Got myself in a real pickle

Thanks for both your replies - its great people find the time to help others.  Your replies are reassuring - I woke up after just 3 hrs sleep noise of the ringing prevented me from sleeping again. A run, reading a book, counting numbers in my head - all things I tried to get back to sleep with.  This is so difficult and now a full day to try and get through.  Would you reccomend any form of natural or over the counter sleeping aid that I could try and use this evening ?  

Some people have said phenergan whch is an over the counter antihistamine, has helped them sleep.  Some say it works best to take it an hour more before going to bed. But the downside seems to be it can leave you with a hangover the next day, so you might as well be tired from no sleep.  either way you'll feel tired. i don't know if you personally will feel tired, it might not cause that for you.  it seems to be a common side effect though. i'm not sure it's over the counter in the UK. i'm in the US, it's OTC here.  One thing to keep in mind--if you have to get through a day or two on a short amount of sleep, you will probably get tired enough to sleep better by the second or third night of that. Anyway, that's what i try to remind myself.  You have my sympathy.  i'm glad i'm off zopiclone, i don't like how it made me feel.  I am still taking zopidem though, another similar sleep medication. For me, it doesn't have the same negative effects but for some people it does. It's even shorter acting than zopiclone, the elimination half life is 2 or 3 hours. That's what i like about it, but after taking it for a long time, years, it got to where it didnt' keep me asleep for very long. It reliably gets me to sleep, but not for long, and then i take it again in the same night.  The goal:  getting off it.  After i get past a surgery i'm goign to have to have in the forseeable future.  good luck!   report back on how it goes.  You got off it.  Now you're working on putting it behind you. maybe there are some remedies for tinnitus on line. i will google that. 

hi jaw i have tried to get phenergan went to 4 drifferent chemist and each one told me its not available only by percription x

hi jaw444. do the doctors have a problem giving zopidem? i have thought of asking as im tapering off zopiclone.. thanks in advance 

julie--in another post below, you said they gave you diazapam to help you get off zopiclone, yes?  if so, i doubt they would give you zolpidem, partly because they wouldn't want to add something else, and also, they may know the rationale for switching to diazapam is because it's long acting and that is supposed to make withdrawal easier.  My experience in doing this with zolpidem is that diazapam, if an equivalent dose to the Z drug you're taking, could be fully substituted, gradual taper not necessary.  According to an equivalency chart that's on line, can be googled, the approximate equivalent is 10mg diazapam = 15mg zopiclone.  So, if you take an equivalent dose of diazapam, like 5mg would be equivalent to 7.5mg, if your experience is like mine and apparently other people my doctor is treating (it's his speciality so he's experieinced with it), tapering off zopiclone wouldn't be necessary--i was surprised when he told me that, but when i did what he said, it totally worked, the diazapam was stronger than the zolpidem and there were no withdrawal effects from the zolpidem after stopping it over night and starting 10mg diazapam, which was a little less than an equivalent dose.  It got me to sleep consistently and compared to zolpdem, it kept me asleep for the whole night.  But left me with a hangover, until i started tapering off the diazapam. The problem i've had with this, but apparentlly many people don't have this problem, is that in a fairlly short time, i got a tolerance for the diazapam and it no longer keeps me asleep for very long, about 3 hours, and when i wake up and am not getting back to sleep, i take zolpidem. But at least it's a lot less than i used to take, about a third.  I'm at 8mg diazapam now and i'm not sure how much longer it's going to work for me, it often doesn't get me to sleep at night.  The hangover got a lot better after tapering down from 10mg but i think it still makes me lethargic during the day.  I am eager to get off of it, but am kind of stuck right now because i have a medical condition of hypoglycemia caused by a tumor, and the hypoglycemia causes neurological symptoms, so i don't want to be withdrawing from the sleep meds right now, it would confuse things.  About zolpidem, what i like about is, it is good at causing me to fall asleep, and it goes out of the body fast, no hangover, and if i want to go off it and give it up, there is not going to be a long complicated withdrawal period. I don't expect to be able to sleep reliably, but i think it's less harmful than some other medications, while being effective at bringing on sleep.  People differ in how it effects them.  But i really think the diazapam, if the dose is high enough, should or can get you right off of zopiclone. Diazapam is long acting, and it isn't just a sleep medication, it also is an anti-anxiety medication, and a muscle relaxer and anti convulsant, so it would probablly erase your need for the zopiclone easily, with all those long lasting effects.  Then, it's supposed to be easier to taper off of than the shorter acting drugs.  i would love to hear how it works for you.

