Hey Man… I really appreciate your input. Yes… I had crazy non stop thoughts of suicide this morning. I feel OK now… its nuts how that crap makes you feel. As I said… never in my life have I been a depressed person. ONly for about 1 or 2 days did I have suicidal ideation during my crash and it quickly passed . So the sleep thing is really hard but on a positive note, I have made it through with very few sides. (head pressure, slight ED which improves when I get some sleep, and sometimes a little bit of dizzyness but that might be all the sleep drugs). I hope that stays the case. If I could beat this sleep thing I would really consider myself lucky. My sleep declined about 2 months after my initial crash. I am about 4 months in to PFS now. I know sleep takes a while to right itself so I’m hoping I can power through this and move on with my life. Some days are so hard though.
how does suicidal ideation feels for you? i wonder if we (me and you and all pfs guys) feel the same way.
to me, suicidal ideation, doesn’t come from a depressed mood is more like feeling a strong restlessness, nervousness, the impossibility of being calm and the impulse of having to do something about it and that something is… dying. as soon as possible. did you feel the same?
wonder if there’s already a thread on this…
God this is a dark subject and maybe not even healthy to talk about on this forum as so many are in a bad place already. For me its more of an exhausted sense of hopelessness which isnt even really logical. I dont have any of the anxiety that people here talk about. I had a few small episodes months ago but all in all I’m fine in that regard. I rethink and plan the best way to do “it” if I were to get to that point. Its really scary. Thankfully my dark thoughts from this morning seemed to have passed. I am drinking tons of water and I think its helping get the Ambien out of my system.
once you’ve put it out of your system you’ll stay better, you’ll see 
i know is a dark matter but i think that (maybe in another thread?) we should all talk about it.
it’s reality, perhaps, for many of us, not you.
I think it’d be better to talk about it. If we know the enemy, we can defeat it easier and all that.
yup its the same for me…
I just ordered some Remeron and Trazodone from an online pharmacy. So annoyed at my sleep doctor. Havent been able to get call back since Friday. Anyone have any positive experience with online pharmacies. (ie no perscription) ? I cant believe I was able to order these 2 sleep drugs. Hopefully its legit.
Well… some good news of sorts. I was finally able to talk to my sleep doctor and convinced her to prescribe me Remeron. She is also going to prescribe Klonopin which I dont have much interest in. I really hope the Remeron gives me good results so I can have a decent Thanksgiving with my family. This week has been hell so far.
So last night was my first night trying Remeron. I took half of a 15mg remeron and a 5mg melatonin time release (REMfresh). I could feel the Remeron hit me but it wasnt enough to fully knock me out. I took 2 unisom in the middle of the night. Cant say I had notably good sleep. Got up 3 or 4 times. I can say that I feel WAY better today than I did yesterday (had used ambien the night before and got horrible depression). Tonight I will try a full 15mg Remeron pill and see how it goes. One thing I DID notice with the Remeron. I had one huge full stomach “twitch” which was def weird. I also noticed that my legs felt weird… almost like what I think RLS would feel like. When I got up to go to the bathroom I felt really out of it and sort of drugged and off balance. I think I was really close in dosage to being knocked out for the night and am hopeful tonight I can get there with a full pill. Today I actually feel pretty good. My mood is great. I am going on a huge drive which will run into the late hours tonight and I had lots of anxiety about getting sleep because of that but I kind of am not worried about that right now. I’ml slightly tired but for a PFS insmoniac I’m in pretty good shape today and am looking forward to the long weekend. Iam thinking about starting a new thread just dedicated as an insomnia log for myself. If that sounds like it might seem helpful I’d be happy to share. I am considering posting the Fitbit sleep tracking images to sort of track the differences (if any) using Glycine, NIacinimide, etc… I will say that I took Glycine about a week ago and saw a 50% increase in deep sleep in the fitbit sleep tracker. I think it would be interesting to try Glycine again with the Remeron and compare results.
I think an insomnia blog with Fitbit measurements could be good, there could be some good data in there.
I’m really pleased to hear you sounding so much more positive by the way.
Thanks @Greek . Yesterday was horrid. Today is much better. I did drink some coffee this morning which I think was probably a mistake as it made me feel really jittery. I guess my recomendation would be to NOT drink any coffee. I was hoping it would take some of the groggyness away but it was too much.
Yeah I have a super weird reaction to coffee. Oh I miss coffee. I used to make my own cold brew and drink tons of it. Made me feel alert, euphoric, and motivated (and slightly restless which was good). Now when I drink it, my body sorta shuts down. I get twitchy and my vision gets worse like my brain is having processing issues. It almost makes me light headed. Almost like the feeling of crashing on coffee with zero sleep.
