Severe insomnia

[Intohellbutstayingstrong]

I just want to cry. Still awake at 5am last night. Still awake now. Back and forth to GP over last two years. Sinking lower and lower. I just dont know what I can do anymore. I just cant cope with this.
Anyone else?

I’m still awake. No point going to sleep now as I won’t be able to get enough sleep before the kids are up.

I'm an insomniac as well OP, it's horrible isn't it. I haven't found any solution except I allow myself to take sleeping pills (antihistamines) 2-3 times a week to get a bit of relief. (would take something from the benzo family like Temazepam but Dr wouldn't prescribe it).

Butter, why won’t they prescribe them? Sleep is a basic human need!

And may I ask which antihistamines you have found to be most effective?

I’m still up.
Going to rejig my day and cancel my hairdressers or I’ll of been up for 26 hours by the time I get back from work 😔

I use CBD to help me sleep, it seems to work. I have bouts of insomnia related to my anxiety.

Yes, nearly every night for years. Tonight was exceptional as i slept until five.

I sympathise completely.

Have tried going to the GP repeatedly, only to be offered antidepressants despite having gone batshit mental on them and not slept for a week when I was convinced to try them for insomnia before (wouldn't have thunk that giving antidepressants to somebody who wasn't depressed was a bad idea?), told to relax more, go to bed early, get up, etc, etc.

I have stopped drinking coffee, cola, Red Bull and anything that contains caffeine other than tea (until 1pm), I've gone from liking Teapig's Camomile Tea to hating it, have tried warm milk with nutmeg, put up blackout curtains, banned all lights on upstairs, tried being cooler, tried being warmer, lavender, antihistamines, codeine, booze - and I cannot get to sleep before about 2.30am on a good day and most of this holiday, I haven't slept at all, tried to push through the morning and literally passed out for a couple of hours during the day before being awake again. If I miraculously fall asleep before midnight, I'll wake up again a couple of hours later and be bolloxed for the following two days, as I won't sleep at all.

Whilst I'm working, I can normally get about 4 hours sleep reliably and wake up with a massive effort in time for work, but the instant it's not necessary, I'll go back to the 5am sulkfests because I can hear the OH happily snoring away upstairs. And on weekends when I could sleep in and do actually manage to go to sleep, I wake up at normal work time.

Yes, I am stressed right now, but this is something that has been going on for years.

According to the GPs, there is absolutely nothing they can do, as they 'don't prescribe sleeping tablets anymore'.

As an aside, the OH complained of not sleeping well for a while last spring. The fucker was staying up all night watching YouTube, all lights blazing, drinking energy drinks and then going to bed after I'd left for work and not getting up until he thought I was round the corner (I came home 15 mins early one day and the bed was still warm). Guess what those bastards did for him? They prescribed him sleeping pills. Which didn't work at night - because he was getting all the fucking sleep he needed during the day.

Now, if somebody could talk to me about how to get hold of melatonin when, according to the GPs (I have changed practice, but am expecting the usual We Can't Help Because You're Female So Must Be Hysterical) there is nothing that can be done, I'd be very interested.

Yes, woke at 4am yesterday morning and thought ok, I'll sleep tonight. No. Woke at 2.30am. Can I get back to sleep? Can I fuck.

I’m a long term insomniac too. I signed up for a 5 week course at a local acupuncture clinic which has helped a fair bit. I had to keep a sleep diary which made me realise that by the end, I was getting about another 40 mins a night more. I am, however, having to return every couple of weeks to boost it.
I’m quite a fan of meditation stuff on YouTube and use it with a pillow speaker.
Still have not found the holy grail though!

My alarm will go off in 45 minutes. I've been awake since 3.00. It was after 1.00 when I fell to sleep. I'm going to get up and go to work in a stressful job on less than 2 hours sleep. I can't even hope to catch up tonight as I'm on call for work so will likely end up working most of the night too, before going back into work for my regular shift tomorrow morning.
I go through phases like this.. eventually I'll become so exhausted I can barely function and do a proper sleep... by previous experience I'm about 10 days away from that.

While I understand the reluctance to prescribe sleeping pills I am astonished out how blase some GP's are about insomnia. I have an amazing GP now who also suffered from it so she knows what it is like but she is very limited in what she can do. I am so scared of driving because I am on my knees with tiredness. I am so tired I hallucinate. Yet I can go for several nights without a single minute or at most three hours over a 72 hour period. I am so so wrecked and it is having a huge effect on my everyday life

they 'don't prescribe sleeping tablets anymore
Is this a general thing? I have 2 colleagues who used to suffer with insomnia and were prescribed constant supplies of sleeping pills practically on request.

@Raven88 - can you elaborate on your CBD oil? I’ve no idea on dosages etc. Where do you get it from?

Re melatonin - you just need friends/ colleagues/ acquaintances to go to the States every so often. You just pick it off the shelf in drugstores. I can only take it about once a week because it doesn’t work for me otherwise. Sorry I can’t be more help.

