Zopiclone/Nytol

[countrygirl]

I am having severe insomnia past month, always a bad sleeper but death of a friend has triggered no sleep! I literally can't fall asleep and can lie there all night long awake. I know its anxiety because every few nights I do fall asleep myself.
I was self medicating with nytol over the counter for a week but went to GP who has given me zopiclone. When I am severely anxious when I am awake in the night I can self harm. Dr advised me to take 2 zops for a few nights then reduce to 1 but I have found that my sleep is same regardless of dosage. I fall asleep very quick after taking but still wake 2-3 hours later and then 2 hrs after that then spend time awake before falling asleep again and the after effects of 2 are much worse so just doing 1.
When I was taking the nytol, it took much longer to get to sleep but again my sleep was same waking every 2-3 hours ( this is normal for me without any drugs).
Of course I have researched intensely!! and both drugs have lots of bad info and I know that I cannot take them long term.
I know others on here have taken both drugs long term and just wanted to hear some stories please.
I am waiting for CBT.

[swajj]

countrygirl I used to be a terrible sleeper. When I discussed this with my psych he said that when I went to bed I needed to think about the most mundane thing I could. He was a bad sleeper too so he would go to bed and think about toiling in the garden. According to him the reason we can so easily fall asleep in front of the TV is because it doesn't matter. So instead of going to bed and thinking of all the important things we should do or should have done we force ourselves to think of something that is totally boring to us. This actually works. Clare Weekes recommends something similar but her method is listening to some kind of background noise (eg a fan) and making yourself concentrate solely on the noise. This works too.

[countrygirl]

Makes perfect sense. My only good nights sleep this week was when my husband was watching an old film and I was listening to it with my eyes shut and it was about building motorways! I slept most of it and because I had gone to sleep on my own I had no trouble sleeping when i went to bed. My big stumbling block with this insomnia is my absolute conviction in my head that I cannot ever fall asleep by myself every again

[Capercrohnj]

I am having the same issues. My Dr prescribed trazadone 2 days ago and it definitely didn't help the first night (I didn't take it last night as I have an early appointment I can't risk missing). I hope it starts to work (the OTC sleep aids did nothing)

[countrygirl]

Are you managing to get any sleep without medication?
I was talking to a man yesterday who said that he once had 4 totally sleep free nights after his wife died !!! Not what I wanted to hear

[Capercrohnj]

I get an hour here and there depending on the night. Sometimes I get 4 or so but not usually.

[countrygirl]

I have not yet been able to resist taking some sort of medication if I am still awake after a couple of hours. So i really don't know if I would have fallen asleep if eventually. In the past 4 weeks I have had one full week of sleeping okay and then maybe 2 nights a week of sleeping without medication.

I need to stop myself taking a pill and see what happens! Troulbe is my anxiety goes off the scale at the thought of being awake all night.