Trazodone

Has anyone had experience with this? I currently live with my mom to help us both with finances and she just got put on this for use as a sleeping pill. I am asking because she has done terribly in the past with prozac - wanting to harm things, got into wrecks, was a zombie... and since i live with the woman I am wondering what is going to happen now. She's been on it two days and already having nightmares, thinking there were strangers in the house, woke me up last night to see if someone rang the doorbell and if i had been up (at 4am).
Anyone have any thing to say about this drug?
Thanks, Kiya

I was prescribed traz for sleeping too. It took hours for it to kick in and when i did fall asleep my nightmares were a hell of a lot worse than before. It got to where i was scared to take it. So i ended up stopping the use of it.

I wish your mom good luck with it. I hope it helps her out.

hi.... trazaodone does work for me... though only in conjunction wirh ambien..

The ambien puts me right to sleep.. the trazodone keeps me there..

I could never take trazodone without ambien...

without.. ambien.. I experience a "panic" feeling.. a "sick to my tummy feeling" " nightmares as I fall asleep". Iy is a terrible feeling.. really...

So... the pdoc.. played with the dosage of the trazadone.. to insure that I had enough to make me stay asleep.. and permenant ambien...so that I am really sleeping before all of the above happens..

Hi Kiya, I also had nightmares and it turned me into a bit of a zombie...I hope your mom has better luck with it.

Been on it for 1 month. No nightmares, a little sluggish in the AM but, then I only get 6-7 hours sleep per night.

I kind of like it. The plus side is the calming effect it has. I haven't taken zoloft in over a month now.

Hey. I haven't had experience with it, but have heard that sometimes medications can have 'paradoxical effects'. Some people find that Prozac makes them feel 'better than well' and some other people find that they experience agitation / anxiety (that is DIFFERENT from the kind of agitation / anxiety found in unmedicated depression) and are sometimes led to harm themself and / or to harm others. Sounds like that was what was happening with her on the Prozac. That can be very dangerous (people have attempted suicide and / or harmed others when experiencing that kind of a response to Prozac). I'm glad that she was monitored carefully and that the p-doc stopped the Prozac when she experienced those side-effects.

It might be... That if you have a paradoxical effect from one medication (e.g., Prozac) that you are more likely to have paradoxical effects from other medications. I'm not sure that paradoxical effects have been studied that much (people prefer to study benefits rather than harms).

> She's been on it two days and already having nightmares, thinking there were strangers in the house, woke me up last night to see if someone rang the doorbell and if i had been up

Is she usually like this or are you noticing a distinct change? Can you ask her how she feels? Agitated? Like she has to move around / jiggle? Feeling a bit paranoid? If this is a change for her... I'd phone (or get her to phone) her p-doc and make an appointment ASAP. I'd make sure they know about her response to Prozac such that they seriously consider that this could be a medication induced change.

Thanks for the responses everyone...
Ok here's the thing - this was only given to her by a MD. She is not in therapy or seeing a pdoc or anything. She took herself off the prozac, only after the accident. So now she's starting this trazodone and i really hope things go ok. I will keep watching her. I think she's a multiple (like me) and so I never know when she's telling me about our shared reality, or her own.
Thanks,
Kiya

traz gave me horrible nightmares.

Okay... I've heard that some p-docs will hospitalise people or even check on them daily when they have the kind of response to Prozac that your mother had. How come? Because people who haven't had much history of suicidal / rageful acts have been known to attempt to harm themselves and / or others as part of the agitation that some people experience with Prozac. Sometimes it can take a while of stopping Prozac for the symptoms to disappear, so people are usually monitored very carefully while they stop the meds.

Is there any way your mother could see a p-doc instead of getting prescriptions by an MD? MD's often don't know as much about side-effects and withdrawal syndromes as p-docs because they have a whole heap of medications to try and keep up to date with rather than focusing on just psych meds.

> I never know when she's telling me about our shared reality, or her own.

Yeah. That is why it is important for doctors to do a thorough assessment of symptoms BEFORE starting medications. So they can carefully monitor alterations in symptoms / the emergence of new ones.

I checked out the med in this psychiatry manual I've got. It said that it is quite different to Prozac (and other SSRI's) and that it is known for having relatively few side effects. I guess it tends to be used for people who don't respond well to Prozac (and other SSRI's). It is primarily an anti-depressant but also has a side effect of sedation so is suitable to aid sleep and help with anxiety too.

'The drug is particularly effective at improving sleep quality - increasing total sleep time, decreasing the number and duration of nighttime awakenings, and decreasing the amount of rapid eye movement (REM) sleep' - so maybe it was prescribed to assist with the nightmares?????

Does she have a follow up appt. with the MD to assess how the med is working out for her anytime soon?

So she's actually going through 2 major things at the same time: going off the Prozac and adding the Trazodone.

Trazodone made me a zombie and I didn't like the 'hangover' effect so I went off it.

I hope you can encourage your mom to see a psychiatrist for her medications and a therapist as well.

Oh sorry - i wasn't clear - she was on prozac several years back - so that's not an issue (but yeah, that did take a long time to get out of her system!! I was really concerned for a while). This time she's on traz just for sleep issues, but since she reacted so poorly to prozac, i am worried. I was reading the lit on it and said that sometimes it has the opposite desired effect and may cause terrible nightmares and upsets.
I've tried to get her in for testing but she refuses. she won't hear when i tell her she's being a different person with different reactions on some days than others, or when she's talking to her self and finds me looking at her she goes into "playful" rages and her eyes have a manic look to them. since this stuff runs in the family, i feel i have cause to worry. i guess all i can really do is keep an eye out and call her MD if things get bad.

thanks everyone! Kiya