Night Terrors - Waking Terrors??

Hi Lorraine,

Pretty much the same at the moment, lots of minor events but nothing major. I want to stop the pills for a couple of nights so I can see if they are helping or not, but I'm a bit wary that my experiment may backfire. So, I'll just stay on them I think, at least till I get the next round of tests done.

Cheers xx

Hi Richard

i think that's a good idea to stay on them a little while longer.

mine have started up again since tapering off my antidepressant. But prior to my taking meds i had lived with them....so will revert back to my coping mechanisms. Mine seem minor compared to what you have been through

keep in touch

Lorraine xx

I don't think you should stop the pills, Rich, unless your doctor has authorised it. If your attacks are seizures (which I actually suspect they'll turn out not to be) then stopping the clonazepam could even result in a full-scale fit. Also, physical and mental symptoms of withdrawal from benzos are hell. You could maybe try a very small reduction in dose, at the weekend or on another night when you're not facing too busy a day, but I wouldn't go any further than that.

Have you tried affirmations before falling asleep, btw? Yeah - I know it sounds a bit New Age-y but it helped me a bit in the days when I was having a lot of NTs, and even more against sleep paralysis attacks. I mean just whispering to yourself three or maybe seven times (both numbers that seem to have significance for the Unconscious): "I won't have a night terror tonight". But no clenched fists, crossed eyes, gritted teeth, veins standing out on the forehead: "I WON'T have an attack tonight, I WON'T!" Affirmations are genuine mind over matter, not an act of will. You're simply communicating with your own unconscious. This means they have to be done lightheartedly, with no emphasis or determination at all. Trying to force it is counter-productive and could make the situation worse. I've tried this for all sorts of health problems over the years and I find it really does work. But it's a long-term thing and won't work if you just try it for a couple of nights.

Glad to hear that at least you're not having the more serious attacks now.

I hope you can get a few days' rest over the holidays and enjoy some family life.

Lily xx

Thanks both, your advice is always appreciated!

The doc certainly wouldn't authorise coming off the meds even as a test, but to be honest, that wouldn't bother me, if I feel it is right for me I'd do it anyway. However, I'm too nervous to come off them, and the nerves could act as a trigger, so no, I'll stay in them. However, I think tomorrow I may take just half a pill, or even tonight, that doesn't appear to worry me, and if I have a normal night of minor event(s), then a half dose every night has to be a positive thing.

The affirmations won't work for me, I'm too bullish to be serious about that kind of approach.

Lorraine, there is nothing minor about your experiences I'm sure, I've only had a few weeks of this, nothing compared with you.

Lily, I feel no addiction to the pills at all, I never feel that I NEED them other than to control my NTs etc. As I may have mentioned previously, I'm stubborn and bullish, and addiction or withdrawal symptoms won't be an issue to me (it is vaguely possible I may be wrong of course, but don't tell anyone).

Cheers ladies, I wish you both peaceful nights xx

Can we negotiate on that one? Three-quarters of a pill? Most pills can be cut into approximate quarters. Even if you feel OK after the first reduction don't get carried away and go further without waiting a few days. I just googled this stuff and it has a half-life of 30-40 hours. That means there'd still be a lot of it in your system the first day or so after reducing the dose, which might tempt you to reduce it even further without waiting for withdrawal to fully kick in.

And nobody feels the addiction when they're on benzos... that starts when you try to come off them. Still, if you're going to start reducing this early on after, what, three weeks (?) there's every chance the withdrawal effects won't be too unbearable. If you do decide to go all the way on withdrawal (which is probably what I'd do, even supposing I'd ever agreed to take the stuff in the first place!) google Mental Health Daily and clonazepam. Can't put in the link as they don't allow it on this site. They're an excellent, honest resource on psychotropic drugs and also have useful forums. I've used them a lot in the past year or so, when I was caring for a dear friend who was going through hell on a whole cocktail of terrible drugs prescribed by a series of GPs who knew nothing about them.

Not at all surprised you didn't agree to try affirmations, knowing you! Still, you might want to try one day. You don't have to put on a pointy hat or sit on a toadstool you know!

Good luck with the reduction project. Use your new-found resignation to cope with the hiccups this may produce. Oh, and even if the NTs disappear completely - which they often do when people get over the initial panic - I'd still advise you to go through with all the planned neuro investigations. I'm normally against over-medicalisation of conditions like this - hence my own refusal to seek medical help for either of my sleep disorders - but there's still a tiny grain of doubt in my mind about your attacks, given some of the unusual neurological symptoms.

Go Rich!!!

Hi Rich, Don't want to bother you but admit I'm curious as to whether or not you tried a small reduction of the clonazepam and if so, what the result was. But don't worry if you don't have time to answer this. I suspect you're busy tying up all the loose ends before the Christmas break. And I hope too that the stress of a family Christmas won't make things worse. I still have nightmares even now about childhood family Christmases in our house!

