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Please - need advice urgently

Posted by Loops on April 29, 2003 at 12:54:58:

Hi -

I'm new to this forum, and have been reading loads. I'm glad I'm not alone.

I have been suffering from bouts of chronic insomnia since the age of 7. I started to have panic attacks when I realized there was no way I was going to sleep. Luckily, the physical insomnia passed, and I was left with the psychological problem - the anxiety of not being able to sleep. This was 20 years ago.

Since then I have had periods of sleeping well. The last 6 months have been a nightmare. I started self-medicating valerian, passiflora, chinese stuff, kava kava, 5htp which at first granted me about 4 hours sleep, after which I would wake up. So I took more and at first went back to sleep.

Recently all this stuff stopped working completely. I also started taking St Johns Wort for depression. This makes me feel wired in the day, and completely awake at night. I went one week with an average of 2 hours light sleep a night.

So I went to my doctor. She had prescribed Zolpidem for me previously before the insomnia got really bad, but I found this only let me get about 2 hours sleep. Also a couple of tries I mistakedly combined it with Kava - and had such a bad hangover the next day mood/physical-wise decided this was not good.

This time she has given me Midazolam - a benzo which they usually use pre-surgery. It works NOW for the sleep, but I'm really really worried about having to take this for the next month. I have a tendency to get addicted easily to stuff, and I don't really want to go down this road, but feel I have no choice. What do you all think?

I am determined not to quit on the Wort, as my few experiences with anti-depressants in the past was TOTAL insomnia (i.e. at least I am getting 2 on the Wort). The depression has cleared, but so has my sleep.

Please help.

Loops.

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