Do you take anything to help yourself get some sleep??

Sorry, no, I don't take anything..   My Mom has problems sleeping and found that melatonin helps her..  She was taking Ambien but it gave her problems and for a while she noticed that her body became addicted to ambien.. 

about 3 months ago I started taking a product called CALM (Peter Gillham) due to menopause to up my magnesium and calcium levels..  I love this product but I don't know if it's meant to make one sleepy..   I have read it's an Anti-Stress product.

http://www.petergillham.com/wp/

Don't know if this helps,

Denise

Infected, My sleep issues go way back, but have been on and off. For the past few years, I will NOT sleep w/o drugs, sad to say. I take amitryptaline and xanax. My dose of amitryptaline is higher than most doses for sleep because of my depression and pain. I take 100 mg, and my depression Dr thinks I take 200 mgs which just makes me weird out. My mother, who does not suffer anxiety, but often has sleep problems and she takes 10 mg of Amitrip, which is a nice low dose which works well for her.

At this time, if I was not taking meds, I would not be sleeping at all. I have to knock myself out. Even w/ amitrip + xanax, I awaken frequently in the nite. The advantage, for me, w/ the Amil, is that I will be able to go back to sleep.

Everyone is different, but IMO, something like a low dose of Amitryp is preferrable to regular sleeping pills, esp Ambien, which I have taken. First, it weirded me out. 2nd, a hefty side effect is amnesia during the first few hours of sleep. So you MUST be in bed when you take it. And be prepared to be in bed for at least a full 8 hrs.

For example, if you took it in order to sleep on a plane trip and the trip was only 2-3 hrs long, you may suffer amnesia when awakened after so brief a time period.

My daughter has a friend who takes Ambien and she constantly does very weird things. For example, she will take it too early,before she is ready for bed. So during that time, she makes some bad decisions and does stuff that she can't remember.

If I didn't take the xanax, which I love too much, w/ the amitrypt, the sleep feels much more natural than w/ 'sleeping pills'. There is an adjustment period when you may feel too drugged, but it is brief. It can also be beneficial for chronic pain and that is one of the reasons the Dr upped my dosage.

This is no Dr talking. This is only my personal knowledge.

I don't know what med is that you talked about -- Simply Sleep. And again, I'm no Dr. But I tend to think that at this point in time, if it helps you and is safe, you should consider taking it again.

Insomnia has been one of my biggest problems with Lyme. I haven't been able to sleep in years. I am currently taking Soothing Sleep from Pacific Biologic, along with their Morning and Evening Limbic Balance formulas. It's working alright for me. It helps me sleep better, but I still wake up during the night, and I still don't sleep 8 hours. Prescription drugs don't make me sleep, and they make me too drowsy. I've taken every one of them in the book, and they just don't work on me for some reason. Prior to Lyme, I was a light-weight. Benadryl used to completely knock me out. Not anymore.

I've had sleeping problems for most all my life (my Mom said I even had trouble when I was a baby). I have several things that can happen: Can't fall asleep, can't stay asleep, can't wake up, or sleep but don't feel like I've slept at all when I wake up 8-10 hrs. later... A sleep study had to be aborted because the eeg leads on my head caused severe pain in my head. But enough was recorded to note that I was constantly waking up because my oxygen level was dropping. This was while I was having Asthma triggered by going to bed (the act of laying back against my pile of pillows seemed to trigger the asthma attack). Since begining Singulair, the Asthma hasn't been an issue, but using nighttime oxygen (2L/min.) does help with the quality of my sleep once I am able to fall asleep. Unfortunately, I am in need of a good noise maker to hide the sound of the oxygen concentrator (it hisses, growls, and groans the entire time it is running...really loudly, too). So until I can find a suitable noisemaker, I can't use the oxygen machine...and it doesn't help with falling asleep, only with sleep quality.

Sleeping pills either do nothing or leave me unable to function the next day. Antidepressants cause intolerable side-effects, even at very low doses (i.e., 10mg). Benadryl does work, but slowly looses effectiveness and also halts my gut and also causes restless legs sensations. Melatonin worked once or twice, then quit working. Other herbs for sleep didn't do anything either. I'm allergic to oat straw and hops, so can't do many of the common herbal blends for sleep (Calms Forte, for example - tried it, and had a bad allergic reaction most likely to the oat straw).

The only two things that I have found successful for getting me to fall asleep are homeopathic Quietude and an essential oils/herbal combo called Progessence Plus (a wild yam topical supplement...for women only, LOL). Neither of these leave me feeling drugged in the morning.

I think part of my sleep trouble too is my deranged gut. It seems to hate laying down no matter when I try...even propped up on a bunch of pillows (a wedge-shapped pile), my stomach still seems to be a troublemaker... Another issue is my nose/sinuses...they insist on plugging up in the middle of the night (or sometimes right away as soon as I get in bed). I've tried all sorts of things for this and nothing seems to really do the trick that doesn't mess up the rest of me. So I just grin and bear these things as best as I can.

I have always also had a tendency to be a night owl and not a morning person. My whole family is like this. And of course, I married a morning person, LOL. But it has worked out pretty well for us - my ability to sleep through my husband's alarm clock baffles him...I have to set two extra-loud alarm clocks to wake up sometimes...LOL.

So yes, sleep is a huge, huge problem for me. I hope hope hope this Lyme thing is the cause so I can get better sleep once the Lyme is under control better. I think Lyme does play a role at the very least in my sleep issues...because the sleep problems have worstened significantly ever since I became aware of Lyme and started to go after it with herbs 2 years ago.

I once (in jr. high school) was unable to sleep for 3 weeks straight...never did figure out why or what was keeping me from sleeping. It went away as mysteriously as it came on.

So yeah, sleep is, has been, and probably always will be a struggle for me to some extent or another.

Funny thing is, I spend most days now fighting intense fatigue that has me nodding off in chairs for a few seconds...how come I can sleep so easily in the daytime? (don't have to answer that, it's rhetorical) Just amazes me...

I've had sleep issues most of my life, so yes, I take meds. Ambien. I tried many natural products but they don't really work well for me.

Thanks for all of the info. Simply Sleep is made by Tylenol and is pretty much just Benedryl. I used to work great, we'll see how it works now.

IIRC, some Tylenol products were being recalled because they were contaminated with something that made them smell and cause people to be nauseated. I don't think it was anything too serious, but the Tylenol Recall page isn't working at the moment. It may be hard to find some Tylenol products right now. Unisom has some pills that have the same active ingredient as Tylenol's Simply Sleep - diphenhydramine HCl. It's the exact same active ingredient as Benadryl. I think that Unisom's sleep gels and dissolving tablets have this ingredient. I think that the regular tablets are something else. Unisom (all kinds) used to knock me out before my Lyme, but now, it just makes me drowsy.