Please help! Chronic insomnia

Hi everyone,

I have not been well for around the past 3 years. I have been diagnosed with a multitude of conditions and been on every medication imaginable. Im posting this morning desperate because the meds im taking at the moment seem to be making me worse. I have had issues this whole time with insomnia but it has become chronic in the last 4 months or so. The medications i take are
Morning: Lamotrogine 150mg
Night: 5mg Valium
7.5mg Zolpiclone
150mg Seroquel XR

For the past week I have been awake every night. This morning I was up till 6am with all that medication I had. I called my doc yesterday and he said to add some quick release seroquel which I took another 100mg of and was still awake! I eventually had another valium this morning and slept for only about 3 hours. What is wrong? I guess my body has built up a tolerance to all these meds but I cant continue on with what im going through with no sleep. I will end up back in hospital which they always turn me away anyway because I have spent a year in the psych ward all up or dead! I am exhausted!

I know I have to speak to my doctor but I can't get to see one till next Friday. I dont want to take extra seroquel because that doesnt seem to knock me out. I once took 1000mg and it didnt even knock me out I was still awake in a state and a half! I dont tolerate SSRI's well they seem too activating for me, the only option I have left is Mirtazapine I think?? I have had that before and it did send me off to sleep but i ended up coming off it due to side effects and massive weight gain which i have now lost. I am afraid of going on it again because of the weight gain as I think it slows my metabolism down and definitely makes me eat HEAPS.

What medications are left for me to try other than Mirtazapine? I dont want other anti psychotics I have tried them all. I cant tolerate any tricylics either. Im in Australia, I have heard of trazadone (sp?) but its not available here.

Any suggestions would be appreciated thanks

Hey, Belle15, and welcome to Psych Central! Wow, I am surprised Seroquel doesn't work for you. It knocks me right out.

Are you having some mania? Of course, that keeps people awake.

See if this site has any new suggestions: http://go.microsoft.com/fwlink/?LinkId=121315

Thanks for the reply. The link you posted didn't work for me though. I am really not sure I could be going through some sort of mania. I've seen numerous psychs and most of them said I don't have bipolar only one suggested that I may have bipolar 2 but i guess they don't really see my behavior all the time. I just know that if i took no medication at all i don't think I would sleep for days. The seroquel I think is making me more agitated and irritable if thats possible. I do have OCD with severe intrusive thoughts and it doesn't do much for that either. Im stuck

I would try switching your Seroquel from XR to the regular, immediate release. That usually knocks people out better. I once was on both, with the IR for sleep, and now I'm on the IR again for sleep.

I take 150mg IR seroquel but it is split over three doses, 50mg morning afternoon and night. Taking it just at night didn't seem to help, but splitting the dose seems to be making a difference. I am finally sleeping without needing extra sleep meds too, it's taken a long time!

I built up tolerance to seroquel and had my dosages increased. But that was over ten years ago so I can't say how much. But the same thing happened with vistaril. So I guess it is possible to have dosages increased because your body gets used to them.