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early awakenings and depression

Posted by insomniacagain on February 21, 2007 at 12:25:57:

Hi Everyone,

I haven't posted on here for a while since I thought I had my insomnia under control yet I'm once again dipping into the black hole. Two months ago I have taken a last dose of Paxil which I stayed on for about 7 months due to really bad insomnia that was relentless for months and months. Being wary of taking anti-depressants for a long time and also slowly preparing to start a family I decided to carefully wean off Paxil (I took 3 months to do it although I only was on 25 mg for 7 months). The first three weeks off Paxil were great - I continued sleeping wonderfully and experienced no nasty withdrawal effects that people experience. Well, that didn't last. About 3-4 weeks into being off the med, I went into terrible withdrawal especially marked by return of my original insomnia. Currently, the other withdrawal symptoms (dizziness, stomach cramps, flu symptoms) are mostly under control but insomnia is persisting. I am especially troubled by super early awakenings - 2,3,4am - after which time I cannot fall back asleep. My psychiatrist believes that my depression has fully relapsed (mind you I was diagnosed with depression only on the basis of insomnia) and that I need to get back on Paxil asap. She thinks that early awakenings are a virtual giveaway of depression and that you don't have to have other symptoms to be depressed - this is really strange to me since overall I feel happy, motivated, healthy appetite, etc.
I decided not to go back on Paxil and instead am taking Chinese herbs (Calming Dragon) and receiving acupuncture treatments. These remedies calm me down yet I haven't seen much improvement in terms of insomnia - awakenings do continue and my sleep is marked by very intense dreaming (I feel like I'm always in REM sleep).

Any recommendations/words of wisdom from people with similar background/medical history/symptoms? I really don't want to go back on Paxil yet I'm afraid that all the sleep symptoms are pointing to depression.

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