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Help me sleep without ambien
Hey everyone
I started another thread a while ago but thought I’d update my situation and ask for moe advice.
Havd severe insomnia. Been on Ambien 10mg since a year. But I quickly develope tolerance and wake up after just 3 hours and need to take another one. Sometimes I end up on 30 mg a night. And it makes me feel terrible.
6 months ago I started diazepam 5mg smd noticed it made me sleep better and for longer. I still hade to take one Ambien, but that was a major difference to me. I felt more rested, and less side affects. So I kept going for well half a year until i got too tolerant to the diazepam as well and started having to take more ambien again. Its a mess!
Ok so what I’ve done: ive managed to taper off de diazapam, About 25% every second week. I’m now down to 2,5mg a night. The ambien i still need to take, when I go to bed and then every time I wake up.
I have 2 ideas: 1, once I’m off Diazepam, I start them again and see if I get the same boost as last year?
2, I take some Melatonin before bed and hope that does something…
Thoughts?
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@gigiliss
are you still off the ambien? It seems impossible to get off of
Both Ambien and Lunesta are not good for long term use, especially as we get older.
You can do a service online like I do. Let me know if you need a website.
Hi everyone,
Thank you for all the advice. Means a lot that so many of you shared your stories with me. It’s been 3 years since I started the thread. I’m still on Ambien. My life and chronic pain is simply too crazy to quit all together. But I did manage to get down from 30 mg to just 5-10 mg a night. I did it myself in 2023 and it was really hard. I didn’t sleep more than 3 hours a night for about 2 months and felt like I was gonna go mad. But then, my body started adapting. I still need them to fall asleep but I never ever go over 10mg, as I now know how easily your body gets used to them and suddenly you’re trapped. Never wanna end up there again.
I hope it’s going well for all of you. For anyone else trying to wean off of them, it’s true what everyone’s saying - You simply have to be very stubborn and prepare for some sleepless nights. Eventually it gets better.
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1 Reaction@lilybell sorry for your pain. I too am tapering off of diazepam 7mg. I was on clonazepam but became tolerant and switched to diazepam. I am doing a micro-taper with an online professional group that are very informed.
My regiment is to start my bedtime with Magnesium Glycinate 480mg. This helps relax the mind and body. If I wake up sometimes I will take magnesium Threonate plus glycine. They aren’t a perfect solution but generally help.
The other thing my nutritionist recommended for me was MCT oil 3 tbs daily and Olive oil 5 tbs. Doing that evens out your glucose. What happened to me was in the middle of the night I would wake up because my glucose was way to low causing my body to create cortisol which wakes you up. When I go to bed I eat a single slice of Ezekiel bread with butter and almond butter on it. That helps also to level out your glucose so your body doesn’t end up creating cortisol that wakes you. You called also possibly eat that in the middle of the night or a spoonful of almond butter.
Sleep gummies helped me. I used one called Hibernate by Minny Grown, available to purchase on line. They helped me fall asleep but wore off after about 4 hours when I'd wake up and have trouble falling back asleep.
What really helped my insomnia was low-dose Naltrexone (LDN), which I started taking for my fibromyalgia . It helped very much by relieving the pain and also basically cured my insomnia. Later I found out that studies show it can help with insomnia. So maybe ask your doctor for a prescription. You have to get it from a compounding pharmacy and the pharmacists can help you with the dosing recommendations as you start with a low dose and slowly work up to a maintenance dose of 4.5mg/day. Once you get to the maintenance level, it can take up to two months to start noticing a benefit, so don't give up.
There are many articles on-line about it, here is one: https://www.innerblisscare.ca/blog/low-dose-naltrexone-ldn-improve-sleep-quality