I suffer with depression. "chronic" "major" "medical" whatever! The other major disorder is PTSD. I am physically disabled with chronic myofascial neuropathic pain, peripheral neuropathy, myelopathy, tmd, menieres, rotoscoliosis.

Naturally, I have sleep problems as well.

Currently, I have no meds for either the depression nor the insomnia.

I have allergy to most medications, ALL generics. I've tried psychotropics: amitriptyline, elavil, triavil dc, norpramine, pertofrane, tofranil, librium, sinequan,dalmane, paxil, wellbutrin, effexor, serzone, desyrel, trazedone. I'ved also tried lunesta, ambien, ambien cr, and rozerem. The muscle relaxers have also reacted to me: methocarbamol, norflex, flexeril, valium, dayto=anase, l-tryptophan, skelaxin and robaxin. (I ended up taking allergy drops to be able to take the robaxin, however even then it caused a heart murmur. )

(I've been disabled nearly 20 years, as you can tell by some of the old meds)

I've tried some herbals such as valerian root, and passion flower. They helped at first, but I didn't increase dosage afterwards. (I'm open to tryin again if I have some guideline as to how much of what for how long to try...)

Do you have any ideas of what to try???

Medicines I can take are Demerol (brand name only!), Cortisone (decadron), Levaquin, and Toredol. (and a new anesthetic my DMD uses...I need to get the name of it!!!)

The hallucinations of the Lunesta were nice, but the night terrors were not. It did knock me out, but for too long: my pain meds "ran out" and I always woke in much worse physical condition than if I had not slept at all and had taken pain med.
The Ambien worked the first night only. The CR was very bad, and included sinus infections and aspiration (which resulted also in aspiration pneumonia.)
Rozerem caused the typical allergic reaction for me: tightness of airway, wheeze, sob. It did knock me out.

Most of the psychotropic allergic reactions were paradoxical. The serzone, given at half the lowest dose in a hospital setting for safety, OD'd me.

I've tried delaying a demerol dose and sipped (literally a few sips) some cognac... which helped. Prior to having any meds to help me the first years after the injury, I used beer to help. The downside to that was my muscles spasmed worse once the buzz wore off (and weight gain )