Not sure if this has been posted yet, but Mirtzapine (Remeron) has been a huge help in getting me back on my feet. Its the only thing that has really allowed me to sleep (almost) normally. I found this research that explains why…
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16344854
Hang in there…a cure is coming soon.
this medication+clonazepam saved me a couple years ago. but then it started failing on me…
What happened? How did it fail? What do you take now to sleep?
i have a very weird story with that drug.
at first i was unemployed and had moved back home and left my gf, iwas very confused. My sleep, which wasn’t great anyway, spiraled down and I started sleeping worse and worse. At some point I started sleeping 5-6 hours a night and waking up with every noise…so i decided to try some meds…something i had been avoiding for years…looking back I’m not sure it was a good choice.
After trying some stuff which didnt work (like amytriptyline which gave me sleep myoclonies), my doc put me on mirtazapine.
It aggravated the sleep myoclonies so at same time he put me on clonazepam. I was one year on those 2 meds.
I slept great the first nights, then I started waking up after 6 hours of sleep again. But I persisted and after I did some sleep restriction technique, everything ± fell into place and I was sleeping 7-9 hours everyday, though I could feel the first 2/3 of the night it was a deep sleep and the remaining third was kind of bad sleep (I later found studies that back this up).
Erections were easy, had morning wood maybe even better than when I was a teen! Libido was fine too at that time. But one thing I noticed: I used to have sexual dreams if I didn’t ejaculate for a few days, and then, like something automatic, my body would make me dream about it and I would have a nocturnal discharge. I think that was normal. But when I went on these psych meds, I stopped having that and it didn’t come back. I rarely ever dream about sex now…
The good sleep lasted 3 months. I then found a job abroad and moved abroad.
I started sleeping worse again during working days. Waking up after 6 hours of sleep was again the norm and some noises were waking me up and making me anxious at nigh. Then on weekends I would sleep great…
I started increasing dosages and reached 22.5mg around the 6-8months of mirtazapine. I couldn’t go higher because of sleep myoclonies and my stupid 100€/consultation neurologist told me to take the clonazepam in themorning instead of night which made no sense at all. That meant if I wanted to increase above 22.5mg I should have started taking clonazepam at night…but i didnt knew that because I was not doing so much research at the time…
I don’t know exaclty when it happened, but something changed, coincidently or not, at around 6-8 months of mirtazapine.
Increasing dosages was not making me sleep better on working days, but it was making me feel even more lazy on weekends, when I would sleep maybe 10hours or more. At the same time, my libido changed substantially. I didn’t desire sex so much as before and my mood was darker as well. When I quit the drug my mood brightened, my sleep was better for a few weeks, and was continuous as well…but I could feel more my myoclonies because I quit clonazepam too (reducing dosages according to doctors instructino of course)…these myoclonies didn’t help me at all, they made me go crazy and cry cry cry that I was suffering damage from drugs and I wouldn’t be normal again.
Also at the 6-8month mark, I smoked a few times cannabis, not a lot, just to see if I could handle it and if it could help me sleep better, which didnt help and increased the side effects of mirtazapine, as well as making me feel worse.
Positives:
My sleep is actually better than when I started taking it though, especially the first 2/3 of the night.
Mirtazapine made my sleep substantially deeper…though nowhere near the deepness of pre-insomnia so I don’t think it was fixing what was wrong in me.
morning wood
easy erections
Negatives:
On the other hand I lost capability to sleep over 7-8hours, which used to happen when I reached the weekend…
My sleep myoclonus is also here to stay. I still have them and am trying to find triggers…I think alcohol is a trigger.
My libido is still shit
I feel like I don’t have much energy either, especially sexually…
My erections are also a bit shitty but I think it’s because I really don’t feel excited as before
it helped me reach a deeper sleep in the beginning, but after the 6-8months mark I felt sleep wasn’t deep at all and in fact when I quit the drug, it got deeper for many weeks…maybe until now…i still cant handle living next to 2way road with buses and had to change appartments. i used to be able to sleep in an avenue in my hometown with much more traffic and noise …
I tried the medication again but it doesn’t help me so much anymore…I don’t get so much benefit regarding sleep and makes me feel a bit sick, depressed… I think this has to do with a very high affinity for H1 and long-half life…
I also read somewhere that body learns how to go around these drugs if you taken them long enough, it’s like a defense mechanism that makes them loose efficacy.
On the other hand, now I can handle trazodone, which before I couldn’t… so don’t tell me these drugs don’t fucking rewire your brain to a fake homeosthasis!!
Nowadays I am taking, and I think it works very well for sleep and anxiety:
trazodone 25mg
B6-B9-B12…I think at least b6 and b9 have been helpful
vitamin C
zinc
vitamin D
I have at home still to try, but am reluctant because i dont trust these companies anymore:
Pregabalin
Mianserin (mirtazapine’s older cousin)
I feel like Mianserin could be better than mirtazapine because it has less binding affinity for the H1 receptor than mirtazapine does, and the half-life is like 16hours, instead of fucking 40+hours of mirtazapine…
Pregabalin I asked it specifically after researching a lot about my condition. I think it shuold be the most beneficial drug I have at home but I am yet to use it since I know it may cause ED, and it was linked to tumours in rats…
Is it worth taking Remeron for PFS if you dont suffer from depression ?
there’s a good chance it will help you sleep better.
it will also melt away your anxiety.
the problem is, I think, in the long hlife, and the very high affinity for H1.
Anti-histaminic activity will give you a few points in the Hamilton scale of depression because of tiredness and lethargy…the long half-life will make the dosages accumulate and make it worse.
In any case, one man’s food is another man’s poison
Trazodone and remeron are like the only two succesful things that have helped me. Looked into benzo type and hypnotic drugs. The problem is that these tend to CAUSE depression symptoms. I noticed this very soon. Im now on remeron but fighting belly fat big time. Trazodone seems to make me look like a skeleton! I lose weight and muscle in my arms. But trazodone definately gives me a libido boost. Im stuck between these two. My next move is TRT and just gonna pop some melatonin. Sleep improves my natural sex drive and strength but I cant find a reasonable long term solution. Too many side effects! What a dilemma this has become.
did u try pregabalin or gabapentin? i can’t believe they will make you have to fight weight gain more than remeron would…they should help you better than benzos withouth the depression side effect.
if i cant solve my sleep issues i will eventually try CBD…
EDIT: Actually has anyone here tried this?! en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vigabatrin
sciencedirect.com/science/ar … 1102002959
HEY THIS SOUNDS PRETTY GOOD!!!
I feel like I sleep alright on just melatonin. However, after about two weeks with no prescription sleep aids, all symotoms come back pretty strongly. Thats why im ready for TRT. Then ill just take melatonin at night. Otherwise atleast they make these sleep drugs to help. Remeron almost feels like a cure to me minus the weight gain and still low lobido. But I feel better mentally and physically.
Im back on remeron 15mg for atleast a month now. Things getting a little better. Weight gain really not even that bad. This is a great medication. If I take 30mg, I sleep very deep and my muscles look even bigger next day. But weight gain is worse at 30mg.
I’m on 45mg and my weight gain is not a problem at all
I’m still very thin, I can’t gain any weight or muscle since my crash