Ive been on zoplicone, quetiapine and promethazine for about 3 months now.
The reason why i have been on them is resolving and im now tapering off them very very slowly.
Im on 3/4 of a 3.75mg zoplicone tablet which i reducing in the smallest amounts each week.
I just wanted to know after tapering off how long did insomnia last for them?
As im really conscience of it. Im doing my absolute best in terms of supplements and tapering method so its not that bad
Zopiclone is nothing compared to the other stuff. It's like trying to reduce your sugar intake by not eating a square of chocolate while still eating a whole cake. You probably won't notice it at all.
Quetiapine is an extremely highly sedating antipsychotic. It seems great for insomnia. Except for that whole blocking the function of nearly every neurotransmitter in your brain so your cognitive abilities decline, altering your metabolism to use more sugars and crave carbs, raising blood sugar so you eventually remain at prediabetic levels constantly with a greatly increased risk of developing diabetes, and pretty much everyone eventually developing long term metabolic or health issues if they stay on it long enough or take a high enough dose.
It took me 5 days to taper off zopiclone and not even really notice. After taking it for 10 years I spent 2 years getting of quetiapine without giving myself such severe withdrawal I couldn't function. I didn't sleep for days at a time periodically for several months afterward and after $10,000s out of pocket to an integrative health doctor to figure out the details of what was going on and what could help I am still countering the damage it contributed to 5years later.
Antipsychotics should be an absolute last resort to treat anything and otherwise used at tiny dosages (25mg, maybe 50mg) for a short period of time lasting no more than a few months. There are dozens of better options and life was tons better without it even when I only got 6hrs of sleep a night instead of 12hrs on quetiapine. I was laying in bed unaware of time going by but that doesn't mean I was getting useful sleep. It turned out I was getting 5mins of rem stage sleep when studies have concluded a person needs about 90mins to not suffer reduced cognitive function, failure to feel rested, and an increase in potential health issues. Ditching it and other strong sedatives for a more targeted approach to my insomnia problems got me an hour of rem a night and both rem and deep sleep earlier in the night so 6hrs would feel like more sleep than the 12hrs I was "sleeping" on quetiapine, z-drugs like zopiclone or benzos.
I occasionally resort to one of the longer lasting, more unique benzos like quazepam and flurazepam to maintain a better schedule but it immediately cuts my rem sleep in half. Still better than the 3-5mins a night on antipsychotics. I stop the benzo again when I've managed to get back on a schedule.
Sounds awful. How are you doing now?
Im on 100mg of quetiapine. Hopefully my withdrawals wont be too horrendous after 3 months of usage. Tbh i dont find quetiapine that sedating.
How long was you on zoplicone for?
I got by on just zopiclone and a melatonin receptor enhancing med mostly used in the elderly called rozerem for about 5 years. The latter probably being useless really but my general doctor thought it some awesome thing and it didn't seem to cause problems so I took it with the z-drugs. Prior to that I spent my teenage years sleeping an average of 4hrs a night. I rotated through a variety of shorter acting benzos but they never worked for long and usually left me with a horrid headache the next morning. That's why I use longer lasting ones that also have unique action and aren't well known because they are too sleep inducing for most to use for anxiety and also not very great for anxiety. I used flurazepam for closer to 10 years along with other meds because quazepam was so hard to get and it only took me a few days to stop it with almost no symptoms.
Quazepam is initially closer to how a z-drug works like zopiclone but that effect only lasts the night and then it's a metabolite that causes long lasting widespread effect on all benzo receptors. If I skip a dose I still get a headache despite the metabolite being shown to remain in the body for 3 days.
All It takes to stop it though is cut the dose in half for about 4-5 days and then not take any. I might have an extra hour of trouble falling asleep for a day or 2 but it's hard to tell since I periodically have trouble sleeping for hours after going to bed no matter what meds I'm on or not. I'm not even sure I tapered zopiclone. I definitely never tapered ambien or the really short acting benzos like lorazepam or temazepam. They just quit doing anything within days to weeks and I don't notice the lack of them since I'm already back to suffering my usual insomnia.
Not on meds because my general doctor decided she no longer felt comfortable treating me I eventually resorted to going to the ER after 5 days without sleep. Pretty sure they didn't believe me. It got me sent to a really crappy general doctor that launched into some lecture on sleep hygiene without even knowing my history and being so wound up and unprofessional that when she did ask me something she misunderstood whatever I said. After sitting through her tirade I finally got sent to a helpful psychiatrist but unfortunately what started as 25mg of seroquel because it was the most sedating thing turned into 100mg and then 200mg.... Plus flurazepam, amitriptyline, and gabapentin. I recommend trying the others but not sticking with seroquel or any antipsychotics.
Nearly everyone I've seen comment on forums and social media who have been on the dosages over about 50mg for numerous years is equally adamant that it's a bad idea. I even came across someone that can't stop taking at least a low dose of seroquel because they develop a health problem that can't be treated and didn't go away even after a full year off it until they started taking seroquel again.
Long term multiple year studies are rarely done on meds and especially higher dosage ones. Doctors think seroquel is safer due to it's lack of addiction potential and tending to work for longer but I think it's a much greater risk to your quality of life long term than pretty much any thing else you could get prescribed for insomnia.
