@Rosi700 - Over 10 years ago, a psychiatrist put me on Restoril, a benzo sleeping pill. It was very effective. Meanwhile, my PCP had me on Vicodin (hydrocodone) for pain due to compressed spinal disks in my neck and back. One day, my PCP, an internal medicine specialist, told me he wouldn't keep prescribing the narcotic pain pills, unless I got off the sleeping pills. He said I had to pick one of the two drugs, but could not have both. That was around the time the feds were coming down on doctors for prescribing controlled drugs too freely. (It's now rare for any doctor to let a patient have both an opioid and a benzo. Too easy to OD with that combo.) So I chose to give up the Restoril - the sleeping pill. Then the pdoc put me on Seroquel, which is an antipsychotic that works well as a sleeping pill. I got off of that because I read a lot of bad stuff about it. (Like it can make you diabetic.)

So, now, I'm just on the Elavil (amitriptyline,) which somewhat helps me sleep. I'm familiar with the mirtazepine (Remeron) you mentioned. It's a quadracyclic antidepressant that works much like amitriptyline, but has less effect on the heart, which doctors like. I didn't stay on that because it gave me very vivid dreams every night, which is now a known side effect that a minority of patients get.

So I gave up on a drug solution. Instead I used to have a few drinks when I really couldn't sleep. That gave me horrendous heartburn, which contributed to a bleeding ulcer. So I stopped that.

That leaves me with lifestyle changes, which can help. Routine is the way to go. Your suggestions are all very good. I will employ them. It takes self-discipline to get up in the a.m., when I've not had a restful nite. I'm just going to have to force myself.

I did get sent to a sleep clinic for a sleep study. They wanted me to sleep with oxygen and C-pap apparatus attached to my face. They said I got mildly hypoxic every now and then at nite. (These sleep centers tend to put everybody on C-pap, which is why Medicare looks askance at them.) I was willing to try just the O2, and I hated it. It kept me awake.

So that's all my medical interventions in this sleep problem. Your suggestions interest me more. I've noticed that I sleep better, if I get out of the house. So I'm going to try getting out every day. When I'm not depressed, that's easy to do. When I get into a depressant episode, I don't even go to the mailbox. It sounds like pure laziness, but it's this awful apathy that comes over me. Anyway - I'm not at all depressed now, and that could last a few weeks to, maybe, even a couple of months. I have to use this good time to work on habits that might carry me thru, next time a depressive episode hits.

One pdoc said I was bipolar. I was put on every med that's used for bipolar disorder. None of them did any good. (Lithium gave me severe diarrhea and loss of fine motor control. I chad trouble writing and going down a staircase.)

So I've been on a very long hunt to find treatment. I've concluded that the best thing is to try to live better. Cultivating better daily habits is what I think, in the end, makes life better for anyone. I did recently join a gym. Now I have to make myself actually go to it.

Well, time to get rolling. Going to strip my bed and do laundry today. It's just so wonderful to not feel depressed. I had a decent breakfast. I'll cook something good tonight, maybe chili.

Thanks everyone.