Sharing What Has Helped Me So Far W/Insomnia

My first two weeks after CT were hell.  In addition to the other intense symptoms that I was having, sleep of any kind was extremely rare.  I have lost 20 pounds since this all started (42 days).  Early into my first two weeks of withdrawal, I dreaded nights and around 7 pm I would get agitated as I was dreading the long night ahead of me.  The mornings I was so stressed over not sleeping.  Late into the second week, my husband said that I did sleep some and I did not believe him.  He started I-Phone recordings of my snoring at a few times during the night to demonstrate that although it may be light sleeping, I was getting more than I thought.  Hearing the recordings and knowing that helped me immensely.  I read a BB success story whereby someone said that a sleep tracker helped as it provided her with feedback that she was getting some sleep when she felt she had not.  She also said that it was useful to track her improvement with sleeping.

Most of the sleep trackers are pretty expensive.  However, I found one on Amazon called Amazfit Band 5 Fitness Tracker for $43.53.  It pairs with your I-Phone and you wear it on your wrist.  I tried it for the first time last night and it tracked that I fell asleep at 10:34 last night, had 2.09 hours of deep sleep, 4.29 hours of light sleep and awoke 2 times (which coincided with my the two bathroom breaks that I took).  Before looking at my sleep stats from the app, I felt that the night was a good "short" night and this tracking device and stats reinforced this for me.  I am going to use this to document my sleep improvement knowing that there will be some more less-than-stellar sleep nights ahead for me.

The reason why I am personally staying away from sleep OTC and supplements is that I want unobstructed feedback from my body as to healing.  If I take sleep OTC or supplements, I don't know if it was them that helped (or masked) or if it is my body healing.  I find it better to tough it out knowing that each day I am one day closer to being healed.  I know that this may be difficult for some if you are plagued with high anxiety also as a symptom) as I was for my first two weeks).

I am also walking briskly 2 miles every morning, make a morning smoothie of banana, cherry juice, carrot juice, almond milk, an apple, half of an avocado, kale and spinach.  I am staying away from artificial sweeteners, additives, and trying to eat as much "from scratch" as possible.  I find the Calm App really helps me with staying positive.

I wish everyone that is suffering from severe insomnia a successful journey and that we all come out on the other side a stronger self!

I was a short term user as well of a Z-Drug. I had a traumatic experience that left me with insomnia back in Oct 2020. After 5 days of "bad" sleep (I slept 2 days out of the 5), I got desperate and went to the doc. Came back with a month's worth of Zopiclone. It's all in my sig.

The sides, and the insomnia AFTER the drug was 10x worse, and acute phase lasted a month for me. The 2nd month I had to go on Remeron to sleep, and eventually I started on a rotation of Remeron, Cannabis, and Supplements to sleep. Sleep was 2hr a night, followed by 3, 4, and it took 5 months to be able to sleep 5hr on my own, no drugs. 8 months later I am now sleeping 7hr, but I have to tire myself out during the day (which is not too hard since I move around a lot all day at work). On days that I lazy around about the house, sleep is maybe 5-6hr.

I sometimes get the urge to <beep> the idiots that think they are helping you by giving you something that will make your insomnia 10x worse afterwards.

I'm not sure about your sleep monitor thing, but I've found the most accurate ones are the FitBit devices. I also have a Garmin that is actually garbage, which is so shocking to me, considering Garmin is supposed to be an expert at this stuff.

But the best is for you to take whatever decide you have, and when you feel you got good sleep, look at the stats. Whatever stats you got, the goal is to keep on matching, or exceeding them.