I use 25 mg Trazodone, when I wake up in the middle of the night and I don’t feel tired enough to fall back a sleep quickly. I also use it on sunday evening to fall asleep early enough after sleeping out on sunday
2 Likes
Just a little sleep humor.
6 Likes
I feel seen….
And almost spit out my latte!!!
3 Likes
It turns out that I was completely mistaken about benzodiazepines. A large 2023 survey found that tapering or discontinuing the drug resulted in “neurological dysfunctions” for many of those who responded to the survey. Some of the reported symptoms are as bad or worse than cognitive impairment, which I interpret as a gradual erosion of the brain’s executive functions, and which benzos don’t appear to cause. However, this paper describes other adverse effects that emerge during or after benzo withdrawal.
2 Likes
My sleep used to be really dreadful. What I do now, however, is to go to bed early so that I can still get up at 6am having had actually over 6 hours continual sleep measured by fitbit, but allowing me to be awake for a sleep cycle (90 mins) during the night. I use melatonin to switch my autonomous nervous system out of sympathetic mode (where I cannot sleep) into parasympathetic mode.
I have more recently increased my dosing of melatonin from hecto or deci does (100mg to 900mg) to frequently unidosing (ie 1 gram or more). The reasoning for that is to protect mitochondrial DNA from heteroplasmy.
I have been experimenting with a higher dose of Vitamin D (6000iu compared to 3000iu) to see what effect that has on my serum 25OHD levels. Oddly enough it appears my body cannot fully convert 6000iu and something else happens with it as it does not seem to maintain my 25ohd levels much more if at all than 3000iu. Today I will switch to taking only 25OHD to reduce unprocessed cholecalciferol (D3). This might improve my sleep as historically I found higher doses of D3 actually caused sleep problems.
However, I know understand my sleep patterns so I should find out in the next few days if this makes a difference.
I wonder if Sleep might be a good second topic for zoom discussion after this friday’s discussion on mitochondria.
2 Likes
Thanks for following up with this. Very concerning stuff.
I haven’t taken a Xanax in three months, thankfully. I am now taking Trazodone 150mg to sleep and it’s been working well.
1 Like
FWIW:
I find trazodone to be a safe clean drug for reducing onset sleep time. I don’t think it extends sleep time. Occasionally I use it if I happen to wake up in the middle of the night and want to get back to sleep fast. 25mg or 50 mg (I usually split 100 mg into 50 mg pieces) works quite well for me. It doesn’t increase daytime sleepiness in my experience.
“However, studies show lower dosages of trazodone are effective and may cause less daytime sleepiness and fewer side effects because the drug is short-acting.”
Not really. It’s been pretty good for me. Started at 50mg but worked up to 150mg and staying here.
1 Like
3 Likes