Posted by beardedlady on March 22, 2002, at 13:33:27
In reply to Re: Sam-E and Anxiety Disorder » beardedlady, posted by Ron Hill on March 22, 2002, at 11:45:41
> Yes, but what does this have to do with the reason you are tapering off Serzone?
Oh, the liver thing. Serzone has that new black box, so I thought it best if I either switch to something else (but I dunno what) or try to live as I have for the 36 years before this happened to me.
> What or who gave you the impression that SAM-e is an appropriate treatment for insomnia? What does your pdoc think of the SAM-e trial? I feel sure that SAM-e will not harm you in any way, however, using it specifically to treat insomnia is, as I understand it, untried.No one gave me that impression. But I will try anything that's not a drug. And if it makes me feel good, maybe I won't worry so much about sleep.
> Why hasn't your pdoc prescribed either sleeping pills or benzos to combat the insomnia?
When this first happened three and a half years ago, we tried Ambien (one pill, one time), but I was so anxious I couldn't break through it, so it didn't work. Then we tried Xanax, which worked for short spurts of nap (but I was only on about .5 mgs!). Then we tried Zoloft and Xanax, and I got worse. Then we tried Trazodone and Xanax, and that worked for a month. Then we changed some timing, and it worked again for a month. Then we tried Serzone and quit the Xanax (yea! I hated it!), and my sleep returned to normal in about a week, and it hasn't stopped working.
Occasionally, when real life stuff interferes, I have breakthrough anxiety, and I use Sonata--a great drug (we discussed this before re: shelf life, which my pharmacist says is bunk because it's already months old in the pharmacy, and it has an expiration date of longer than a year on his bottle).
>
> Also you can do a search on the web (and on this site also) for the term "sleep hygiene" which is a set of rules (e.g. no sleeping during the day, etc) for the patient to follow in order to facilitate better quality sleep. I'm probably telling you a bunch of stuff that you already know and you're just eager for me to shut up.Yes. I know everything about it. I have great sleep hygiene. I never had this problem until my daughter quit nursing cold turkey the weekend before I started a new teaching job, which was right after my father-in-law's funeral!
> Do you have the type of insomnia that causes you to wake up in the middle of the night and then preclude you from getting back to sleep, or do you have the kind of insomnia that makes it hard to fall asleep from the get go?
It started while I was nursing with waking up at 2:00 a.m. and lying there until I fell asleep at 4:00. This happened maybe five times in four months. On the rare nights (rare now, anyway) that I can't fall back to sleep at all (I lie there in bed "resting" all night anyway because I often can get another three hours if I'm patient), I have trouble falling asleep the next night.
> Also, how do you know that the key to curing your panic is to cure the insomnia (first). How do you know it is not the other way around (solve panic to cure insomnia)? What does the pdoc think, chicken or egg?
It's obviously the insomnia that caused the panic. I forgot to add that I took a diet pill (phentermine) when she quit nursing. I was on them for about a month or two a year before I got pregnant, and they not only worked on my weight but made me feel happy and energetic, so I wanted that again after nursing a baby. But it gave me insomnia, and I stopped taking it. The insomnia didn't go away, so I started to panic that I wouldn't be able to take care of my daughter. I panicked because of sleep, and that's all.
Thanks for asking.
So the reason I'm thinking SAMe is that I might stop worrying if I feel good, which might let me rest at night once I'm off the Serzone (or on a really reduced dose). Otherwise, it might keep my liver healthy to counteract the possible liver toxicity of Serzone.
beardy : )>
poster:beardedlady
thread:98301
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20020322/msgs/99488.html