Been awake since 12. Fecking typical I have an important meeting today where In th question and answer person. So I will be high on caffibe an food later

I really struggle with my weight and I’m sure it’s linked to my lack of sleep

Me-I've had terrible insomnia on and off since I was 17. The last three years have been apalling although I've gone from not being able to get to sleep at all to going to sleep fine and then waking up anything between 1 and 3 and not being able to get back to sleep.
I'm on my knees with it tbh. Its affecting my mood, my memory, my ability to make decisions and my weight and I must have aged ten years in the last three-I just look grey. I've tried everything and nothing has touched it. The only thing left is hypnosis but I don't hold out much hope for that really...

I got melatonin from the GP with no issue (for pp that was asking about that). I wonder if it's geographical and the guidance differs from area to area? We are in Herts.
To be fair it did feck all so I can't think you are missing out on much really...
I've got some Promethazine they gave me at the moment. Also doesn't seem to have done much...

I got my melatonin in Spain.

My ds is prescribed them too as he has AS and struggles to switch off but I don't touch his ones.

Re:CBD oil.
I had some Christmas money and literally need nothing and had heard lots of positive things about this so went into Liverpool on Saturday and bought some. It's called "Tru Blu" and is Canadian and supposedly very good. I must admit I haven't bothered much with it yet but intend to as of today.
The guy who sold me it said i probably won't see any results for a few days but it has been very successful in many of his clients. £49 for a bottle

Here it is

Another insomniac. In my case, hormones related as I was an excellent sleeper before. I don't have much trouble falling asleep most of the time as been following all the right advice and routines but I wake up and struggle to get back to sleep. Worse though is when I do sleep, it is not good quality but mainly light sleep which doesnt make me feel rested at all.

I've tried everythijg in the books. Mensltonin, cbd oil, antihistamine etc... all help a bit to get to sleep but none help to improve quality of sleep. The only two things that do is vslium, which I only take in extreme emergency and... a full body massage. This tells me that my issue is to do with not relaxing and caused my menopause rated anxiety. I don't think mentally anxious but can feel physically anxious. My body feels constantly tense, ctjst despite doing a lot of sport and walking almost every day.

It is so hard to explain how it affects us. On the surface, we seem OK and do manage to get on with every day life but e erything people just do normally is an effort for us. I get up every day unsure how ill make it to the end of the day and just counting the hours until its time to go to bed! I feel dizzy, lightheaded, mentally slow, struggling to concentrate. My OH misses the outgoing, cheeky, exuberant self and instead seem to have landed with a boring miserable self. I miss her too!

I've been considering trying amtidepressants now, not because I'm depressed but to see a out tackling what I can only guess is anxiety.

Do not sleep due to worry or do you just not sleep no matter how quiet your mind is?

How much sleep do you get per week?
How much aerobic exercise do you get?

I used to have severe insomnia (since I was mid teens, am now 50) but fingers crossed haven't had a bad episode in over 2 years. I was a heavy-duty Zopiclone user and sadly found that nothing else even came close to working, pill-wise.

However some things did help on a sporadic basis: change where you sleep. Sometimes I would take the duvet and pillow and set up camp on the sofa to watch tv- something entertaining enough to engage the brain, thus bypassing the 'switch' that refused to let me sleep. Sometimes I'd sleep on the floor, sometimes upside down on the bed (head at foot end). Sometimes reading would help. Cuddling a hot water bottle sometimes helped. You need to occupy part of your brain so it can't worry about not being asleep yet.

I know a lot of people advise not napping in the day, but my doctor advised me to sleep whenever my body demanded it (where possible)- his theory was that by denying myself sleep when my body demanded it, I was creating a precedent, if you like, thus making it more difficult to sleep at night.

Of all the over the counter remedies I tried, Sleepeaze by Boots was the most successful, and the one I still use in emergencies.

Regular exercise helps, but don't overdo it because being physically exhausted doesn't help if your brain refuses to switch off.

Ultimately I found that anxiety was the root cause of my insomnia. Once I got rid of the thing that made me anxious, sleep came back. Unfortunately it's a vicious circle because I would get anxious about not being able to sleep.

It's shitter than shit, and you have my total sympathy, but try to believe that it won't always be this way.

@IDismyname I get the first one from Holland and Barret, it's 29.99 and I use a few drops under the tongue if I'm anxious or just before bed. The second one is a vape oil, from the vapour shop. it's contains no nicotine, I mix it with my vape oil. I add a full pipette to the tank 30 mins before bed. It tastes like wheatgrass or raw greens. Everything I take is completely legal and I've have no withdrawal symptoms. I use it before stressful situations and it's a god send.

I started using it because I was dependant on codiene and when I stopped I felt really ill and I would need to take codiene to stop the symptoms. I started to use CBD to stop the withdrawal symptoms, they were gone instantly. I now use it to replace propranolol and sleep.

I’m in the US, so melatonin is over the counter. I had no idea that it was by prescription only back home.

Medical marijuana is legal in my state. I may talk to my doctor about it, as I’d rather take that on an ongoing basis over antihistamines. My friend has it prescribed for her PTSD, and she said it’s finally cured her insomnia.