Lack of sleep from cold is revving up my anxiety

I have been having such a terrible experience. Constant coughing robbing me of sleep. Went to the doc to get a check up a few days ago & they ruled out flu and strep. Told it me to take an antihistamine. I got home, took a claritin then an hour later I felt like I took a shot of expresso. I had barely any sleep at this point so it scared me to the point of pure anxiety. I did my best to just deep breath & lay down with some family members, hoping that the half-life would take some of the edge off until I took my 8mg Valium dose at my regular time of 10:50 pm. It died down after that. Got about 6 hours of sleep.

 

Next day I'm alright until later in the night. I took my Valium & then kept forcing myself to yawn because I wasn't able to finish one with the state my throat was in. Felt calm, then I felt hungry. I haven't been eating a lot due to the cold so I took this as a win. While I was looking for something to eat I felt a heartbeat skip & then I felt lightheaded. My mind instantly wanted to go to "is this afib?" because I suffer from health anxiety but I tried everything to fight the thought & disregarded it. Grabbed some apple sauce, sat down on my bed & ate.

 

Tried focusing on what I was watching but I felt the anxiety creeping up on me. I then just wanted to go to bed. Figured maybe the sooner I fell asleep the better. Unfortunately I was in an odd state of anxiety that, while I was calm, I also felt worried. Eventually the feeling took over, I called my mental health crisis center because I felt like I needed someone to talk to. Helped a little but it really messed with me.

I had a nasty cold just after Christmas and took a pseudoephedrine.  It rev'd me up pretty good.  Didn't do that again.  Some cold meds are like that.  Maybe consider using a cold medicine that doesn't rev you up.  I usually go for NyQuil or something similar in the evening.  It's got a pretty potent sleep med in it ('doxy').  It works pretty well on me.

Is that safe to use with diazapam though? That's the one things that I'm afraid of with drowsy meds.

The drug interaction could make you feel drowsy (but I think that's the idea, fwiw).

 

https://www.drugs.com/drug-interactions/dextromethorphan-doxylamine-with-valium-2950-0-862-441.html