insomnia/sleep advice: recap of appointment with my benzo w/d dr.

Hi there guys! So I have been fortunate enough to have a great doctor,  to help and guide me through my withdrawal. He is an addiction medicine specialist and is especially knowledgeable in benzo w/d.  .  I know many of you have not been fortunate enough  to find a doctor to help you through your journey so I thought I would recap my recent appointment with him and pass on his advice to me regarding sleeping.

I was on zopiclone a sleeping pill for two years. I was also on clonazepam for three years. This time frame also includes my withdrawal period.

I am  zopiclone free at this point but I still have one more clonazepam cut to be free. in 7 short days I will be benzo free. horray!

now during my taper I worked hard with my therapist and w/d doctor to make sure I was ready for my zopiclone w/d and the insomnia that would ensue. I developed very strong sleep patterns and habits and hygene. I mostly slept well through out my entire w/d. until it came to tthe dreaded zopiclone w/d. I had developed a physical dependence to it but I also realized that to my dismay I had also developed a mental dependence on it, which I was assured was very normal. during my taper I updosed for a few days here and there to give myself a darn good night sleep .but I kept at my taper plan and eventually became z free. but my fabulous sleeping habits of going to bed and falling asleep at the same time every night for the past year and a half went out the window.  I wasn't able to fall asleep before 4 am now as opposed to 11pm.  frustrating.  I worked hard not to panic and make it worse. I just patiently read  and stayed calm until I slept, but I won't lie there were a few moments of panic!. but nothing worked. after weeks and weeks of this i took a zopiclone for a good nights sleep. just for a break like i did before. it worked but man did i feel crappy the next day.

so I asked him what a solution would be  as he says, that insomnia is really just a very normal side effect of w/d and post withdrawal. he said i was doing everything right and that it really was beyond my control it was just part of the process. he recognized however that sleep deprivation is stressfull and unhealthy and  that every so often you just need a break and a good night sleep, until the symptom disappears and he said it does disappear. he said the average time is three to six months after discontinuation of benzos. obviously there are exceptions to this. it was just an average.

so I asked him about medications like  otc meds, antihistamines, gravol, cough syrup, melatonin etc.......he said that he would not recommend those at all and that beyond a doubt the most effective and best choice was trazadone. for occasional use only. remember we don't want to start another dependency or use something that interferes with our healing. and in his practices of getting people off medications and not advocating putting people on new one! and breaking addictions for the past thirty years this is the  drug he will recommend  for insomnia during w/d.

he also said that under no circumstances should i use a z drug or benzo again after i jump as it will not help with the healing and could make things worse. there went my plan ! LOL! but I am so happy he gave me an alternative instead of telling me to just stick it out. lack of sleep I s stressful on the body and spirit. I had tried trazadone before a few years ago and had a bad reaction to it but I was on so many  meds who knows. I am definitely game to trying it again on a very occasional basis. he said if you take too much you will feel groggy the next day and that it can give you a  dry mouth.. I am sure there are people on here who have horror stories of being addicted to trazadone, but I am not talking about nightly use I am talking about once a week , once a month use. on occasion even addictive meds like a benzo or opiate can have it's uses. it/s when we use everyday that we run into problems. or we have addictive personalities.

anyway, he also said i had to really manage my stress from now on because it could flare w/d symptoms in PAWS .

great appointment and I will report back to you when I have tried the trazadone......gonna hold out for awhile though. and please do not take this as medical advice, I am just relating this story to  share information please see your doctor and have him advise you what would be best for you.

Alabama.xo

I've struggled with insomnia since I was a teenager, so I know how it makes everything worse. 

It's wonderful that you have trusted professional support, aw. Thanks for taking the time to share this. 

Hi: I was on Zopiclone for at least 10+ years when I started my benzo withdrawal. When I first came to BB as a total newbie to the world of benzos I thought I was just here to get through my Lorazepam switch Valium w/d. A very diplomatic moderator (bless her), asked me very politely if I would also consider dropping the Zopiclone as well since it too was a benzo and could contribute to anxiety.  After thinking about it for a few days, it didn't make sense to me to stay on any kind of benzo, so I ditched the Zopiclone. However, I fully anticipated the ensuing insomnia and had mentally prepared myself to simply let it run it's course.

