I have got up in the middle of the night to have a wee from at least when I was in my teens. Hence I don’t get stressed about nocturia. The issue is getting back to sleep.
I have concluded that sleep continues until you get the Cortisol Awakening Response (ignoring alarm clocks etc). That occurs in an HPA/Ultradian/Sleep cycle where serum melatonin drops sufficiently (I think it is the delta rather than magnitude). Hence if you wake, have a wee and go back to bed before that happens you can continue sleep.
If like me you don’t generate enough melatonin endogenously then you can supplement, but because the supplement goes into serum rather than the CSF it does not behave ideally (because of the short half life). Hence I have this approach where I time melatonin doses to fit with the next ultradian cycle.
Urination as part of this is not really an issue as if you are still in a sleep state without the CAR functioning you can get back to sleep.
I’ve had sleep problems for more than 40 years. After trying Ambien decades ago and having a bad reaction my doctor recommended 25 mg Benadryl before bed. I tried it and it worked for a couple of decades, but grew less effective with time. I now have a grocery bag full of supplements purchased over the years that I’ve tried for various ailments, especially for sleep, that have proven useless. In recent years I’ve tried LDN, Trazodone, Memantine, Valerian Root, and others which I don’t remember the name of at this moment. One supplement, L-Theanine, seemed to have some benefit, but not enough. I’ve thought about CBT, but, you know, I just don’t think it would be of benefit for me.
Knowing that Benadryl (diphenhydramine) was beneficial for sleep because of it’s antihistamine effect I started searching for other antihistamines that didn’t have the strong anti-cholinergic effect that diphenhydramine and doxalymine have, mainly to avoid the next-day fuzzy thinking these products can give me. Needless to say I would also like to avoid these OTC anti-histamines because of their association with dementia. With my search, the older MAOI anti-depressants popped up. In particular, I noticed that Doxepin had very, very strong H1 antihistamine effect with very low anti-cholinergic effect at low dose. After reading a few medical articles I decided to give it a try with a 3 mg nightly dose of Doxepin 30 minutes before bed and at least 3 hours after my last meal. Well, for me, so far at one week of use it works. I get to sleep within 30 minutes and get back to sleep easily if I wake up. I sleep a bit longer and don’t wake up with a foggy brain. I do, however, feel a bit of sleepiness much of the rest of the next day, but as long as I stay active it doesn’t bother me. Coffee helps.
Everyone is different. Maybe it will help me, but not you. If you decide to try it I suggest you read about the side effects thoroughly. The articles I’ve read suggest there will not be much of any side effect at such low doses, but you may be the one exception who experiences something bad. For me, the only side effect is daytime sleepiness which seems to be diminishing. So, maybe Doxepin will work for me over time and my daytime sleepiness will go away?
Oh, one more thing. Doxepin has something like a 15 hour half-life. If you try it I recommend you try only 3 mg or less at first, and preferably during the weekend so you will see the effect. A starting dose higher than 3 mg could leave you very sleepy most of the next day based on my experience. That probably wouldn’t be good if you have a job or need to drive somewhere the next day.
I am sorry that taking rapamycin did not improve your quality of sleep.
My daughter takes trazodone before bed. In spite of its name, it is relatively benign.
Most doctors would not have too many qualms about prescribing it for you. My daughter has been using it for over 10 years with no ill effects that we know of. Studies have shown that it only takes 50 mg to reduce sleep onset time. 100 to 200 mg produces longer sleep times.
It is used off-label as a sleep aid because it was developed as an antidepressant but wasn’t very effective for that use.
Of course, I have no medical background so do your own research.
To me, it seems much safer for older people than OTC sleep aids.
When I first tried it, I found that I quickly developed a tolerance for gabapentin, requiring ever larger doses for the same effect.
Gabapentin is not something for every day use. But for those days that end with some kind of distress or unfinished business that I know will either prevent me from sleeping or from getting back to sleep, 100 mg is a good friend to have on hand. It wont knock me out but I can count on it to reliably get me through the night.
I average about once a month. Unless there were a major stressful event in my life, I expect good results using it on an occasional as needed basis.
I am not sure why anyone would use gabapentin for sleep. Drowsiness is a side effect for some people. The over-60 crowd is using it by the boatload for diabetic neuropathy and other pain problems. It is thought to increase the effect of over-the-counter painkillers.
