Posted by motnman on June 02, 2009 at 08:58:32:In Reply to: Onset and Maintenance insomnia posted by wolverine on June 02, 2009 at 07:09:55:
wolverine,
I'm out in <5 minutes, but regularly wake up after 4 hours. In the last 4 months, on the nights when I didn't take drugs, I managed 2 nights of normal sleep. The rest were 3-5 hours.
SR worked horribly for me. If I wasn't anxious before SR, I certainly was afterwards. When I woke after 4 hours, I was up and certainly wasn't getting back to sleep before my 5.5 hours were elapsed. This resulted in a 3 week cycle of 4 hour nights - a real 4 hours of sleep, as I was reading when not in bed. On the bright side, anxiety is a great way to lose weight.
When I discontinued Ambien, I had a bout of sleep onset insomnia for 2 days. Other than that, I'm always out in a couple minutes.
When I wake, about 25% of the time my mind is overactive. The rest of the time, it feels like a switch turned on.
Before I started on the Trazodone/Zoloft, when the switch turned on, it stayed on. Now, if I do wake I'm more likely to get back to sleep. I've had a few bad nights where I wake after 3-4 hours, but now I'll stay in bed. I must be falling asleep for brief periods as I feel bad, but don't feel horrible the following day.
Good luck with SR. As lulubelle mentioned, it treats sleep onset better than sleep maintenance. I'm almost jealous of your insomnia.