You are right...no amount of proper sleep hygiene is going to stop the inevitable insomnia. I did not even use any other medication to try and induce drowsiness. I would stay up as late as possible, then get whatever sleep I could, which was 1-2 hours at first. Soon, this started to improve. I could sleep for a few hours, be up, and then get another few hours. Eventually the sleep became 2-3 hour shifts, and slowly now I can sleep except for having to get up to pee. Unless I am having severe w/d symptoms, I am sleeping okay, even though I do battle with my CPAP a bit. I stopped the Zopiclone in April/May and it is now August, so for me it was about 3-4 months. One night I did try a Zopiclone 7.5mg (I was on 15mg for years), and what a mistake that was. It actually made my insomnia worse. I'll never touch the stuff again and I am so grateful that the moderator pointed the Zopiclone use out to me. If I had stayed on it, it would have seriously impaired my ability to w/d properly.

For me the secret to tolerating the insomnia was simply knowing and fully accepting that it was going to happen. Also, I knew that it would get better. I kept telling myself that billions of new mothers go virtually sleepless for months and survive. Once, during a rare manic episode, I was up for 13 days straight. After that experience this seemed mild in comparison. I also agree that if you get caught up obsessing and freaking out about it, it just makes it worse. I am glad I did it.

here is another wonderful tidbit I learned recently..........when we are tempted to blame our doctors for putting us on benzos stop and think for a second. I said to my benzo w/d doctor that it was a shame that doctors hand this stuff out like candy and asked him why he thought that was.....after thirty years of dealing with people in benzo wd I figured he would answer me with frustration and blame. but he didn't. he said most doctors see it as a fast solution to a temporary problem, it was win win for both parties....doctor writes a prescription and helps their patient and patient gets instant relief and a month down the road when they need a refill and the drug is doing what it should, no problem...refill. everyone is happy. only thing is he said, as doctors they are never taught about benzo w/d, long term effects or misuse in med school. it is not even mentioned. they have no idea about tapering and w/d so they often just cold turkey/detox people thinking it's like w/d from any other medication or if the person is abusing it , like any other w/d from a addictive substance.he said that there lies the problem...no education. and when there becomes a problem they have no idea why because they don't know about it. and education is the key to stopping this from occurring. dr's don't mean harm, they just don't know. it's so frustrating.

my wonderful therapist who was a family doctor for 40 years before he became a therapist said the same. he was never taught about it in school. and in all the years he was practicing medicine as a doctor he always felt it was too easy of a solution and that he had always been very hesitant to hand them out. but he did not know why exactly or how it affected people. he wasn't taught. he said that I n the two years since he has been counselling me as a patient, he has learned more about benzo use and w/d than he ever did practicing medicine and he thanked me for that. he said he was glad his instincts had been correct and had not prescribed them very often. he said he always thought there is no easy solution that there had to be a catch somewhere.

here is another wonderful tidbit I learned recently..........when we are tempted to blame our doctors for putting us on benzos stop and think for a second. I said to my benzo w/d doctor that it was a shame that doctors hand this stuff out like candy and asked him why he thought that was.....after thirty years of dealing with people in benzo wd I figured he would answer me with frustration and blame. but he didn't. he said most doctors see it as a fast solution to a temporary problem, it was win win for both parties....doctor writes a prescription and helps their patient and patient gets instant relief and a month down the road when they need a refill and the drug is doing what it should, no problem...refill. everyone is happy. only thing is he said, as doctors they are never taught about benzo w/d, long term effects or misuse in med school. it is not even mentioned. they have no idea about tapering and w/d so they often just cold turkey/detox people thinking it's like w/d from any other medication or if the person is abusing it , like any other w/d from a addictive substance.he said that there lies the problem...no education. and when there becomes a problem they have no idea why because they don't know about it. and education is the key to stopping this from occurring. dr's don't mean harm, they just don't know. it's so frustrating.

 

my wonderful therapist who was a family doctor for 40 years before he became a therapist said the same. he was never taught about it in school. and in all the years he was practicing medicine as a doctor he always felt it was too easy of a solution and that he had always been very hesitant to hand them out. but he did not know why exactly or how it affected people. he wasn't taught. he said that I n the two years since he has been counselling me as a patient, he has learned more about benzo use and w/d than he ever did practicing medicine and he thanked me for that. he said he was glad his instincts had been correct and had not prescribed them very often. he said he always thought there is no easy solution that there had to be a catch somewhere.

Thanks for sharing this.