Have a good Christmas anyway. (I know I can risk saying that as you told us about making a protective wall with the Christmas tree and presents against the man-eating sofa!)

Lily xx

Hi Rich, telepathy or what?! Just got in, and logged on straight away to post asking how you'd got on over the holidays. Didn't want to keep bugging you with enquiries during the festivities. I know how stressful family Christmases can be - well ours were, up to and including police involvement on occasion! - so was concerned you might have had more attacks.

This is great news, though not entirely unexpected. Most people find attacks tail off a bit once if they give themselves the chance to get over the initial panic. The same goes for the sleep paralysis condition that Lorraine and I have too.

I'm very glad to hear you've been able to cut down on the benzos before you got hooked on them. Are you going to reduce the dose again? The fact that you've been able to halve the dose without any ill-effects suggests to me that these attacks weren't convulsive in origin at all. If they had been, reducing your anticonvulsant would almost certainly have made them worse.

I do still think you should go for the neuro exams though. I'm practically certain now that this is straightforward night terrors, but there's still a grain of doubt in my mind about the atypical features of your attacks (starting a minute or so after waking, being able to exert some control, and particularly the coughing connection). Better to be safe than sorry. But I bet you a pound to a penny it won't happen when you're in the sleep lab - it almost never does!

Don't get too despondent if you have the odd few nights when it gets worse again. Even those of us who've got the thing more or less licked still have occasional bad nights.

My good news is that I'm going to the sleep lab too - though for yet another sleep disorder. I seem to have been blessed with a full hand of them! Sleep apnoea this time - which is sometimes associated with sleep paralysis. I've known I have apnoea problems for about 25 years now - it often starts in middle age in women - but could never convince my old GP to refer me. We can self-refer to most specialities here, but sleep lab is one of the few that's off-limits. She always used to say I was imagining it, because women can't get sleep apnoea. Since I moved house a couple of years ago I have a new GP, who says this is rubbish, a quarter of sufferers are women, so he's going to refer me, especially as my BP has been slowly rising over the years. He says they'll do EEGs while I'm asleep that may cast light on my sleep paralysis attacks too (though not the NTs, which don't usually arise from abnormal brain waves). The only downside is that our insurance will only supply a CPAP machine while you're waiting for surgery... and (as I'm sure you've guessed) I have no intention of letting anyone operate on my throat! I had a colleague who had the laser procedure on his soft palate and he said not only was it agonisingly painful, it made the problem worse. So if it's determined that I really need a machine - which not all sufferers do - I'll just bite the bullet and buy my own.

Do keep us posted about your progress, won't you?

A Happy New Year to all the gang on here!

Lily xx

 

Wonderful news that things have been better for you ♥

What part of Feb have you got your appointment? Please keep us in 'the know' on how things continue to go for you . I hope your nights will constantly continue to bring you peaceful happy dreams. Wishing you and your wife the happiest of new years, including good health and love ♥

Happy new year to you lily ♥ hope your nice dreams are many and the nightmares zero! I have recently been plagued by them again! I think it could be down to getting use to my new antidepressants! That's the hope ♥

God bless you and I hope you and your family have a great healthy, happy year ahead xx

Thank you Lorraine, and the same to you and your family!

Actually, I've been having some great dreams lately. I've started doing what my father did later in life - having really intricate dreams that tell a story (often an exciting adventure story) that I can return to after waking in the night. I really must stop being lazy and keep a pencil and notepad by the bed so I can write this stuff down - there might be some money in it! I once read that that's how Robert Louis Stevenson wrote the classic Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde over several months.

I haven't had any more sleep paralysis attacks since that nasty one in London three weeks ago. That was a real horror - all the sensations of being eaten alive by a wild animal! My own fault though - I'd been out with friends that evening and had an extra glass of wine. A glass or two of wine helps me sleep but there's a very fine margin between enough and too much! Then I was cold when I got in, so I'd turned up the heating before going to bed. So... two known triggers. No wonder I had a bad night.

No significant night terrors, except for my old friends the aliens coming through the bedroom wall, but they don't trouble me too much these days. I think I'd quite miss them if they stopped coming!

So sorry to hear you're having a bad time again. I hope it turns out to be just a passing phase. Can you break out of the paralysis? I often can by concentrating on trying to wiggle my fingers or the tip of my tongue. I also reassure my "attacker": "It's all right, I like you" and that usually reduces the pain. With these techniques I can mostly manage sleep paralysis pretty well (unlike the rarer night terrors when I'm completely out of control). I only run into trouble when I get an SP attack at the start of the night when I'm deeply asleep - like the recent one. That's when I freak out and mistake it for the real thing!

I hope you'll soon be feeling better.

Lily xx

Hi lily

I find it hard to differentiate between night terrors and paralysis eg I'm terrified and I can't wake up lol! I'm aware I'm asleep and in bed but can't do anything about it.