hi jaw ive cut my zopiclone in half this week i was on 7.5 im taking 4mg diazapam then there cutting it back in another week to get me off diazapam ,, what dose are you on at the moment and did they lower it..thanks for replying really helps. wouldnt they give me zopidem once ive stoped the diazapam?

hi julie - how are you finding cutting down the zop?   Are you having difficulty sleeping when you cut it?   or does the diazapam get you to sleep?   I was already off zopiclone before i went on the diazapam to help me get off the zolpidem. i was at 27mg zolpidem--17 at bedtime, 10 when i would wake a few hours later.  I was started on 10mg diazapam and just stopped the zolpidem and went on the diazapam, on diazapam i didn't wake in the night so i only took it at bedtime.  The doctor said to wait a week being on the 10mg diazapam before starting to taper off of it.  i was so miserable with the day time hangover from the diazapam that i got, that i was eager to taper off it.  He had me go down 1mg after a week, to 9mg. I wanted to go faster so he said after 4 days to go down to 8mg. i went down to 8mg. i had some trouble getting to sleep so i took a little zolpidem, no where near like what i was taking before, that got me to sleep and then the diazapam kept me asleep all night. but i still had a milder hangover from it. 

Now, i have developed a tolerance to the diazapam so that i would need more to have the effect i used to get from less.  I have talked to the doctor about that. I don't want to take more, i am not willing to take more, and he doesn't want me to. I am using the zolpidem to get to sleep. He is not in agreement with that.  He wanted me to take Trazodone or gabapentin, which are a couple of medications that can be used "off label" for sleep, they are not sleeping pills. i did not want to try them, i don't like the potential side effects ,not that most people will get them, but he just wanted me to try gabapentin. i told him i will try, but am not fully sincere in telling him that.  i would feel safer going back on the zolpidem and then probably going cold turkey off it, hopefully not going to as high a dose as i was on before, but even that dose wasn't too out into the stratasphere. I think your doctor might not give you zolpidem because in their minds it might be like just going back on zopiclone.  But you might have a chance if you tell them you would like to use it for occasional sleep needs because it's very short acting and would not build up in your body.  Honestly i dont' know if that would work, it might work best with a naive doctor. But make no mistake, zolpidem encourages dependency the same way that zopicloone does. if you don't want to be dependent on it, you would want to be very committed to only using it occasionally, at most once or twice a week, ideally less. That's how i iplan to use it once i get off it, not to get a good night's sleep every night but to catch up on sleep if i don't get a good night's sleep for a few nights in a row, somethign to fall back on if night after night i'm not sleeping much. But for me, because i'm so used to it, zolpidem only keeps me asleep for a couple of hours. I took it for years and slept 6 or more hours, on 10mg, but then i got that tolerance where i lost my ability to sleep without it.  I would only be asleep until the zolpidem started wearing off and then i'd wake up whereas i used to just use it to get me to fall asleep, and on my own i would stay asleep after it started wearing off. I don't know if that will ever change back.  i don't know what the solution for insomnia is.  I'll be curious to know what your doctor says if you ask them. That's how i got on it in the first place, 20 years ago. i had been taking diazapam, prescribed by my doctor.  On my own, i went off it, when i got a tolerance and it didn't work, and i was getting by without anything, but it wasn't always easy, full time job, etc, and i mentioned that to my doctor, that i was happy to be off the diazapam but that i wasn't always sleeping that well, and he got out his prescription pad and wrote a prescription for zolpidem, said it was new and it wasn't as strong as diazapam and that it was short acting.  So he saw it as a legitimate substitute. i don't know if the thinkinig has changed since then.  Some people get some serious side effects from it, a few people, not many, but with blacking out and doing things during the night and not remembering later, like eating, cooking, even going out and driving to the store. The only time i had one of those that i know of was when i was taking zopiclonoe and zolpidem together and i had other weird symptoms that i didn't have before starting th zolpiclone which stopped after i stopped the zopiclone, so i don't attribute those to the zolpidem. But some doctors do worry about those side effects. 

i think it's likely that your doctor would prescribe phenergan. i don't think they'd have any problem with that.  though maybe what you have over there is stronger than the OTC kind available here.  

at 1st no i woke early but last couple of nights ive slept ok jaw444