Looks good!
“During the relaxation response, the body moves from a state of physiological arousal, including increased heart rate and blood pressure, slowed digestive functioning, decreased blood flow to the extremities, increased release of hormones like adrenaline and cortisol, and other responses preparing the body to fight or run, to a state of physiological relaxation, where blood pressure, heart rate, digestive functioning, and hormonal levels return to their normal state.”
A neurologist I saw theorized that the insomnia we have as a PFS person is the fight or flight response on perpetual high alert. I guess this would link that to the “adrenal fatigue” . I think that if we can tilt the table just enough with our stress, our body will come out of that fight or flight response and reach homeostatis in regards to everything involving sleep. It seems a good many guys here, even those with the worst set of symptoms, eventually recover their sleep to some degree. So this means that the ongoing symptoms of PFS arent necessarily directly linked to our sleep. Its just our body freaking out about whats going on. Once we calm the body, the sleep comes back. I have been intensely meditating for at least 20 minutes in the middle of each day. I also try to mini-medidate while I’m; communting listening to meditation music, or chanting, etc… Sometimes I meditate on both by commute to and from work. I think the more the better. Slowly bring everything back to calmness. I also suspect that the insane amount of vitamins and supplements we all take arent helping. So I recently quit all vits and supps. Just healthy food and a balanced diet. Thats my plan for now
From my current position, I was far from back to normal relatively recently but was much better. Since I got stressed out recently, my sleep has been woeful and I’ve had near constant headaches. Stress is a big problem.
I also don’t think supplements are much help. Even the routine of decanting 10 bottles each day is a reminder that you’re having a bad time.
I hope you get some relief from your new routine, it sounds like it’s possible to me.
Update - I slept better tonight than last night, presumably as a result of being less stressed.
Cheers for the advice guys, saw a hypnotherapist prior to Xmas, he suggested these techniques which I’ve been trying most nights since. I have no more stress than usual. Prior to PFS I could soak up all sorts of stress without it bothering me. I’m no like a menepausal woman on full tilt
So last night I tried passion flower extract powder. The goal was to find some stuff that are GABA agonists (raise gaba levels) to help along the Remeron in falling asleep and staying asleep. So I ordered on amazon from a company called “Bulk Supplements” (comes in a bag of powder) . I put almost a teas spoon of the powder in hot water from the faucet. Stirred, let sit for about 10 minutes to really disolve… then I added a little bit of pomegranate juice. I noticed the effects of drinking it within minutes… almost felt like drinking a glass of wine. When I went to bed…(later than I had hoped and assumed I blew my window for the passion flower to help) I didnt even realize I had fallen asleep until one of my kids started screaming because they fell out of bed. Anyway… it was subtle and seems to work. I suspect that like anything… it will need to be cycled or it will stop working. My next GABA agonist experiment will be KAVA KAVA. My goal is to cycle 5 different things to help promote sleep that are some type of GABA agonist. Maybe Valerian or Lemon Balm… not sure how well they work though.
Good luck with it. Unfortunately with kava I crashed but took it for consec nights instead of cycling hope the passion flower helps keep us posted
My dosage is 30mg mirtazipine but on the back if your advice/experience I’m only going to take 15 mg to see if that’s sufficient enough to bring around sleep without aggravating PFS further. Will keep you posted cheers
I’m not a doctor but I would not cut your dose in half. If it were me… I would go from 30mg to 22.5 for a few days just to see how I feel… then down to 15mg. Cutting a dose in half seems like a big jump. You should consult your prescribing doctor on lowering your dose safely.
BTW… what do you mean you crashed on KAVA? What was the crash like?
