Just curious, especially because the draft nice guidelines don't say anything about sleep medication. Please tell me if there's an option that I should have included but forgot.
I don't fit any of those categories. I don't take sleep meds because having tried tiny doses of amitryptiline, and felt so awful I couldn't persevere, and having reacted badly to some other meds in the past, I have decided to do without and put up with disordered sleep. I don't think the last option fits - I would like a sleep med that worked and didn't leave me feeling extremely nauseous and like a zombie.
I take Circadin (prescription melatonin) on a private prescription. I tried everything listed over the years and most of it caused insomnia and horrible hangovers - even the stuff that isn't supposed to cause hangover. Circadin isn't a magic bullet. You do have to help it along and avoid caffeine and doing anything that might overstimulate the brain and so on. It is very helpful though & so I keep paying for it.
I take over the counter melatonin I buy from the USA I have to be careful with or preferably avoid anything sedating as I really get knocked out by them and also the hangover persists
I take medications for a maximum of 3 days in a row, and then switch to another. The ones I take are: Promethazine (sometimes) diphenhydramine cetirizine (antihistamine) chlorphenamine (antihistamine) paracetamol & codeine (usually only one nowadays as causes constipation) Sometimes they don't work, but usually/often they do. I often take some marijuana as well, which helps a lot - usually twice a night. I suspect that the advice to take most things continuously is just to maintain market-share?
I take sleep meds, but switch on alternate nights. One night I'll take 50 MG of Trazodone, and the next I'll take 15 MG of Belsomra, and on like that. Some people seem to be able to take the same sleep med night after night, but I've found that doing that usually causes the med to lose effectiveness. The one exception in my experience was Xyrem (sodium oxybate). I took that every night for a long time with good effect, and, when I got off it, I had no withdrawal.
Me too, so I went for 'other medication not listed here'. I don't take it all the time, only for a few days at a time to re-set my sleep pattern once it's drifted so far towards day/night reversal yet again. It does seem to work, provided I keep the dose to around 1mg (higher doses, e.g. 5mg tablets, paradoxically have no effect at all).
generalize ambien to “nonbenzodiazepine z-drugs” as there are many like Lunesta and others and they all work the same way. add benzos option (like klonopin, clonazepam, lorazepam) add tiagabine (GABA reuptake inhibitor) option add orexin antagonists option (like Belsomra) add agomelatine option (melatonin receptor agonist and specific serotonin receptor antagonist) this will help reduce use of option not listed here as ideally you want none of those
Ummm you forgot the gold standard. https://www.drugs.com/comments/secobarbital/ A perfect 10/10 rating. Physicians are so scared to prescribe this stuff, probably to the detriment of many patients. What is the status of barbiturates in the UK/EU? (E.g., very rarely prescribed, etc.)
The problem with barbiturates (and why they were eventually replaced by benzos many years ago) is that they have an even higher abuse potential than benzos on top of the fact that it’s really hard to dose right for each person, even small doses and just a little over and you can easily put them in a coma or kill them. With benzos it’s not the case.
That's one reason why I take them in sequence, then you can't get dependent. (I know about dependency - I got badly addicted to amphetamine - terrible time, lost my job, etc.)
@perchance dreamer @Braganca @leokitten I have added additional options to the poll, so you may wish to update your choices (and, if appropriate, remove your vote from 'other med not listed here')