Yeah… I got some weird spaced out jittery feeling this morning which def made my vision sort of weird. Its like I couldnt focus or something. Its going away now. I guess its best to leave that alone. I “think” coffee is probably bad for GABA. The only reason I drank some this morning was because I know I’m going to have a late night tonight and I figure it will be long gone out of my system by the time I get to try to sleep.
@Mcbbould Do you drink decaf just to get that taste or have you just steered clear of all of it.
So I actually really think my issues are gaba related, so interesting that you bring this up. I also get “brain zaps” and the going theory is that brain zaps are gaba related.
I don’t drink any coffee period. Decaf is shit and drinking it would depress me, lol. I will test my caffeine tolerance with black tea, but even that is too much for me. It’s the exact lack of focus feeling you describe, only my baseline is as if I drank 10 coffees, with the spaced out, unable to focus feeling.
Just an update on the Remeron. So 2 nights ago I took my normal 7.5mg dose of Remeron and it litterally did nothing. I have no idea why. Its like the drug does nothing to me anymore. I laid awake all night and had a horrible day yesterday. Last night I took a full 15mg pill of Rememron and it barely did anything to me. Once I hit the 11pm mark… after nearly 2 hours of trying to fall asleep. I took 1.5mg of Klonopin and then I was able to fall asleep for the remainder of the night. I’m not sure what happened with the Remeron… it was working so well… I felt good during the day. I was happy. I did notice that the munchies everyone talks about when taking Remeron started to fade. I didnt think much of it. Seem like maybe that was a signal that the drug was starting to not work for me anymore. So now I’m in a very tough spot. I dont have anything that I feel is safe to take long term for sleep. I have some Trazodone but I’m not thrilled about trying that. As it is I technically need to wean off the Remeron.
I have started a water fast. Techinically started it yesterday after lunch as since 2pm yesterday all I have had is water and whatever sleep meds. I’m going to shoot for a 48 hour water fast to see if this makes an improvement in my sleep.
My theory is that Orexin is the real culprit in our sleep. I’m not depressed so I dont think Allopreg is the issue. I think for whatever reason, Orexin is over stimulating. I’m hoping a fast will help. Not sure what else to do. I’m open to suggestions.
Weird… some say that mirtazapine is good to sleep. i wanted to try it. i’m on trazodone and i was going to change it.
Allopreg. is responsible even for sleep distrubaces, anxiety… do you have these issues?
Update. I took a 15mg last night 2 hours before bedtime and took a 5mg time release melatonin (RemFresh) and I sleep nearly the full night. I probably could have skipped the melatonin or used a much lower dose. I was in the process of weaning off the melatonin and was down to .7mg and when the bad night of no sleep happened. I will now try to get back down to the lower dose of Mirtazapine ( 7.5mg) and work back towards using no melatonin.
In hindsight I suspect that maybe drinking coffee started to cause problems with the Mirtazapines effectiveness. A lot of talk in regards to sleep circles around Allopregnanolone but I’m starting to think that for some of us its really to much or over stimulated Orexin. If thats the case, the people who are drinking coffee for the benefit it might have towards Allopregnanolone might be doing more damage to their sleep by over saturating with Orexin. THats just my arm chair sciences. I litterally have no idea what I’m talking about and am just a guy trying to make sense of why things happen. @anonymous1968 had tons of failed attempts with sleep drugs until he went on Balsomra which is an Orexin antagonist.
Having tried Ambien, Klonopin and Trazodone… my opinion is that Mirtazapine is waaaay better of a sleep drug then any of them. If you can keep the dose down to 7.5mg I think you have a shot at getting sleep while your body heals its sleep in the background.
So I’m not at the point where 15mg of Remeron (Mirtazapine) is no longer working. I laid in bed for 2.5 hours last night and was so frustrated that I got up and took 2 Klonopin. That knocked me out from 11pm - 6:30am. Its the first time I’ve been awakened by my alarm in months. Anyway, that is clearly not safe or sustainable.
I wonder if I should push back down to 7.5mg because apparently Remeron has more of a sedative effect at lower doses.
I’m trying a 24 - 48 water fast starting this morning to see if this has an effect on the Remeron. Food didnt seem to make a difference in the begining when i was using it. It was working so well and I was so happy. Now I’m fastly approaching having no functional sleep aid. Dont want to keep increaseing the Remeron .
talk to your doctor. trazodone saved me from insomnia.
when did you stop fin? are you on other drugs? i don’t think that a single 24-48h fast is going to help.