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        New Message Board Archives >> 2005 Cluster Headache Specific Posts >> Sleeping Aides and attacks
        
(Message started by: tannero on Mar 28^th, 2005, 11:49am)

Title: Sleeping Aides and attacks
Post by tannero on Mar 28^th, 2005, 11:49am

Has anyone ever experienced a direct correlation between taking a sleeping aide and an attack that night. I certainly did and I will never take an ambien again.

Title: Re: Sleeping Aides and attacks
Post by Sean_C on Mar 28^th, 2005, 12:04pm

Sounds like you had a nice night LOL.

Nothing worse than waking up with the beast staring you straight in the face.

Some have had luck with melatonin.

PF vibes to you

Sean......................

Title: Re: Sleeping Aides and attacks
Post by Gator on Mar 28^th, 2005, 12:20pm

on 03/28/05 at 11:49:17, tannero wrote:

Has anyone ever experienced a direct correlation between taking a sleeping aide and an attack that night. I certainly did and I will never take an ambien again.

I have never had that experience from a prescription sleep aid, but then I have never had a sleep medicine that actually worked either. As Sean said, many here take melatonin with good results. For me it gave me two extra attacks per night. The only thing I have taken that really made me sleep was an atypical antipsychotic called Seroquel, but my body developed a tolerance to that very quickly. I was having to up the dose every three or four days in order to get to sleep. When I hit 400mg and was staying awake until 4:00 or 5:00 in the morning, I quit taking it.

Title: Re: Sleeping Aides and attacks
Post by E-Double on Mar 28^th, 2005, 3:22pm

If you do have the "typical" wake you up in the middle of the night horrors then.... Melatonin might be a savior.
Many of us (myself included) have found that taking 6-9mg (some take more) about a 1/2 hour to 45minutes prior to bed have Knocked out the night visits and can finally get sleep.

With the exception of 5-6 times.....I have slept through the night since August.....Still get hit during the day but my overall quality of life is better because I am not as exhausted all the time.

Some people report that it seems to make them worse....The fact is that we are all different and respond differently to everything therefore it may or may not...

The one thing I will tell you as far as my experience was that I had to stick with it...The first night I took melatonin, I was awoken with a doozy only I was too groggy to find my O2 .....It got a lot better for me....I then slept through the night but would get slammed about 1/2 hour after waking up....kinda like knocking the beast off schedule.....then again I was peaking and this cycle has been all over the place with no real pattern.
I stayed with melatonin and have had decent sleep overall.

It may help and it is natural with not too many sideeffects....also ask your doctor b/c if there are any side effects or contraindications...I think they have to do with mild depression.....

Like I said we are all different.

Best wishes, good luck & stay as positive as you can!!!!

Eric

Title: Re: Sleeping Aides and attacks
Post by vig on Mar 28^th, 2005, 8:03pm

My $.02 on this is that the attack still comes, but I'm deeper in sleep and harder to wake up. When I AM finally woken up by the beastard, he has advanced further than usual and the pain levels go higher.

I refrain from sleep aids.

Title: Re: Sleeping Aides and attacks
Post by TonyG1 on Mar 28^th, 2005, 8:21pm

on 03/28/05 at 20:03:52, vig wrote:

I used to take benadryl all the time and have tried melatonin; however, if the beast comes on a night I'll have to echo vig --- harder to wake up and by the time I do pain levels have advanced tooooo far .... the times I have tried melatonin and the beast has been present ... seems to make them worse for me. It (the beast) is back in the box for now so I'm sleeping pretty good these nights

Title: Re: Sleeping Aides and attacks
Post by E-Double on Mar 28^th, 2005, 9:53pm

Tony and Vig are Lying ;;D....just kidding.......

We're all different...that's kinda the problem with the disorder and finding that "magic pill" that can help like so many other disorders might have.

Mine used to be only @ night that I bare knuckled....for me melatonin has gotten rid of the night time visits but then I'm still left with the daytimers.......

Actually these days I haven't taken mealtonin for quite some time and the night time hits have not returned (knock on wood)......
I guess the nature of the beast .....It morphed ??? but atleast I sleep...not a lot but I do get some :)

Best to ya and like anything else, it will be trial and error.

Eric

Title: Re: Sleeping Aides and attacks
Post by thudpucker on Mar 30^th, 2005, 3:54pm

on 03/28/05 at 20:21:27, TonyG1 wrote:

I'm using just melatonin with excellent results, but every once in a while the beast will sneak in for a visit in the middle of the night. On those occasions, a shot of Benadryl usually puts him back to sleep, too.

Wouldn't it be nice if one size fit all?

Title: Re: Sleeping Aides and attacks
Post by TonyG1 on Mar 30^th, 2005, 7:13pm

on 03/28/05 at 21:53:33, E-Double wrote:

Tony and Vig are Lying ;;D....just kidding.......

Funny Eric ... [smiley=laugh.gif] Wish I was lying !!

T.