Fed up with Insomnia

seeingstars said...
I need some opinions please.

I am currently taking doxy, biaxin, and hydroxychoroquin for about 1 month now. This is knocking my bart bad or good depends on your optimism I guess. I have been waking up at 2am for many months now. I would say almost a year. I can fall asleep just fine. I just can't get back to sleep when I wake up at 2am. I have tried ambien, lunesta, rozerem, and I think one other. I still wake up at 2. When I wake up at 2 I also would take a benedril (this used to work but does not now). So basically I run off of 3-3 1/2 hr a sleep a day. I get no naps as I have a little one I stay home with.

I am looking for some suggestions that anyone has tried and had it work for them. Like I say, I don't have a problem falling asleep at bedtime. My issue is getting back to bed when I wake up at 2.

Please, help me get some sleep.

I've tried a few things that have helped, and I've tried one that seems to have pretty much solved the insomnia issue. Magnesium helped, for obvious reasons, and yaeyama chlorella also helped. The latter I think helped because it is known to be a very good absorbent of ammonia, and it reduced the levels in my brain.

The one nutraceutical that seems to have pretty much stopped the insomnia cold is freeze-dried garlic, and I have no idea why. As long as I'm taking anything else to actively attack the infections the insomnia persists to some degree, but within about 4 days of stopping the other stuff and staying on the garlic I start sleeping almost normally. Last night for example I slept a total of about 10 hours with no sleep aids. This after about 2 years of waking up every 45 minutes to an hour.

Again I can't explain how/why it helps, but it does. Note: you have to use either fresh or freeze dried garlic to get any significant amounts of the natural thiosulfinates in the garlic since they have a very short halflife.

Staris said...
...the neuro suggested a benzo. Will start next week to see if it helps - after talking to my LLMD.

Lord girl I'd encourage you not to do that. Even for healthy brain chemistry, benzos just create more problems than they solve. For LD patients they are like throwing gasoline for a fire, neurologically speaking.

I was having the same problem even taking lunesta or ambien. I would wake up at two or three and lay there for hours. My doctor told me to eat wheat or other bread with peanut butter before bed. He thought my problem was my blood sugar level was falling too low and waking me up. I do have adrenal insufficiency too which could have also contributed. The peanut butter works great. That seems to be the best thing I have tried. I do wake up still but am able to fall back to sleep quickly. I am sure there are other things that would work if you either don't like p/b but not sure what. I have been dealing with insomnia etc for 4 years since I became sick before then I could sleep 9-10 hours a night with no problems...

Staris said...
Sulma - have you heard that anecdotally or do you know of any research or studies that show that? Just curious. From trolling the blogs there seem to be those who swear by them and can't sleep otherwise and those who somtimes have trouble coming off them when used for anxiety, etc. Most of my symtpoms are neuro (non-pysch) and it may help control some of them - not just sleep. Of course will wait to discuss with LLMD but the more information the better. Thx

I guess it's both, SS. I've worked either in drug rehabs or psychiatric hospitals my entire professional life and have seen quite a few people become addicted to benzos. Most psychiatrists pretty much stopped prescribing them years ago due to how habit forming they are, but many docs not as conversant with psychopharmacological drugs still use them. Yes there are studies that have shown the deleterious psychoactive effects of benzos. You might check out Pudmed. In the end people who go down that path have to take progressively higher amounts of them and when you eventually stop, the crash is pretty awful.

I have bouts of insomnia - have since I was a child.  I was using Zhang's herbs and they worked well for months but when they stopped working for me, I had serious insomnia from them.  I could not go to sleep and I woke up every two hours all night.  I have also had the insomnia where I wake up between 2 and 3 and can not go back to sleep for 3 hours.  Zhang's HerbSom helps tremendously with insomnia.  Although I currently cannot take his other herbs (for some wierd reason) I still use Herbsom when I cannot sleep.

LTryptophan also helps me fall asleep but it gives me a headache.  Progesterone is a powerful natural relaxer and sleep aid.  Many older women approaching menopause (or through it) are low in progesterone and benifit from taking it.  Only use the bioidentical hormones.  I believe I was low in progesterone all of my life as I had several miscarriages, and that is what caused my insomnia.  What a life change when I started to supplement it!  Then along came lyme. . .

Best thing for insomnia: Exercise, exercise, exercise.

nefferdun-

Agreed. At the height of my insomnia, I exercised, cleaned the house and did laundry all to no avail. I could not sleep. This went on for 3 straight weeks. I ended up in the ER.

It was not the "toss and turn" type not sleeping, but sheer panic type of "why am I not able to sleep".

Kitty

I need to ask which brand of garlic and chlorella are good investments.

I'm still waiting for opinions on brand of garlic and chlorella.

Also, I just talked to my doc and he wants me to try Lorazepam. A BENZO. I'm a little freaked but, I am going to give it a try. I told my husband to keep an eye on me.

I do really want to try the garlic and chlorella tho.

Oh and another thing that really helps me is flexeril. Good stuff. Any doctor will hand it out. It's very benign.

Are you on an antidepressant? I have a friend who swears by prozac. He couldn't sleep for many months and this helped knock it out. Lyme definitely causes depression and / or contributes to it.

Keeping the Faith,

thank you. I may look into that. Could I get that over the net or only thru a nd?

I did try the Lorazepam and it is doing ok for me. I say ok because my little boy wakes me up every night in the middle of the night to climb into bed. So if it's not the insomnia it's my boy. But the good thing is the last few times he's woken me up I was able to go back to sleep. That didn't happen before. YIPPEE..

Thanks for letting us know, Kitty, because I didn't know anywhere else but the naturopath.