m.  I am a person that needs at least 8h sleeping and this insomnia exhausted and robed me incredibly. I take benzo 2 times weekly to be able to sleep 6-7 hours, but it is addictive and now I have to take double dose. Trying to fall asleep using essential oils but without any effect.

 

Hope to find help, if anyone could share  personal experience I will be very thankful.

 

Edited September 28, 2018 by ChessieCat
spacing

[Gridley]

Welcome, lilia,

 

To give members the best information, we ask them to summarize their medication history in a signature -- drugs, doses, dates, and discontinuations & reinstatements, in the last 12-24 months particularly.  Include your current benzos.

 

Account Settings – Create or Edit a signature.

 

Please be very careful with the benzos.  Which benzo and how long have you been taking them?  

 

Here is some information about withdrawal sleep problems.

 

 Important topics about symptoms, including sleep problems

 

See also Melatonin for sleep.  It's best to start at a very low dosage, such as .25mg, and gradually increase if needed to the lowest effective dose.

 

 

 

[lilia]

Hello Gridley, thanks for the answer.

I edited my signature, and about benzo between 2003 - 2016 I took it very seldom, sometimes didn' t need  it for months. Last year I take it often ( 2 times weekly) only because of insomnia and started with 1/2 pill, but 2 months ago increased the dose to 1 pill, unfortunately half didn't work anymore. Hope to get better and reduce it to once a week.

Unfortunately melatonin doesn't work at all for me, I tried it several times without any effect.

 

About suplements - it could be very helpful. When I started to take brewer yeast (year 2011) on the very first month felt better and it was possible to decrease antidepress. from 20mg to 5mg.

 

Thanks for the link about withdrawal sleep problems, hope to find something that could help me.

[lilia]

Is it possible for insomnia to disappear and then come back to worse? When I started withdrawal I had some sleeping problems for about a year, then my sleeping has recovered for about a year and then returned in much worse variant. Is it a part of withdrawal or I have to search for another reason?

[ChessieCat]

Withdrawal symptoms can come and go and come back and go again and come back, sometimes a withdrawal symptom goes but a difference one starts.  It's all part of the brain trying to get back to normal.

 

Healing isn't linear, it comes in a Windows and Waves Pattern

 

See also:  are-we-there-yet-how-long-is-withdrawal-going-to-take

 

This is good:  Video:  Healing From Antidepressants - Patterns of Recovery  And so is this:

 

On 12/4/2015 at 2:41 AM, apace41 said:

 

Basically- you have a building where the MAJOR steel structures are trying to be rebuilt at different times - ALL while people are coming and going in the building and attempting to work.

It would be like if the World Trade Center Towers hadn't completely fallen - but had crumbled inside in different places.. Imagine if you were trying to rebuild the tower - WHILE people were coming and going and trying to work in the building!  You'd have to set up a temporary elevator - but when you needed to fix part of that area, you'd have to tear down that elevator and set up a temporary elevator somewhere else. And so on. You'd have to build, work around, then tear down, then build again, then work around, then build... ALL while people are coming and going, ALL while the furniture is being replaced, ALL while the walls are getting repainted... ALL while life is going on INSIDE the building. No doubt it would be chaotic. That is EXACTLY what is happening with windows and waves.  The windows are where the body has "got it right" for a day or so - but then the building shifts and the brain works on something else - and it's chaos again while another temporary pathway is set up to reroute function until repairs are made. 

 

 

[lilia]

Cat, thanks for the answer. Unfortunately this explanations sounds discouraging to me, it looks like I will have to recover all my life??!!....Just some of the problems have passed and again something has appeared to torment me....again don't live but exist. Sorry but I am a little desperate after almost 6 months of insomnia. Looking sick, losing strenght, losing weight, losing social life.  But I still hope that every next month will be better.

 

I know it depends on many things but how long did it take for all of you to build again your "World Trade Center Towers"?

[ChessieCat]

I suggest you check out this area of the site:  success-stories-recovery-from-withdrawal

[lilia]

Thanks Cat, I'll check it. Maybe I need to be encourаged.