Insomnia Forum Posting

Posted by Beth on February 22, 2002 at 07:18:52:

In Reply to: Medication resistance? posted by Steve on February 21, 2002 at 15:28:39:

Same thing happened with me with trazodone, altho I didn't really realize it until I'd been on it a year. After about 2 weeks, the 50 mg no longer worked all the time. I stayed at that dose for the next year, altho my doc also told me I could go up to 150 mg. I did try 75 mg for a few nights and felt really weird and out of it the next day so I went back to 50 mg. If I had stayed at the 75 mg, I think I would have adjusted and lost the hangover effect, but I'm so glad I didn't, since that would have stopped working eventually and then I would have had to increase it again.

During the year I took it, I sometimes slept well for a couple weeks, but then had many bad cycles with little or no sleep. I think the nights I slept well were due to my believing in the pill rather than any physical benefit it gave me, otherwise, why would I have experienced so many other nights with zero sleep? In fact, I think taking those pills actually screwed up my natural sleep system.

I was able to wean off the 50 mg dosage over a period of a couple months using the techniques described in the books we keep referring to. I now sleep 7-8 hours just about every night. I am actually a better sleeper now than I have ever been my whole life (except maybe when I was a teenager) and I believe it is because I am finally learning to deal with anxiety as well as following good sleep hygiene.

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