drugs

[fox]

So when I try to sleep, I can feel my body shutting down for the purpose. I can feel my arms and legs get heavy, and I can even feel my fingers get cold - but my mind keeps thundering along, not switching off. I've had the experience before many times of my mind waking up first and not being able to move my body, but I've never been aware of having a kind of sleep paralysis where my mind stays awake longer than my body. Eventually I do fall asleep, of course, but I think this means the vivid dreams I'm having are all the sleep I'm getting. (Normally I sleep very soundly, with the occasional vivid dream just around the edges.)

Which is why the doctor is calling me in a prescription for an anti-anxiety medication, instead of for a sleep aid. I don't know what to expect from that but I'm hopeful that she's right it will quiet things down so my brain can go to sleep at the same time the rest of me does.

Comments

[fox]

Yeah - in my case it's not exactly a surprise, at the moment, but I had called in to say [basically what I said earlier in the week about the limited effectiveness of other pain mgmt etc.] and ask for something; the office assistant put in a note to ask for Ambien or similar, and the doc called me to discuss before calling it in, and when she heard me say here's the situation and I've been worrying myself into a wrung-out mess and having trouble sleeping and here's what I've noticed, she said Yeah, you should have an anti-anxiety med instead of a sleep aid. Which, okay, if it gets me to sleep more peacefully, whatever it is I'll take it. :-P

[laurajv]

The nice thing about most anti-anxiety meds (at least, all the ones that've been prescribed to me) compared to Ambien is that there is (generally) a much lower risk of dependence, and fewer unpleasant side effects. Ambien is fabulous in its place, but I'm really glad I can be on low-impact short-acting meds that are the correct hammer for my particular nail. Hope it's the same for you!