Two nights ago I felt I was being pulled into the same state over and over again. My body felt like I was plugged into a pneumatic drill (this is in my sleep) and in a long dark hallway stood a tall dark

Shadow (male) that was running towards me in unfathomable speed to do me harm. In my sleep I try to desperately wake myself up by praying, trying to go with it, followed by swearing and finally screaming! My daughter woke me up on three occasions that night (I managed to wake myself up once) she was getting peed off by 5am as she needed to be up by 7 herself to go to work. I made myself stay awake after that and was doing online searches to find myself a solution. I don't like that sensation of being pulled into sleep so the same process repeats. I have heard not eating after 6 helps so am now giving that a go! Would welcome your thoughts xxx

Hi Lorraine, the medical term "night terrors" is used to describe the kind of attack Rich has (and Matt on that other board). The sufferer wakes suddenly from non-dreaming sleep, immediately jumps out of bed in the grip of some crazy delusion which they believe totally - like the one I described about the wild boar in my bedroom! - then rushes madly around the house trying to get away from, or fight, the danger.

Sleep paralysis is when you wake from REM or dreaming sleep, totally paralysed and suffering from hallucinations affecting one or more of your senses. Most SP sufferers (unlike NT sufferers) immediately realise that they're in a state of hallucination, but this doesn't necessarily make things any easier, especially if you're feeling extreme physical pain.

I get both, but would rather have SP, because at least I know it's not real during the attack, and especially because there's no risk of my hurting myself or anyone else. I find Night Terrors much scarier, partly because of some of the things I've done during them - like almost jumping out of the window - but mainly because I have absolutely no insight into the condition during an attack. If a sleep paralysis episode gets too scary I can at least reassure myself that it's not really happening, and will soon pass. During NTs I totally believe in the delusion, however crazy it is. Believe me, when you come to your senses after something like that, you realise it's dangerously like being insane!

It's a good tactic to get up, or at least sit up, for a few minutes after an SP attack if you can, to avoid being sucked back into it again. I always try to do that, but it can seem incredibly hard, as if there are lead weights on my eyelids.

We all have our individual triggers. My attacks don't seem to be eating-related in any way, though drinking even slightly too much alcohol in the evening can set me off. However, it's well worth trying not eating after 6 to see if that helps you. As I've said elsewhere, try adjusting the temperature in your bedroom, or changing the orientation of your bed if the layout of the room allows this. I find it's much easier to identify, and deal with, triggers for SP than for NTs. That being said, stress is the one trigger that seems to be common to both of them - and especially the stress of worrying about whether you're going to have another one.

I'm wondering whether you're taking the antidepressant for depression or to deal with the SP. I know these drugs are sometimes prescribed for sleep disorders even in the absence of depression. The reason for asking is because I suspect it might be making you sleep more deeply, especially if you're taking it in the evening. Attacks can seem much worse if you're very deeply asleep when they start, as this means you wake confused and don't immediately register that it's just a hallucination - hence my nasty attack the other week. Have you tried "doing a Rich" and reducing the dose very slightly? (Don't stop it altogether though.)

Try and stay as calm as you can about all this, terrifying as it is. Sleep paralysis never killed anyone, which is unfortunately more than can be said for night terrors. It will eventually subside, though you'll never be completely free of it. I've had it all my adult life but these days - in my 70s - I only average one or two attacks a month and they're normally very minor affairs (though still scary and painful). Full-on attacks, like the "wild animal" one I described, are very rare these days, and only occur once every few years.

Hang in there and I promise it will get better!

Lily xx

Thank you so much Lily ♥

Your response really gives me a better understanding. I am thankful I don't experience what you have had to put up with. .sounds horrendous. It's strange when I was on citalopram (first ever antidepressant) I did not suffer with any bad experiences throughout the night for six months straight) four weeks ago I switched to a new antidepressant (mirtazipine) my depression disappeared but the night time experiences reappeared)

I honestly thank you for taking the time to explain the differences. Wish you all good things lily including peaceful nights and joyful days x. ♥

Hi Lorraine, I'm guessing this is going to improve as your body adjusts to the new antidepressant. If it doesn't, maybe you could discuss it with your doctor? From what you've said before, it sounds like you've fallen on that rare "pearl beyond price" - a doctor who's actually prepared to talk about sleep paralysis! But give it a bit more time. Anxiety over having another attack is the best way of provoking an attack (same for NTs) so I predict things will calm down a bit eventually.

I don't know a lot about this latest generation of antidepressants, but I know all of them tend to reduce the time spent in REM sleep, which is why they often work for SP, which arises from REM sleep. My friend was on mirtazapine for five or six years, but that was mainly for anxiety associated with dementia, and in an attempt to get her to eat more and put on weight (which didn't work). She hardly slept at all at night, just ran around shouting and rearranging the furniture all night, but I think that had more to do with her dementia than the mirtazapine!

Wishing you a calm night soon. Once you've had one quiet night it tends to give you a bit more confidence. And that goes for NTs too. I remember when my SP started 50 years ago, I had multiple attacks every night for months. But things eventually started improving. This thing really is survivable!