to ask which is worse. Low dose sleeping tablets most nights or not much sleep most nights?

[Cheeseandlobster]

Its well documented that poor sleep affects your physical and mental health. I sleep badly due to a combination of things and average 5 hours of disturbed sleep a night. Recently I went abroad and bought serax over the counter. I have half a tablet most nights and achieve around 8 hours undisturbed sleep. I don't feel groggy the next day and I feel better for having slept well.

So which is worse? Long term sleep deprivation or what I am doing? I know nether is good 😌

Pills are addictive. And you will find yourself to be unable to sleep if you dont take them

You need to tackle the source. Why can't you sleep. Figure it out. Get help. Get therapy. Talk to people. Write it down etc

And listen to self hypnose tapes. You'll need to find that 1 that works for you
I had to scroll through a million. But when I found it

Blisssssss

I had to Google that because we don't have it in this country. It's a benzo so if you take it for longer than 6 weeks you will be physically dependent on it

The issue with tablets like that is you'll develop a pretty bad addiction long-term. There's a reason why doctors don't like to prescribe sleeping tablets for longer than a few days at a time.

Why aren't you sleeping? That's what you need to address.

This is what I am worried about. I don't want to render myself unable to sleep naturally.

Dp snores and shuffles about heavily most nights but if I go in the spare room the neighbours wake me instead I have ear plugs and white noise. Dp has a mouth thing and a nose thing to prevent snoring but they don't always work. The cat has figured out how to open doors and likes to sleep with me too but this isn't every night and he is cute as hell!

What are the physical ramifications of long term use aside from addiction? I need to hear warts and all please as I love being able to sleep properly for the first time in years

You have my sympathy. I sleep 5 hours uninterrupted a night. I have sleeping tablets but only take a half every two months or so when it gets even worse.

Could your husband sleep in the spare room?

www.rehabcenter.net/oxazepam/long-term-effects/

He will do this as some nights he comes to bed at 1am after being out for his hobby. But we do want to sleep together too

The problem with long term use is they will stop working - you will develop tolerance. But you'll also be physically dependant so will be unable to stop taking them without withdrawal which can be severe and have many other symptoms than lack of sleep. So people start taking a higher dose, but then become tolerant of that, and so on.

It really isn't a good idea and that's why Dr's here don't prescribe them for long term use.

Separate rooms for me and DH is the best thing we've ever done. I prioritise my sleep over sleeping in a bed with someone else!

Combining oxazepam with alcohol, opioid medications, or other substances that depress the central nervous system could result in serious complications, even death due to suppression of the breathing center in the brain.

Abrupt discontinuation of oxazepam or any other benzodiazepine, especially after extended therapy, can cause mild to severe withdrawal effects.7 For those who have been using oxazepam for some time, withdrawal can be very serious, and even fatal.

Because of this problem, you should try to use the medication for as little time as possible, and discuss with your doctor how to taper your dosage off gradually. Never discontinue the drug suddenly.

www.verywellmind.com/serax-oxazepam-anti-anxiety-drug-378912

Oh gosh. Good find. That all looks scary. Incredibly scary. I kind of assumed that as this was bought over the counter it would be mild. OK I need to knock this down to very occasional use only

Your DH sleeping in a different room sounds like a much better option than drug dependence/addiction.

Separate rooms for us , hubbie tried surgery to cure his snoring but didn’t work so this is the best option - I still wear earplugs though as the noise carries

The issue with tablets like that is you'll develop a pretty bad addiction long-term

I see this a lot when mention of strong medications crops up and I have to ask :

why does it matter if someone develops a long term addiction?

I mean doctors prescribe anti depressants by the bucket load and they are addictive? Yet they happily leave millions of people on them long term.

I've had this conversion with many doctors over various medications through the years. And when it comes down to it, they've all agreed that actually it would be better from a quality of life point of view that I take many medications long term and that some of those will be addictive.

The oxy I take is addictive, but I can't live with the pain levels I experience without the oxy.

The four to five hours of sleep my nightly addictive temazapam allows me to have is much better for me than the effects of weeks of no sleep or greatly disturbed sleep has on my body.

I am on a stable dose of oxy and temazapam. It's not been a case of my body getting used to it and therefore needing higher and higher quantities. I have been on the same levels for about 6 years now.

They enable me to sleep and live with my pain. Without them I wouldn't be here any more.

