I’ve begun taking 50mg Trazodone about three weeks ago and it has helped me sleep.
What dose do you recommend?
7.5 or 15mg… usually it works better in smaller dose for sleep, but first few days you may feel drowsy in the morning.
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Ludovic, I know scta123 is going to reply to your question, but in the meantime I’m going to show a link which may provide more in-depth information that you may or may not find useful. The potential side effects of mirtazapine stopped me from trying it. I also stopped my earlier trial of using low dose Doxepin for sleep because of some of it’s side effects that became intolerable after a few weeks. I am neither for or against mirtazapine, just providing information. In fact, I may spend a few bucks and try it just to see if it will work for me. Best of luck!
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Which side effects were the ones that stopped you from trying? Cause the same information you shared also states:
Long term use of mirtazapine is considered safe, with little risk of long-term side effects even when the drug is taken for months or years. Care must be taken, however, when deciding to stop taking the drug.
I was taking 7.5mg (but probably could do 3.75 but it was too annoying to cut pills in 8ths) and had great sleep quality, especially sleep architecture was great comparing to other medications and side effects like drowsiness and grogginess are mostly transient. I sometimes miss the predictability of good night sleep I got with it. I was taking it for a bit less than a year. I know a fried who was taking it for few years. I am not really pro drugs and sleep as they will mess with sleep architecture and while providing sleep it wont probably do anything for physiology of sleep. I found that Mirtazapine was best in my case. I tried several other drugs with either ruined sleep architecture or side effects that persisted.
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scta123, Here is the list of side effects mirtazapine may cause from the site I noted:
- anxiety, dizziness and confusion
- increased appetite, water retention and weight gain
- dry mouth, joint pain, muscle aches and pains
- drowsiness, fatigue, sleep disorders
- diarrhoea, nausea, constipation and vomiting.
- It’s interesting to note that mirtazapine may cause ‘sleep disorders’, with fatigue also being a common side effect.
Most of these concern me, especially anxiety, dizziness, confusion, drowsiness, fatigue and sleep disorders. In particular, drowsiness and fatigue are of greatest concern because these were the intolerable things I found with extended use of Doxepin which cut my swim stamina by 50%. And, with mirtazipine’s longer half-life I expect my experience would be worse than with Doxepin. Currently I use 25 mg Benadryl nightly with quick recovery and no side effects after 8:00 a.m. in the morning. If you tell me that your side effects with mirtazapine were pretty negligible I may give it a shot.
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In my case drowsiness was really bad after first night and subsided in about a week. I believe I slept that first night until afternoon. Luckily I took it on Friday. Next few days it was tolerable and nothing a morning coffee or tea and a shower wouldn’t resolve. I had some I should not say confusion, but something similar, I felt like I am there but not really there, feeling that was really mild for some days too, that persisted over the course of the day, but also resolved. I never had increased appetite on my low dose, but my friend she was taking larger dose and she gained few kg in course of few years.
I heard it is not effective longterm and really messes with sleep architecture. Do you track your sleep on Apple watch or Oura or similar? I have it my medicine cupboard, but used it only once or twice for jet lag with no success. It made me sleep, but did not prolong my sleep. Great to hear it is good for your sleep.
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scta123, Benadryl (diphenhydramine) 25 mg is consistent with me in inducing a calming and sleepiness effect within 30 to 60 minutes. It also has the benefit of clearing my sinuses, making breathing easier. It is only effective if I reduce stimuli such as lighting, TV volume, etc. It’s effect is mainly to help me get to sleep and go back to sleep if I wake up, but that effect consistently ends within 6 hours.
Using more than 25 mg doesn’t seem to give me any more benefit, but does leave me with noticeable foggy mental function the following morning.
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Jay, have you looked into the dementia risks of long term use?
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Maybe take some Alpha-GPC to compensate?
Based on their mechanisms of action, supplementing with alpha-GPC could potentially counteract some of the cognitive effects of anticholinergic agents by increasing acetylcholine levels
Alpha-GPC has high oral bioavailability and can effectively cross the blood-brain barrier. Studies have shown that it increases acetylcholine levels in the brain after oral supplementation.
“Choline alphoscerate (alpha glyceryl phosphorylcholine, α-GPC) is a choline-containing phospholipid used as a medicine or nutraceutical to improve cognitive function impairment occurring in neurological conditions including adult-onset dementia disorders”
As a side note:(small study) “These findings suggest that αGPC supplementation has an increased effect on motivation of healthy subjects.”
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Here’s something you can do (for your sleep) with your Niacin…(if you dare)
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Melatonin 0.3 mg a few hours before bed. It works.
Posted from my iPhone at 2 am.
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It seems niacin might play a role in the quality of sleep: tryptophan, which is needed for melatonin production, is diverted to NAD if there’s not enough niacin available (Gaby, 2011). Prostaglandin D2 is also important for sleep regulation.
Try taking a small dose of 50 mg of nicotinic acid daily and observe its effect on the amount of REM sleep. For me, it is working. 50 mg is small enough to affect sleep without causing issues related to the terminal metabolite, which has been noted to cause problems in high doses in a well-known study.
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Because of the importance of prostaglandin D2 I think people should be careful not to take Cox-1 inhibitors because of the effect on sleep (Cox-1 ie cyclooxygenase 1 inhibitors include Aspirin and Resveratrol).
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I guess this would include trazadone that I occasionally take for sleep?