8 ms·

Interesting you're the first person to mention this. I had chronic insomnia for >25 years (my entire life) making it extremely difficult to hold down a job or

Interesting you're the first person to mention this. I had chronic insomnia for >25 years (my entire life) making it extremely difficult to hold down a job or generally interact with society. I've since been on Mirtazipine for about 15 years and the difference is unbelievable. In the UK it's only dispensed in 15, 30 or 45mg. I was started on 15mg but that left me extremely groggy for most of the next day. My doctor convinced me to move up to 30mg and I'm able to mostly sleep and actually function the next day. It's not all roses and there's a handful of side effects. Personally I had about 6 months of metallic taste in my mouth and it absolutely buggered my sex drive. A few friends jokingly call it "mirfatapine" as it can make them binge-eat and put on weight, but personally I find the good absolutely outweighs the bad and it's literally life changing. I know if I forget to take it, because I suddenly realise it's 4am and I'm still wide awake and gibbering. If I'm working festivals then I can _choose_ not to take it and go back to my old routine working 52-hour shifts before falling asleep. Whilst I'm not overly thrilled at taking psychoactive drugs nightly, it's been the only thing I've ever found (and I spent a lot of my childhood trying anything and everything the doctors recommended and self-medicating in various forms) that actually makes it possible to sleep nightly, and therefore function long term when I'm forced to wake up for work. If you're desperate and out of options it's absolutely worth trying, but do be aware it takes months to become effective.

