Has trazadone worked for any of u?

[Jademarie1]

Hey again guys. I have a doctors appointment in a week to hopefully start trying something like lyrica to ease my symptoms at this point. I wanted to ask her about trazadone but wasn’t able to find many posts for RLS. Does it improve the actual symptoms or just cause sleepiness? Im having a really rough go of it lately and I wanted to just ask y’all about your experience so I can get a little bit of direction.

[Hidden]

Trazodone is sometimes suggested by RLS sufferers to help with depression. It is one of the very few "antidepressants" that doesn't make RLS worse.

However, it doesn't make RLS any better either.

On top of that, it's not a very good antidepressant either.

It is mainly used as a sleeping aid.

It all depends what you want it for

If you want something to relieve RLS symptoms then it's no good.

If you want something to relieve depression then it's no good.

If you want something to help sleep with RLS and want a drug to do that, then a benzodiazepine would be better.

It would be better still to use non-drug remedies for sleep problems.

If you really need an antidepressant sertraline or citalopram work, but can make RLS worse. It depends what your priority is.

It would be better still to undergo a psychotherapy.

The main thing is to get your RLS symptoms under control. The recommended drugs are pregabalin or gabapentin.

Iron therapy is a treatment for RLS.

Avoiding aggravating factors, things that make it worse does help.

[Jademarie1 in reply to Hidden]

Thank you Manerva!

[Parminter]

I tried it for two days. The side-effects were so ghastly I stopped.

I always find it hard to believe that anything that makes one feel dreadful can be helpful, particularly if it acts in the brain.

[Hidden in reply to Parminter]

What were the side effects if you don't mind me asking?

[Parminter in reply to Hidden]

Eitheror, it is some time ago, so I do not precisely remember. But I felt dizzy and disoriented, badly, I felt that my head might shatter, and I had that sick-all-over feeling. Generalized horror. I think that I could not walk straight, but that may be another drug in my past.I am sensitive to drugs, so what happened to me may not happen to others. But I sometimes feel like the canary in the coal mine, and that I am getting the obvious nasties while others endure them on a lower scale but are still harmed just as much.

That worries me a lot. As do doctors who tell you to take it anyway, no matter how much instinct tells you not to.

'Side effect' is a very misleading term. They should just be called effects.

[Jademarie1 in reply to Parminter]

Alrighty. I have a friend who takes it for insomnia. Of course RLS is my major issue so if it doesn’t help with that I don’t need any extra side effects to deal with on top of it. Thank you for the input

[Arjiji]

Hello Jademarie1

I have been using Trazodone for many years because my main problem is insomnia. 25 years ago I was prescribed benzodiazepines to sleep and with them I got to take the highest doses and consequently I became addicted. The Withdrawal Syndrome was very hard and that's where my RLS began, which now is not with a high degree of discomfort in the legs (and I controlled that with TMEr), but I would have died of insomnia or would have gone crazy if it had not been for Trazodone which made me sleep 8 hours every day.

As Manerva says, Trazodone does not improve RLS, but it does not make it worse; It is not the best antidepressant, but it does not make depression worse and there are those for whom it works; and it is a good sedative, because although it is true that there are more specific drugs for sleeping and that give a dream more similar to normal biological sleep, but all of them cause tolerance and dependence. TRAZODONE DOES NOT CAUSE DEPENDENCE, I have been taking it for 25 years and I am still able to sleep with 100 mg, that is to say with a single pill taken at bedtime.

Now I am going to start a psychological therapy to see if I can get rid of the pills for good and sleep naturally, but I have no anxiety because I know that Trazodone will be there if the therapy fails.

[Jademarie1 in reply to Arjiji]

Thank you for the reply. Is TMEr the same thing as TMS therapy or did I misunderstand?

[Suhavard]

Works well for me. I take 100 mg at bedtime.