Can I ask you about your sleep doc experience?

Did your sleep doc try a natural route before putting you on medication? My sleep doc took me OFF everything and said I was only allowed to take melatonin while I was getting my sleep under control. She worked with me for a few hours during my initial consultation and I walked away with a list of about 10 things I had to do every day in order to get my sleep back on track. A number of them were basic sleep hygiene things, but others were tailored to my exact situation. Is this how your sleep doc helped you, or did he/she just give you medication?

Drugs can be dangerous for sleep as our bodies "forget" how to sleep and we become dependent. This is what happens with benzodiazepines. I was on Klonopin for a very long time, and unknown to me, I became dependent on them as my doctor just pushed my dose higher and higher when I complained of it not working. (This was when I foolishly trusted doctors and took anything I was given without question.) My body literally hit an abrupt tolerance, and they no longer worked for me. (We're talking quadrupling the dose and I wouldn't even get drowsy.) The next month was h*ll as I didn't sleep more than an hour a night, and it was only twilight sleep. I was lucky in that my withdrawal symptoms only lasted a month. Check out the benzo buddies website and you'll read PLENTY of horror stories about people who were still having withdrawal symptoms a year after coming off those darn drugs. So no, I don't recommend benzodiazepines as a nightly sleep aid.

Natural progesterone *may* help you if its hormonal. I am only in my 30's but have used a natural progesterone cream for PMS help. WHOA! That stuff knocks you out if you take a little too much (which isn't hard, as every system seems to need a different amount of it).

I wish you the best. I know how much no sleep stinks!