Thanks for the advice shellnyce, I’ve only taken 3 tablets so the dosage isn’t established as yet, if I’d been on it longer/reliant I would be more conscious of a sensible taper. I’m relieved at getting some sleep and hopefully 15mg will provide the same result. Appreciate the input from this forum as always 
To be honest, if you can swing it ( I know this is the opposite of what I just said) try to get down to 7.5mg as your dose for sleep. That gave me the best results for sleep… eventually I built a tolerance and had to bump it up to 15mg. I would avoid going over 15mg for long periods of time because once you are on a higher dose than that, you need to taper your dose back down if you ever want to get off of it to switch to a different sleep aid. The problem is while your tapering down… your not getting sleep. I’m on 15mg right now and its not quite as effective as it used to be 4 months ago. So rather than try upping the dose… I am considering switching to Trazodone. From what I have read, I can safely switch from Remeron to Trazodone without a taper. Once I’m on Trazadone… I could theoretically raise the dose of Trazodone as needed. You CAN NOT take Trazodone and Remeron at the same time because they both raise serotonin. You can risk what is called serotonin syndrome and it is really horrible… nausea, headache, sweating, heart palpitations, and in extrememe cases people have died from it. You can take Klonopin while on Mirtazapine but that is a can of worms because you risk building a dependence on it. Anyway… thats my amateur advice. If you have only been on mirtz for 3 days. Drop straight down to 7.5mg and you will probably get an excellent night sleep. Just listen to your body and talk to your doctors.
Cheers. I’ll drop to 7.5 from tonight. Overall and so far I’ve had approx 5 hrs sleep per night since starting (equiv of hibernation lol) woke this morning in a relatively good mood and able to context issues I also had an 18cert dream. Good early signs let’s hope it lasts and doesn’t result in a crash like everything else will keep up posted
Hey @LazarusRy just thought I’d check in to see how your doing with the Remeron and other things. As I mentioned I seemed to have built a tolerance to Remeron. I’m currently on 15mg. I asked my sleep Dr. to switch to Trazodone and she gave me a rash of shit about switching drugs and wont allow it. She old me to bump the Remeron up to 22.5mg (a pill and a half) . I may try this but even if it works I fear its not sustainable and that I will be trying to titer off something that doesnt work at all and suffering zero sleep.
In other news… I bought some Green Roads 550mg CBD oil. I heard from another user @Mcbbould that CBD oil really helped him sleep. I have no idea what dose to take though. Any suggestions would be great. Cant believe how expensive this stuff is. One little bottle was like $85 . If I could use it twice a week to supplement that would be great.
Hello again Shellnyce,
I’ve had a little more sleep, suffered more sweats, louder tinnitus, greater social anxiety, even dryer skin and increased neuropathy. Going to give it another week to see if things settle down. What we’ll go through for some shuteye. Tried traxadone prior to Xmas and it blew me out of the water. Was on to crisis line with suicidal thoughts so parachuted it immediately. Keep us posted re the oil, would be good to hear cheers
Wow… did the Trazodone give you suicidal thoughts immediately or did it take some time. I had a similiar experience with Ambien. When I first tried it , it left me crushed the next day. I was very lucky to have gotten a script for Remeron quickly because I was having some really dark thoughts.
Got about 5 hrs shut eye but ready to end it the next day everything PFS wise went through the roof though I was going insane! Laster for days
Hi 2981 can you remember the doses you used for melatonin and other natural supplements? How soon after your crash did you take these?
I came across this site they may offer online support, good info.
Baylor is going to announce in few weeks in theory. Let’s see, i feel hopeful.
I wouldn’t hold my breath…
Hi ac3c,
Prior to full blown PFS I used to take them intermittently and as per the dosage on the bottle “can’t remember” but that used to do the trick. Sleep inducing foods used to also work well or turkey, lettuce and cherries for the foods, amounts were the equivalent to fill a hand. I only tried melatonin post full blown and it brought on unpleasant symptoms
Ie night sweats worsening of cognitive symtoms. I had the same issues with 5htp. However some guys benefit from this. I’d give the turkey a try first but do cycle with maybe the cherries and lettuce one one or two of the said supplements. Good luck mate
The sleep link looks pretty good/informative