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ORIGINAL: lizi

I can personally vouch for Melatonin as Kalikshama recommended. I take it at night about an hour before I want to fall asleep and darned if I'm not fighting to keep my eyes open. It is a natural substance produced in our bodies that works within the sleep cycle. I honestly didn't ever think it would work for some reason, and I tried it, and I have to say it works like a charm. Try it.

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ORIGINAL: Duskypearls

Lilbear, I've found the "Equate" brand of doxylamine (antihistimine) sleep aid the only thing that gets me down, and doesn't make me drowsy in the a.m.

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ORIGINAL: littlewonder

ha...I've tried absolutely everything I could think of that wasn't prescribed. Not a single thing has ever worked. I removed caffeine, I don't have a tv in my room or anything at all. I did everything everyone has suggested to me and nothing has worked. I would try reading but like you, the moment I put down the book I'm wide awake again.

Sooo...I finally went to see a dr about it. We've tried one medication after another. They either made me ill or didn't do a damn thing....

So now tonight I start a new one. I haven't taken it yet but will in a few minutes. It's called Somnote. It's a drug they use to sedate patients before surgery. According to her if this doesn't work nothing will.

I'll report back tomorrow. Wish me luck.

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ORIGINAL: Kirata

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ORIGINAL: shylilbear

I tend to have a lot of trouble falling asleep... Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated

When I used to be unable to fall asleep it was because, no matter how tired I might be physically, my mind was going. It wasn't even that I necessarily had something particular on my mind, sometimes it was just running on autopilot, jumping from thought to thought. You can train your mind to settle, however, if you spend a little time every day just sitting quietly and following your breath (a practice called "mindfulness meditation"). It's not as easy as it sounds, at least not at first. Your mind is quick to wander. But if that's the problem you're facing, you will find it a rewarding practice in more ways than you might expect.

K.

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ORIGINAL: shylilbear

Just a couple of other things real quick then I'm going to raid my stash of tea and take a hot bath.

Frequently I will have night sweats no matter how cool I keep the room. I lived with someone for awhile that kept the window open even in the middle of winter and I would still wake up sweating like a scared horse. My dr doesn't have an answer for me though and it's really annoying. Any ideas on how to deal with that will also be welcome.

I do have a milder form of bi-polar that I'm on meds for, but that doesn't affect my sleep very often. The difference there is that if I'm on an upswing, I don't feel tired at all and I have a lot of energy. Most of the time my problem is being drop dead tired, no energy whatsoever, but not being able to sleep.

One other thing that I know makes me resist going to sleep is that I have the weirdest, craziest dreams, most of the time being so intense and vivid that it feels incredibly real. It gets to the point of being so intense that I don't want to sleep to avoid the dreams. Much too in-depth to go into here, but I'm more than willing to anyone about it that wants to. Just message me on the other side. I have some theories about why I have some of the dreams that I do, and really would like to talk to someone that has experience with the psychological and/or spiritual aspects of dreams.

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ORIGINAL: shylilbear

Good luck! I am very interested in hearing how it turned out. I have also tried prescription stuff with the same results you had. Both my medical dr and my psych med provider that I currently have won't give me anything because of the risk of dependency. I keep asking them what's worse? Being dependent on it, or being totally non functional because I'm so dang tired all the time?? Apparently they think being dependent on sleep aids is worse.

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ORIGINAL: littlewonder

ha...I've tried absolutely everything I could think of that wasn't prescribed. Not a single thing has ever worked. I removed caffeine, I don't have a tv in my room or anything at all. I did everything everyone has suggested to me and nothing has worked. I would try reading but like you, the moment I put down the book I'm wide awake again.

Sooo...I finally went to see a dr about it. We've tried one medication after another. They either made me ill or didn't do a damn thing....

So now tonight I start a new one. I haven't taken it yet but will in a few minutes. It's called Somnote. It's a drug they use to sedate patients before surgery. According to her if this doesn't work nothing will.

I'll report back tomorrow. Wish me luck.

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Are you getting enough exercise during the day? (Don't exercise too close to bedtime.)

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as soon as I put the book down, shut the light off and close my eyes, I'm wide awake again.

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ORIGINAL: shylilbear

Dear CollarChat peoples,

I tend to have a lot of trouble falling asleep. I have tried all of the "tried and true" methods of getting myself to sleep. Warm milk, reading, soft music, warm bath, meditation, an intense orgasm or ten. More than once all of the above in the same night. Sometimes it works, sometimes it doesn't. Benedryl does a pretty good job (usually) of knocking me out, at least until I develope a resistance to it. Then it might as well be pink sugar pills. Which seems to be the case at the moment. Daddy doesn't want me being dependant on pills to help me sleep, and he's asked me to stop taking the benedryl. I don't have a problem with that, especially considering the above mentioned resistance which tends to lead to taking dangerously high doses of the stuff.

Now all I have to do is find something else to put me to sleep that's not in a pill and actually works consistantly. Any suggestions would be greatly appreciated, especially if anyone has a trick that's not usually on the "tried and true" list.

Sincerely,

Sleepless near Seattle

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ORIGINAL: littlewonder

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ORIGINAL: shylilbear

Good luck! I am very interested in hearing how it turned out. I have also tried prescription stuff with the same results you had. Both my medical dr and my psych med provider that I currently have won't give me anything because of the risk of dependency. I keep asking them what's worse? Being dependent on it, or being totally non functional because I'm so dang tired all the time?? Apparently they think being dependent on sleep aids is worse.

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ORIGINAL: littlewonder

ha...I've tried absolutely everything I could think of that wasn't prescribed. Not a single thing has ever worked. I removed caffeine, I don't have a tv in my room or anything at all. I did everything everyone has suggested to me and nothing has worked. I would try reading but like you, the moment I put down the book I'm wide awake again.

Sooo...I finally went to see a dr about it. We've tried one medication after another. They either made me ill or didn't do a damn thing....

So now tonight I start a new one. I haven't taken it yet but will in a few minutes. It's called Somnote. It's a drug they use to sedate patients before surgery. According to her if this doesn't work nothing will.

I'll report back tomorrow. Wish me luck.

Well, I can give you a report now. I was told to take it 15-30 mins before I planned to go to sleep. That was over an hour ago and here I am...wide awake. It didn't do a single thing at all. It's like I never even took it.

And because of it's supposed potency I'm told it's too dangerous to take two by my dr. UGH. So back to the drawing board.

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ORIGINAL: xXLithiumXx

Melatonin is good, I have taken it in the past and it worked, but the kind you get at Wal Mart is in low dosage, so you may want to start off low and add to it as you go. Another method my mom uses is Valerian Root. It smells like stink bait, so it's vile, but if you lay it out about 10 minutes before you take it, it helps considerably.

Valerian Root helped me more than the Melatonin, but I also have a slight case of ADD, so insomnia is a very close friend of mine.

I told a girl friend of mine today that sometimes you just have to ride it out, but that gets tricky when you get sleepy during the day and want to nap. If you nap, you won't sleep at night, if you don't sleep at night you want to nap. It's horribly circular.

You have my sympathy and I wish you much luck.