Quote:
Originally Posted by Pierro
Hello everyone. I am soooo pissed off at the moment. I have been taking lunesta for the last year but I dont like taking it because of the hangover effect that it has. Instead of the Lunesta I have been replacing 1 mg of Klonopin which works so well with me. I feel relaxed (Sunday morning is my "turnover day") The problem is that the doctor wont give me any more because he said I am on them too long and are highly addictive. Okay.. I get that but what is my alternative, lay awake all night looking at the clock until it hits 6:30. Get up for work feeling totally exausted from all the sleepless nights. I dont want my psychosis to come back but my g.p. brushes it off and says "try to relax". The next person that tells me to relax I am going to loose the plot. When you can feel yourself going down, and I can feel it, what do I do. My depression was adressed but my sleep issues never seemed to be taken seriously. Any suggestions without any refrence to "learn to relax" and other forms of concentration techniques because I cannot concentrate for more than 20 seconds.
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I am quite sure I will take a lot of flak for this, but I think benzos get a bad rap. They have been around for a long time, are well understood, and have minimal side effects for many folks. I find them infinitely more tolerable than, say, SSRIs.
I have been told by highly respected psycopharmacologists that they have patients that do well on them long term without the need for dose escalation. Do some folks run into problems with them? Sure. But that does not mean they are inappropriate for everyone. You might look for another doctor to discuss this issue with.
Another option for sleep - and the one that has worked the best for me - is low dose Seroquel. A quarter of a 25 mg tab works and does not leave me too drowsy in the morning. It feels much more natural than the official sleep meds I've tried (and hated) such as Ambien, Lunesta, and Rozerem. I usually need extremely low doses of meds, so you might need more than the 6.25 mg I take, but you can experiment to find a comfortable dose for yourself if you have a doctor willing to let you give it a go.