Anxiety/Depression/Mental Illness Support

[Angrboda]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Auwq4gwF9rY

[Rhizomorph13]

I've been an insomniac most of my life and there have been few things that consistently work, but three things that work fairly well for me are melatonin, valarian root, and diphenhydramine. Melatonin can only be taken for a short time because your body will get used to it quickly, mainly because it is naturally occuring in the body. Valarian root is great and I've never found it to decrease in effectiveness. Diphenhydramine works the best and can be purchased seperately from the cough medicine it is usually found in.

I now sleep amazingly well because my wife sleeps next to me, but I still get the jitters occasionally so I'll head downstairs and have a cup of Camomile tea with some mint and honey.

Alchohol is terrible for sleeping because it diminishes the quality of your sleep. Even given that though, I like to have a beer every now and again to calm me down.

[Annik]

Melatonin always made me feel like I got hit by a truck in the morning. I am always very glad my bout with insomnia lasted less than a year.

[Rhizomorph13]

Really? You can get different doses. I like the 3mg but it does come in 1mg.

[Faith No More]

Melatonin was a godsend for me before I eventually became too tolerant to it. Especially one brand that dissovles under your toungue, so it hits you really quickly.

[Rhizomorph13]

Your tolerance goes right back down if you stop taking it for a couple weeks.

When I met my wife she was giving the kids melatonin every night, and had been for months. She wondered why it wasn't helping them. I explained why, so we now only give it to them every once in a while. It was obnoxious to stop though because the boy got really anxious when we stopped, which had the effect of keeping him up. I explained the placebo effect to him but it took a while for him to figure out that he doesn't need a pill to sleep. They both sleep much better now that they live with me. /story time

[Angrboda]

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.)

[Shell B]

Ativan puts me to bed within 45 minutes, every time. I don't take it to sleep, though.

[Jackalope]

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.

[Rhizomorph13]

Well, if you are worried about the "grade" of melatonin you could just eat a whole apple and some almonds; that would have enough melatonin to help you sleep.