Insomnia

[countrygirl]

I never sleep well waking up alot in night but if I find I can't fall asleep within about 20 mins then I get panic - thoughts are I will never sleep again/I have extremely rare disease/ what if what if and all the usual.

Last night I went to bed wide awake which is a no on for me and sure enough I was still wide awake hour later and then the panic started.

I gave in at 3am and took a sleeping pill and then slept for 4 hrs only and of course now feel dreadful with the side effects.

I know its totally mental cause as the minute I change my thinking to - so what I will sleep when I am totally shattered or it doesn't matter if I am awake all night - then I sleep normally for me again.

Anyone else have whole nights with no sleep??

[23tana]

I have exactly the same problem.

I don't stay in bed if I'm wide awake. I usually come on here for a while. One thing that helps me is to play music I can sing along to (mentally) That stops my mind churning over other things and I'm usually asleep before the CD ends.

[swgrl09]

Those nights are the worst. I also struggle if I don't start to sleep right away. I cover the clock so I can't see what time it is, otherwise I will "count" how many hours I have left until morning. I also try to get up and get moving if I have been laying around.

[Crystalhiggs]

Oh I feel your pain Countrygirl I really do! I've been having this since February, last night I don't even think I had an hour of sleep.

I've been taking Trazodone for three months but am trying to come off it as I don't feel right on it. It has helped me sleep but I really want to do it naturally again and like last night, I still have some bad nights.

Just started CBT this morning to try to change my thoughts as you said, because when I start panicking it becomes a vicious cycle.

One thing though - sleeping pills in my opinion are dangerous and addictive! I was on zopiclone in the beginning for around 5 weeks and stopped cold turkey as I was needing more as time went on.

You can always try trazodone or mirtazapine if you want to go down that route but there will be a point where you'll want to come off and the insomnia will return, as it is with me. I wish I'd just gone down the natural route from day 1 but you live and learn!

Good luck, sleep deprivation is so debilitating! X

[countrygirl]

I tried mitazapine a couple of years ago and they did make me sleep for 1 night only then the sedating effect wore off but I did get very nasty side effects that meant I had to stop them after a week.

I have only ever taken a sleeping pill for say one night in a few days so never had a tolerance problem. Last year I took 14 over a year. I have also used the sedating ant histamines available over the counter again not for more than a night or two occasionally.

Good luck with the CBT