Is it bad to take a sleeping pill each night?
Posted , 3 users are following.
Hi guys i have been taking 10mg Zolpidem pretty much every night for a good while now due to chronic insomnia, on a completely empty stomach it works well to put me to sleep after about 20 mins or thereabouts - however it doesn't keep me asleep beyond about 4 hours, although i believe this is normal as it's a short acting hypnotic. I can however get back to sleep quite quickly so it's not normally a huge issue and i do feel pretty rested during the daytime. Anyway is it bad to take these every night? I think I'm probably addicted but surely there's worse addictions like alcoholism, heroin, cocaine etc?
0 likes, 3 replies
lily65668 Liam36009
Posted
Yes Liam,
I'm afraid it's not a good idea to take a sleeping pill every night for more than a week or two. (I note you don't say how long this has been going on.)
The danger isn't addiction, in the sense of cocaine or heroin - i.e. you won't get terrible withdrawal symptoms if you stop. The problem with any kind of sleeping pill, and even milder substitutes like antihistamines is that you develop tolerance to them if you use them long-term, and they eventually stop working. Doctors' offices are full of desperate middle-aged people who've gone from one sleeping pill to another since their 20s, and now find that none of them work any more.
Could you start by trying one night per week without taking a pill - preferably choosing a night when it's not going to be dramatic if you don't sleep well? If you find you can cope with that, you could try gradually adding more nights when you don't take the pill. But you'll need to take it very slowly if you're to avoid throwing yourself into an anxiety attack. (The anxiety will be psychogenic, not due to the physical effects of withdrawal.) Most people who get hooked on sleeping pills never get off them, so you'd need to look at withdrawing very slowly over months or even years.
alaenya Liam36009
Posted
I also suffer from chronic insomnia and instead of sleeping pills, which should definitely not be taken long term, I'm on antidepressants that have a sedating effect. There's more of them, but the one I've been on for 10 years is mirtazapine, 30 mg (15-30 is ideal, higher dose is actually more stimulating - it's better for depression than insomnia).
Maybe try asking your doctor for a medication like that? It's worked like a charm for me, my insomnia only came back this year but getting new pills for my anxiety in addition to the mirtazapine helped. 😃
Liam36009 alaenya
Posted
Hi, my doctor prescribed me Sertraline in the hope it would help me sleep but it didn't work, then he tried me on Mirtazapine, I tried it for 2 weeks but it never had any real impact on my severe insomnia which was disappointing considering how many people find Mirtazapine super sedating. The only things that work for me are proper sleeping pills. They kick in about 20-30 mins then I'm usually asleep, they don't always keep me asleep all night but it sure beats laying awake until 6am and only getting an hours sleep & feeling shocking every day. Never had any real side effects from the current pills I take apart from the odd headache and slightly drowsy for a couple if hours after getting up.
To be honest I don't really care if I'm addicted, I'm addicted to sleep! and my quality if life has improved significantly since resting more. Also there's strong evidence that anti depressants like Mirtazapine cause severe withdrawals when stopped. There's a thread on this forum with a lot of people suffering from them after taking Mirtazapine long term then stopping. I would seem anything that influences brain chemical can cause this and not just sleeping pills.