doc prescribed Trazodone - help

Therapeutic Efforts
#1

My sleep is terrible. My mind feels free at night and let’s go. Like my massive amounts of anxiety keep me up at night because it’s the one time of the day no one is around or expecting anything from me. I usually sleep from 4am to 12pm.

I just want to be free of this horrible dehabilitating sleep schedule. I’ve used Benadryl, melatonin, 5 htp, vistral, and the calm app. Benadryl works sometimes, but I sleep longer so it’s pointless.

My doc prescribed me trazodone today. I checked here before taking it. I’m not planning on taking it, but I still have this awful problem.

What has worked for you to be able to have normal sleep?

I’ve also used Kanna before which worked, but killed my sex drive. It never did any permanent damage. I’m more prone to retake that than trazodone, but prefer to avoid SSRIs.

Is Xanax the only thing? And even then that’s temporary, but could help set a pattern for me.

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#2

“Please have a read of the new user guide when you get the time. Unfortunately, if you’re looking for a quick fix, you’ll find the overwhelming majority of PFS patients do not respond to treatment. This is a very complex disease as illustrated by Baylor’s findings: https://www.pfsnetwork.org/science/differential-gene-expression-in-post-finasteride-syndrome-patients 2

With that said, many patients experience improvements over time, to varying degrees.

While you may be interested in pursuing treatment, I would also ask that you have a look at the research our group has recently organised which will be led by world-leading scientists 4. It is an urgent priority to understand the mechanisms involved in PFS so we can hopefully identify effective treatments. Every donation helps so we encourage patients to give what they are able.

Take care.”—Mitch

#3

Sleep has been my no 1 issue with PFS……

What I will say is if you are sleeping from 4am to 12pm at least you are getting in 8 hours in , I know it’s not an ideal timescale but when I was at my worst it was 0-2 hours per night and I had no chance of falling asleep anytime past 8am , so you’re definitely doing better than that.

If you are getting 8 hours it could be a case of just fixing up sleep hygiene and working on the anxiety so the 8hours you get is through the night instead of starting at 4am?

I would say avoid Xanax or any kind of Benzodiazepine (unless you were really on 3 nights of zero sleep or something )
Also avoid Z-drugs (ambien, sonata , lunesta, Zopiclone etc) as for me they initiated sleep quickly but I’d stilll wake after 4 hours , plus for some reason they really messed up the circadian rhythms for me, this is something you don’t want to worsen.

I would say aim for some early evening exercise like cardio , then maybe like a chamomile tea and some magnesium glycinate before bed? I’d start with this and see if it helps …

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#4

I will add….something like Magnesium took a couple of nights to properly kick in for me , sometimes these things won’t work straight away on the first or second night .

As for Trazodone I used that briefly at the onset of PFS …it was ok, but nothing to write home about really. It’s an SARI I believe so fairly similar mechanism to SSRIs which you want to avoid at all costs!

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#5

Avoid antidepressants at all cost.

#6

Russian Roulette. Permanent worsening it could turn upside down especially if you’ve had it in the past. There’s a theme with restarting these drugs and getting blown apart.

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#7

Yeah I actually put skull on the pill bottle. Not taking that

#8

Yeah I think it’s too similar to SSRI for comfort ……it didn’t help much at the initial onset of PFS for me . I wouldn’t recommend using it .

How has sleep pattern been this week?

#9

Magnesium citrate is very good for sleep. On one occassion I did not sleep for 24 hours. When I searched the internet, it said my magnesium levels were too low. Went and bought some magnesium that morning. It resolved the sleep issue immediately.

I need to say that I know a man harmed by trazodone. It ended up with a very bad situation. He became far worse from trazodone.