As i just explained in another thread; covering up sleep disorder symptoms with sedatives for long instead of trying to find and treat the underlying problem is a bad idea. There is something causing your sleep issues and it's likely causing other minor health issues that can turn major if ignored. It can be incredibly difficult and take many years to find what that underlying problem is though. Even more so with how little a typical doctor takes insomnia and any more minor or vague symptoms seriously even if they are steadily increasing in severity.
It took me all this year to get a doctor to actually do something about crippling abdominal pain involving my uterus when no one can see anything wrong with my uterus. It's reached the point I'm constantly living my life in fear of the episodes of pain and taking days to recover from the stress reaction to the pain when it happens.
Trying to get someone to take insomnia seriously beyond tossing me sedatives and assuming I have anxiety or depression took more like 20 years.
Im sorry to hear all this. I have little faith in the medical establishment.
To find out my issues i have to pay for my own tests and i have a consultation with a private doctor next week to discuss the results.
Im also tapering off these drugs myself in my own safe way.
You didnt sleep for 5 days after quitting quetiapine?
I recomment getting the DUTCH test done. Tests hormones and neurotransmitters to see if theres any imbalances as well as a complete female hormone test
I've had more things tested than most medical associations recognize as useful or accurate to test. I found psychiatric aimed genetic testing for neurotransmitters and medication reactions to be less than useless. They actually recommended the exact opposite of what turned out to be effective. These things are not advanced enough yet to be reliable.
Testing hormones gets you nowhere if you aren't well outside reference range with other symptoms that would make it obvious what the contributor to your insomnia is or actually find a doctor that realizes the impact merely less than ideal hormone levels can have. Most totally ignore any value within reference range even if it's borderline and connected to numerous mild symptoms with the possibility of causing your sleep disorders. Sleep disorders cause health issues that cause more severe sleep disorders and then risk causing more health issues in a neverending circle that landed me mostly bedridden with likely fibromyalgia because doctors ignore the widespread effects of lack of sleep and the self perpetuating cycle. I have no idea how many times I've essentially been blamed for my insomnia because to them if you don't have anxiety or depression and you go to bed on a consistent schedule with a comfortable bedroom everyone will always fall asleep and get plenty of sleep. If it's not anxiety, depression, or sleep hygiene issues they have no idea what to do except toss sedatives at you. Even if you have other health problems or odd test values that could contribute.
It took me years to get my low thyroid and growing cold intolerance treated despite the severity of reaction I developed to winter weather because my TSH was never abnormal and my free T4 and T3 were just above the low cut off the lab used. That particular lab since the integrative health doctor I saw said other labs used higher cut offs and she would have diagnosed it years ago from my first tests. I've read plenty of reviews and articles debating where the cut off values should be due to the fact that just because something matches the average person does not mean it is the level everyone needs and some with specific health disorders get missed if relying too much on the numbers for the majority of people. I've also had doctors completely ignore or explain away a result that is outside of reference range if there are not other values related to it that they are concerned about.
I posted this in the other thread where I was explaining possible insomnia causes and the difficulty finding them.
kresserinstitute.com/why-yo...
Female reproductive hormones have even further issues because aside from normal not being normal for a particular person the timing of the test has to be taken into account. My doctor was so happy my levels of estrone dropped but my intolerable symptoms hadn't changed at all and I'd had my period more than 2 weeks later the month before so while she was convinced the problem was solved nothing had changed for me. I eventually went back on hormonal birth control despite it having numerous negatives because no one would do extensive enough testing to get accurate numbers, actually pay attention to the symptoms, and then take sufficient action. On top of the typical symptoms of high estrogen and testosterone it triggered this mysterious uterine contractions leading to full pelvic spasms that leave me incapacitated with pain. Even exploratory surgery did not find a visible cause so again no one would do anything. Numerous doctors and stressing the issues with my quality of life and inability to do pelvic physical therapy despite the willingness finally found someone willing to attempt taking out my uterus..... sometime next year. The doctor won't do anything about my excessive hormone levels though.
So many clues built up over the years and every doctor ignored them. I spent $10,000s out of pocket on an integrative health doctor and extensive testing to try to put it all together. Then with some possible answers to my problems including lifelong severe insomnia she was so against the use of prescription medication instead of diet and expensive otc herbal treatments that I finally gave up on her. I had to use what little of it other doctors would pay attention to and then research and apply the rest of the info myself to improve my symptoms. Like I said most of that kind of testing isn't recognized as relevant or else accurate by the majority of the medical community.
Many doctors are still trying to accept that the brain is actually impacted by the body and things like immune disorders and inflammation can impact the brain and cause insomnia, mood disorders, and other symptoms such as in the case of chronic fatigue syndrome. Now known as Myalgic encephalomyelitis. That last word meaning brain and spinal cord inflammation. I believe it's the first official recognition of an inflammatory disorder impacting the brain. Anything prior to the past 5-10 years will claim it's impossible and physical health issues do not impact the brain due to the blood brain barrier. Despite how easily this could be disproven even 20 years ago just by looking at symptoms of various disorders and taking into account mood and cognitive changes that were often thrown out of studies due to how difficult they are to measure and include in the data. That thought process has only further set back the research on various sleep disorders.
Overnight Sleep Study - help needed
Combination insomnia and sleep apnea