mettamage 1mo ago
Edit: this comment got out of hand and also became a journal entry. > Interesting you're the first person to mention this. I'm also surprised it's not mentioned more. Maybe because it's regulated as a drug? I mean I'm also making a ton of necessary disclaimers. > I had chronic insomnia for >25 years (my entire life) making it extremely difficult to hold down a job or generally interact with society. I've since been on Mirtazipine for about 15 years and the difference is unbelievable. Same, entire life, my life was falling apart. Suicide would be realistic within 5 to 10 years. Now it's not. Suicide by insomnia is a dark thing but when I'm on r/insomnia I can relate. The agony is too much and when the insomnia hits hardest there's no willpower to stop anything, it's just pure suffering and torture. I wasn't there yet thankfully but insomnia is fucking dark and it is sad to see that there's not much more of a focus on it. It's damn debilitating. Moreover, like you probably did, I saw it as normal. Because Dutch doctors went with the "ah you're fine" strategy. Dutch doctors are quite stiff in that sense (if you're almost dying... sure then they'll help you. Or if there's something clearly wrong with you like a broken arm). It differs from US healthcare by quite a lot. > In the UK it's only dispensed in 15, 30 or 45mg. I was started on 15mg but that left me extremely groggy for most of the next day. My doctor convinced me to move up to 30mg and I'm able to mostly sleep and actually function the next day. I have a 15 mg that you can snap in 2 because it has a ridge in the middle (or however you call that). > It's not all roses and there's a handful of side effects. Personally I had about 6 months of metallic taste in my mouth and it absolutely buggered my sex drive. A few friends jokingly call it "mirfatapine" as it can make them binge-eat and put on weight, but personally I find the good absolutely outweighs the bad and it's literally life changing. No bad side effects at 7.5 mg here, thank god. > I know if I forget to take it, because I suddenly realise it's 4am and I'm still wide awake and gibbering. Same > If I'm working festivals then I can _choose_ not to take it and go back to my old routine working 52-hour shifts before falling asleep. Yea, the routine changes I can make are a super power. I can only be awake for 12 hours today and I need to sleep? No problem! Stay awake for 20? Sure I'll just not use the drug. It's insane. I am now almost the opposite, I have sleeping super powers. > Whilst I'm not overly thrilled at taking psychoactive drugs nightly I agree not thrilled either. > that actually makes it possible to sleep nightly, and therefore function long term when I'm forced to wake up for work. If you're desperate and out of options it's absolutely worth trying, but do be aware it takes months to become effective. For me it worked the first time taking it. We're all different that way. What nudges me towards sleep (but is not enough): 1. 0.3 mg melatonin two hours before bedtime (a higher dose doesn't do much more for me) 2. L-theanine (makes me a bit more chill, literally a chill pill haha) 3. Apigenin (still under research if it's placebo or not) 4. Magnesium (sometimes; I think it's because I sometimes have a deficit, usually related to light restless leg syndrome. It always helps when I have restless leg syndrome) 5. Vipassana meditation (25% chance of knocking me out cold unmedicated, so pretty cool but also... not enough) 6. Cuddling with my wife before bed (also like a 10 to 25% effect, I need a higher sample size to do this unmedicated but don't want to risk my sleep rhythm nowadays) 7. Sleep restriction (apply strategically because 6 hours of sleep is not fun, especially not if you've had insomnia for decades - I have little reserves, even if I sleep well for weeks nowadays - insomnia fucked me up hard) 8. General CBT-I stuff and general sleep hygiene 9. I have a Spotify playlist that is my type of winddown music (very chill lofi, very chill chillstep, or slow Hawaiian guitar music) 10. Night walks. And they may actually be the key to fix my insomnia unmedicated but I'd need to experiment a lot. My insomnia is related to feeling "false energy". Aka I sleep 2 to 4 hours and I wake up and I feel like I'm immediately ready, immediately energetic. Wanna go for a 5 mile run? Sure! Sounds fun! And it usually keeps up x2 the ours I sleep (so 4 hours of sleep means 8 hours of feeling awake - and shit - but also awake; afterwards I completely crash). What a night walk can do is that sometimes I've noticed after 30 minutes I feel the "false" part of the "false energy" vibe and I notice I actually feel dead tired. Once that feeling comes over me like a blanket. I can go right back to sleep and fall asleep. The annoying thing is the feeling has to come. 11. Cuddling a pillow, even when I sleep next to my wife. It helps. 12. Temperature control. I don't notice temperature that well but when I self-reflected deeply I noticed higher temperatures keep me awake, and sometimes that was the actual issue. 13. Mosquito control (lights out, phone light on, small vacuum ready, easiest way to get rid of them) -- Funnily enough I don't notice much of an effect that when I have blue light at night that it is harder for me to sleep. It probably has a mild adverse effect but nothing major. All of these 13 things are not enough. I still miss 3 days per week on average by doing all of this. And sometimes I also get in a horrible loop if this happens from Sunday to Monday as I am prone of "if you feel super tired it can be even harder to fall asleep". I've lost a job from that effect. Losing that job is what made me determined to wage an internal war on it and let everyone know I was doing it. That's how I know to solve really difficult things: fix the problem or die trying. I was that desperate, which is my my doctor friend intervened after seeing me a year of doing that (knowing I was doing this for 3 years already). Nowadays though it is: 1. Mirtazapine 7.5 mg (one hour before bed) 2. Melatonin 0.3 mg (two hours before bed) I carry it in my pockets so I always have it so I can take it. It's a bit odd to have my sleep meds by day, but I've missed timings because I was too focused on something and wouldn't go upstairs or still at a friend's place just about to leave. 3. Mosquito and temperature control These 3 things don't nudge me to sleep. They make me sleep. For fellow insomniacs, we're all different but I hope there are one or two things that you haven't tried yet. I doubt it, but one can hope that they can help alleviate some insomnia of other people, haha. Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor etc. I'm a former lifetime insomniac. And my friend quite literally saved me. For now at least he did. Who knows how long Mirtazapine is going to work, but I'm happy to see BuildTheRobots is on it for 15 years and still going strong. I know that anti-histamine medication are able to be taken for a lifetime. So that's a promising sign.

