(June 4, 2012 at 5:14 pm)apophenia Wrote: I've never found anything but the benzos to really work for me. Halcion the best, but because of a track record of bad side effects, doctors will no longer prescribe it. Ambien works, but I have the amnesia and night activity side effects; I start forgetting what I did the day before, and do weird things in the night without remembering (I lost a good fan and a dozen CDs that way). I use seroquel now, and it works so-so, if I use it in high enough doses, but it makes me feel thick the next morning-afternoon, and as an anti-psychotic, it can cause tardive dyskinesia, which scares the pants off me. Never tried Valerian root. Melatonin doesn't do squat for me, although I've read some things that suggest non-pharmaceutical grade melatonin may be of unreliable potency, so maybe it was the wrong stuff. Diphenhydramine just gives me a headache and makes me feel like I've got a head cold. (My former doctor prescribed zyrtec for anxiety, legitimately, but it had the same effects; I wanted to murder him.)
Ambien - my doc had me take Ambien for a short while 3 1/2 years ago. It didn't really do much for me, though really at the time not much did.
Melatonin - as far as I can tell, this didn't do squat for me.
Clonazepam / other benzos - I had pretty good long-term success with benzos. Well, if you can overlook the addiction issues.
Seroquel - Never. Again. I took that shit for a year - and though it would put you down fast, I had to endure the next day fog that often carried into late afternoon. Couldn't do my job like that.
Trazodone - even at sub-therapeutic doses (25-50mg) traz worked pretty good, though I did have some hangovers from it.
ETA - Lunesta. Forgot about Lunesta. Like a few other meds, this one makes me insta-manic. Do not want.