I worked in a rehab centre. People addicted to Serax/benzos honestly had a harder time coming off them than alcohol or heroin. It was brutal to watch. Long-term use of benzodiazepine to end up with them being completely ineffective and yet impossible to come off. I would strongly advise not taking them for more than 2 to 3 weeks and only if in a crisis. Pretty soon they will stop working as well and you will want to up the dose. This pattern will increase ad finium.
Try anything else. Get better earplugs. Sleep in separate rooms. Lock the cat away properly. Get total blackout blinds and curtains. Exercise in the day. Avoid alcohol and caffeine. Leave your phone down stairs and don't use it an hour before bed. Learn deep relaxation (Yoga Nidra free vids on youtube- do this every day.)
Do not get addicted to fucking evil benzos. I remember a lovely woman, with no previous drug problems until she got addicted to benzos following the death of her husband. At her worst this nice woman head butted the wall and threw a chair at me. Please don't.

I think you're going to have to accept, like my DH and I and millions of other couples, that sleeping together brings more detriment than benefit. It's a no brainer that he sleeps in the spare room and I can't believe he hasn't volunteered to do that by now.

You are under medical care from a doctor (or team of doctors) - OP went abroad and picked her pills up OTC with no health checks or support in place. That's the fundamental difference here.

Long-term addiction can cause serious health issues (often worse issues than the ones they were prescribed for in the first place) and withdrawal can be fatal if not managed correctly.

If OP is struggling with sleep to the point that she needs to take addictive drugs, she needs to go and see her GP and get a prescription. That way, she'll have a regular, monitored supply of pills and access to other help as well.

If she continues to buy online or abroad, there's nothing stopping her over-dosing or increasing her dosage to a dangerous level and abusing the pills.

I've suffered from insomnia for more than 40 years now. I have tried everything. I've seen GPs, had talk therapy, done all the 'what's the cause?' investigations.

The impact on my mental health has been brutal. I developed severe anxiety about 25 years ago and had to leave my job (secondary headteacher) because trying to run a school on an average of 1.5 hours per night was crippling. I'm told it's likely it has had an impact on my physical health that will shorten my life expectancy, too.

I have slept better since I gave up the job but still get 5 hours at best and intermittent nights (it's usually 2 or 3 when I can fall asleep, then between 1 and 3 in a row of insomnia) when I simply cannot fall asleep (last night was one of them) despite going to a different room to my partner (who sleeps like a dead person, making no noise) and trying all the strategies there are. I was still awake at 5am, then dropped off at some point, only to awake again at 6.15am.

At 64, I want an end to this torture. Nobody who hasn't experienced this long-term can have any understanding of how awful it is. Give me some sleeping pills and let me live with the addiction, please.

I sympathise with you I've been a bad sleeper all my adult life and only get about four hours each night if I'm lucky. I've tried numerous things over the years but I can honestly say sleeping pills is not the way to in my opinion. Maybe an option for you would be sleeping in the spare bedroom? If it was me and that was my problem with sleeping I would definitely be sleeping elsewhere or he would😬😬.

If you can afford it, find a good acupuncturist and see if a few sessions will help.

Sleep is addictive! You can get non-addictive allergy tablets to help you sleep, also magnesium citrate, melatoin are both good options. There are psychological approaches and guides on good hygiene, they helped me a tiny bit, but just helped me to rest, not sleep. As a lifelong insomniac, I choose to sleep. I mix and match a range of things, two different allergy tablets with melatnonin and magnesium citrate. By mixing it up I don't habituate. Good luck OP.

Try and sort out the obvious reasons for disturbance first - get a bolt on the door that the cat gets through, can you move rooms around so the neighbours don’t disturb you? Change your routine to match theirs? Move house?! These are radical but I’m throwing them out there.

I had a script for xanax last year and took a few to help me sleep - omg the sleep was amazing, and I woke up with so much energy I was buzzing all day. I thought I'd discovered some sort of golden ticket.
I then did some internet research. And quickly stopped. Don't get addicted OP - the side effects can be terrifying.
So I'm back to being a restless sleeper. But sleeping separate from my partner does help. Try that if you can.

One of my earliest GPs worked in the hospital part time doing addiction treatment. He had an unusual take on the whole addiction thing, that chronic pain patients will always develop an addiction to pain killers, not the worrying kind of physiological addiction, not the harmful addictions he dealt with in hospital, but the very understandable addiction to being in less pain. It's not the same. Unfortunately pain killers of any kind don't work for me anyway.

OP sleeping pills really aren't a good idea long term. Have you tried any of the OTC older variety antihistamines? These tend to cause drowsiness for most people and are much safer for long term use.