In any case, it is not addicting in the sense that opioids are. A simple taper-off period will do the trick. One side effect it has for some people is it works as an anti-depressant.
My former boss used to come to work every morning laughing and happy no matter what our circumstances might be at the time. I asked what he was taking. He said gabapentin was his happy pill. His doctor had prescribed it as an adjunct to the pain reliever he was taking for his lower back.
“Acute Postoperative Pain: Pre-operative
gabapentin at dose 600-1200 mg can reduce
postoperative pain scores, decreases narcotic
requirement, and decreases narcotic-related side
effects such as nausea, and ileus,”
“Dosage for nerve pain. The usual dose to treat nerve pain in adults is 900mg to 3,600mg a day, split into 3 doses.”
One of my friends is taking it for carpal tunnel syndrome
In any case, it is relatively cheap and they are shipping tons of it to Sun City.
If someone wants to take it for pain relief I wouldn’t discourage it. Probably safer to add it, than to increase the quantity of NSAIDs someone is taking.
I have no medical background and I am just stating what I have observed among my circle of friends
I was given gabapentin for about eight days while in the hospital for a significant knee replacement (they also removed ~30% of my femur and I now have a hinge instead of a knee). At the time I wasn’t thinking clearly about the handful of pills I got a couple times a day, nor what, exactly, was in the drip line into my arm nor the epidural into my back. But once home I realized I did NOT like gabapentin, and stopped it immediately. While the crazy dreams were kind of cool, it didn’t feel like it helped with restful sleep at ALL - just kind of shoved me under water for some hours. I understand it can be addictive and I don’t get that at all.
I didn’t like the oxycodone either. It didn’t help THAT much for pain, and after a couple days at home I dropped that too and just took the Tylenol they gave me.
I like aspirin, but also seem to tolerate it quite well - never any bleeding on even very high doses (not something I do often), no stomach discomfort. I find it actually helps just a little with sleep, and is fantastic if I’ve had alcohol. So it’s my go-to pain reliever. But I wouldn’t recommend to any that had problems like increased bleeding.
Ashwaganda relates to the HPA axis and cortisol. I have tried it, but the last time it caused some issues. It might be a GABA agonist, but for me it is off the list of things to try. It does seem to have some history of causing liver problems.
The twitter link does not match the image. This is i think it.
Wow the liver doc seems like a very commendable person who knows his stuff.
The Big Herbal industry seems to be going after him and succeeding (one time) to take down his twitter account.
I’ve never taken Ashwagandha since I wasn’t persuaded it was safe, nobody has talked about it in that way, only that it helps with anxiety, or something like that.
First thing about any supplement it has to be confirmed safe. Like melatonin, or creatine, people talk about how safe they are all the time but never how safe ashwagandha is.
I am with you on the issue of safety. There are actually quite a lot of records relating to the use of traditional herbal medicines such as Curcumin and Berberine. Ashwagandha has a track record of a limited number of liver problems. It may have some positives, but it very obviously has some negatives as well. I am not inclined to experiment to find out where the balance might lie.
@EnrQay, I have never gotten any benefit from melatonin, especially at higher doses like 2 or 3 mg. Do you think a timed release patch would help, or is your dose of 0.25 mg fairly effective?
I monitor my sleep with my Samsung watch, when I see an unusual result, I review my intake of drinks, foods and supplements from the previous day.
On Tuesday, January 2, I had an abnormally high sleep score (93/100), the day before I drank one cup cinnamon tea with apple, I have confirmed this result for a week and the results have been consistent, except when my caffeine intake is greater than three cups.
It is important to mention that there are two types of cinnamon: cassia and ceylon. Cassia cinnamon has a high content of coumarins that can be toxic. However, ceylon is much more tolerable.
Conclusion.
The cinnamon extract increased serotonin and melatonin levels and decreased norepinephrine levels in the insomnia-induced group. Cinnamon extract has potential as an anti-insomnia medication through hypothalamus-pituitary-adrenal axis improvement and brain neurotransmitter regulation in an animal model of insomnia.
The effect lost potency as the days went by, for this reason I decided to reduce the frequency with which I consumed it to once a week or when it is past 12 o’clock and I am not sleepy.
This new dosage has been effective.
English is not my native language, so I am translating.
