Sleeping again after 3.5 insane sleepless years

General Discussion
#1

As I’ve reported several times here:

  1. I took FIN daily for 15 years.

  2. It obliterated my brain’s sleeping controls. Since June 2014, I have only slept with sleeping pills, otherwise I’ve quite impossibly survived on “rest naps” (half awake/drowsy/incapacitated).

  3. Separately, I suffered and naturally recovered from worst-case scenario PFS, including profound sexual/emotional dysfunction, after 2.5 years. See prior threads.

My latest round of insane non-sleeping chaos began Dec 2016. After 3.5 years, this regimen is working:

  1. 7.5 mg Belsomra (splitting 15mg pill bc it is$10 pill) nightly
  2. intense daily exercise (spin/lift)
  3. read serious book in bed

image
image732×836 107 KB

For two weeks, this regimen has miraculously put me to sleep several hours a night:

image
image713×1033 127 KB

By contrast, here are logs of my insanely dysfunctional rest nap RN days:

image
image1535×938 161 KB
image
image718×1057 135 KB

Finally here are facts about sleep (from 2019 book “The Body”)

image
image569×665 155 KB

2 Likes
#2

Congratulations, I hope that your drug free nights improve.

I’ve also had big improvements in sleep, it wasn’t as bad as yours but generally I can expect to get a minimum of 5 hours a night. This has been the case for a while, but I am optimistic that I will see further improvement. Recently things have been very up and down, at best I feel mostly normal.

2 Likes
#5

Twice in my life, after two separate traumatic events, I’ve lost the ability to sleep, going weeks on almost no actual zonking, which becomes a very hellish existence. These were both pre-finasteride and so unrelated.

I’ve been taking Trazodone as needed for sleep for the past 1.5 years. I was taking it for several months before I started fin. Traz helped, most definitely. I noticed almost no negative side effects or grogginess the next day (but I never had to get up early during the pandemic).

The first time I had a trauma-induced issue with insomnia, I was prescribed Mirtazapine. It worked, but left me extremely groggy for hours the next day and insatiably hungry always (and if I’m not careful I balloon up, even when not taking anything).

It’s good that, at the time, something successfully zonked me out. But based on what people on this forum say about their experience with Mirtazapine, I’m glad I wasn’t on it when I started fin. I know there’s a user here who crashed after Trazadone, but my body feels like it handles it fine.

I started a new job recently and found that the Traz makes me feel groggy until about 1030 or 11am. So I stopped taking it this past week to be alert at work in the mornings. Today, I got overwhelmed with brain fog. I couldn’t think straight. I could tell rationally that I was tired, but there was no way in hell a nap was going to happen. And I am a nap enthusiast. I love taking them. I also don’t think this instance of brain fog is related to PFS, since none of the other symptoms returned; only brain fog, wired/tired, lack of ability to concetrate etc.

I think I haven’t been getting enough restful sleep this past week since I stopped taking Traz. I’ll try a half dose tonight and see how I feel tomorrow. A full dose would definitely zonk me out too hard as I’ve been off it for a week now.

Sleep really is fascinating. How and why and WHY is it so important? But it is. Any speculation on my part as to why it is so important would be meandering into psycho-spiritual dream analysis and bullshit that is only interesting to the person who is talking about it.

OK. Enough rambling. Bedtime. Goodnight.

Edit just to add that I just looked it up and apparently Trazadone has been found in studies to improve sexual function. So maybe it helped me recover some over the past 8 months.

1 Like
#6

Glad ur sleeping man
Here Here

1 Like
#7

I think difficulties sleeping after coming off trazodone or mirtazapine is pretty common, if you decide to get off it again maybe think about waiting for at least a few weeks before gauging your baseline, a tapper might help as well! I’m in a similar spot to you mirtazapine has done me wonders for sleep but i’d like to get off it at some point.

1 Like
#8

I just checked out your post about your situation. Have things resolved? But otherwise still need mirtazapine for sleep?

What has mirtazapine done for your appetite and weight? I was insatiable when I was on it.

#9

I started Mirtazapine too about 2 months ago ….my sleep was in such a bad way back then I couldn’t go on much longer .
I’m now pulling in on average 6-7 hours a night with minimal waking up in between. Some nights are still shitty but nothing compared to that 0-2 hours shit I was going through.

To be honest now sleep has improved so many other symptoms are improving too - Anhedonia , libido, etc
I’m gonna continue with Mirtazapine for a bit , there seems to be mixed reviews for it on here ….some have warned of it giving PSSD - but I’m not sure how it can do that as it doesn’t alter Serotonin reuptake??

#10

Yeh pretty much sleep is the only thing remaining, pretty crazy how different I am now.
Put on a slight amount of weight (2-4kg maybe) can control it with exercise. Had an increase in appetite at the start but can’t tell much of a difference now. I take a really small amount between 7.5 and 3mg. Not sure if side effects are dose dependent.