Posted by Dave954 on October 27, 2009, at 20:29:28
Several of you saw my posting earlier in the month or towards the end of last month about treatment resistant insomnia. Well, my doctor increased my Neurontin dosage from 600 mg to an upper limit of 1800 mg spread throughout the day or all in the evening - he allowed me to experiment with it a little bit. At first, I was taking it spread out 3 times a day 6 hours apart. At first I felt better and slept better, then a week into it my depression worsened. I then scaled back to taking all 1800 mg at bedtime, which caused my depression to get better but also caused me to wake up after 3 hours completely unable to fall back asleep no matter what - even if I took more. My medications are as follows: Lexapro 10 mg in the morning and Strattera 80 mg in the morning - Seroquel 300 mg at bedtime and Neurontin 1800 mg at bedtime (was previously only taking 600 mg). Neurontin has always historically been a difficult medication with regards to dosing and effects on my insomnia. Usually if I stop taking it all together then I can't sleep for 2 weeks in a row and experience a withdrawal much worse than any benzo I have ever been on. I have been on most classes of medications for my insomnia except the TCAs. I am feeling hopeless about my insomnia and wish I had some experts to talk to on here right about now. And no, stopping the Strattera doesn't improve my insomnia. I wonder if being on Neurontin all these years has down-regulated my GABA receptors and caused the Seroquel to not do its job effectively anymore when it comes to sedating me. I can't go to work like this anymore and knowing I will have to go in for another day terrifies me - I have been dealing with insomnia since 2000 but it was well-controlled until about a year and a half ago when I started waking up too early in the morning again.
poster:Dave954
thread:922990
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20091021/msgs/922990.html