mettamage 1mo ago

Edit: this comment got out of hand and also became a journal entry. > Interesting you're the first person to mention this. I'm also surprised it's not mentioned more. Maybe because it's regulated as a drug? I mean I'm also making a ton of necessary disclaimers. > I had chronic insomnia for >25 years (my entire life) making it extremely difficult to hold down a job or generally interact with society. I've since been on Mirtazipine for about 15 years and the difference is unbelievable. Same, entire life, my life was falling apart. Suicide would be realistic within 5 to 10 years. Now it's not. Suicide by insomnia is a dark thing but when I'm on r/insomnia I can relate. The agony is too much and when the insomnia hits hardest there's no willpower to stop anything, it's just pure suffering and torture. I wasn't there yet thankfully but insomnia is fucking dark and it is sad to see that there's not much more of a focus on it. It's damn debilitating. Moreover, like you probably did, I saw it as normal. Because Dutch doctors went with the "ah you're fine" strategy. Dutch doctors are quite stiff in that sense (if you're almost dying... sure then they'll help you. Or if there's something clearly wrong with you like a broken arm). It differs from US healthcare by quite a lot. > In the UK it's only dispensed in 15, 30 or 45mg. I was started on 15mg but that left me extremely groggy for most of the next day. My doctor convinced me to move up to 30mg and I'm able to mostly sleep and actually function the next day. I have a 15 mg that you can snap in 2 because it has a ridge in the middle (or however you call that). > It's not all roses and there's a handful of side effects. Personally I had about 6 months of metallic taste in my mouth and it absolutely buggered my sex drive. A few friends jokingly call it "mirfatapine" as it can make them binge-eat and put on weight, but personally I find the good absolutely outweighs the bad and it's literally life changing. No bad side effects at 7.5 mg here, thank god. > I know if I forget to take it, because I suddenly realise it's 4am and I'm still wide awake and gibbering. Same > If I'm working festivals then I can _choose_ not to take it and go back to my old routine working 52-hour shifts before falling asleep. Yea, the routine changes I can make are a super power. I can only be awake for 12 hours today and I need to sleep? No problem! Stay awake for 20? Sure I'll just not use the drug. It's insane. I am now almost the opposite, I have sleeping super powers. > Whilst I'm not overly thrilled at taking psychoactive drugs nightly I agree not thrilled either. > that actually makes it possible to sleep nightly, and therefore function long term when I'm forced to wake up for work. If you're desperate and out of options it's absolutely worth trying, but do be aware it takes months to become effective. For me it worked the first time taking it. We're all different that way. What nudges me towards sleep (but is not enough): 1. 0.3 mg melatonin two hours before bedtime (a higher dose doesn't do much more for me) 2. L-theanine (makes me a bit more chill, literally a chill pill haha) 3. Apigenin (still under research if it's placebo or not) 4. Magnesium (sometimes; I think it's because I sometimes have a deficit, usually related to light restless leg syndrome. It always helps when I have restless leg syndrome) 5. Vipassana meditation (25% chance of knocking me out cold unmedicated, so pretty cool but also... not enough) 6. Cuddling with my wife before bed (also like a 10 to 25% effect, I need a higher sample size to do this unmedicated but don't want to risk my sleep rhythm nowadays) 7. Sleep restriction (apply strategically because 6 hours of sleep is not fun, especially not if you've had insomnia for decades - I have little reserves, even if I sleep well for weeks nowadays - insomnia fucked me up hard) 8. General CBT-I stuff and general sleep hygiene 9. I have a Spotify playlist that is my type of winddown music (very chill lofi, very chill chillstep, or slow Hawaiian guitar music) 10. Night walks. And they may actually be the key to fix my insomnia unmedicated but I'd need to experiment a lot. My insomnia is related to feeling "false energy". Aka I sleep 2 to 4 hours and I wake up and I feel like I'm immediately ready, immediately energetic. Wanna go for a 5 mile run? Sure! Sounds fun! And it usually keeps up x2 the ours I sleep (so 4 hours of sleep means 8 hours of feeling awake - and shit - but also awake; afterwards I completely crash). What a night walk can do is that sometimes I've noticed after 30 minutes I feel the "false" part of the "false energy" vibe and I notice I actually feel dead tired. Once that feeling comes over me like a blanket. I can go right back to sleep and fall asleep. The annoying thing is the feeling has to come. 11. Cuddling a pillow, even when I sleep next to my wife. It helps. 12. Temperature control. I don't notice temperature that well but when I self-reflected deeply I noticed higher temperatures keep me awake, and sometimes that was the actual issue. 13. Mosquito control (lights out, phone light on, small vacuum ready, easiest way to get rid of them) -- Funnily enough I don't notice much of an effect that when I have blue light at night that it is harder for me to sleep. It probably has a mild adverse effect but nothing major. All of these 13 things are not enough. I still miss 3 days per week on average by doing all of this. And sometimes I also get in a horrible loop if this happens from Sunday to Monday as I am prone of "if you feel super tired it can be even harder to fall asleep". I've lost a job from that effect. Losing that job is what made me determined to wage an internal war on it and let everyone know I was doing it. That's how I know to solve really difficult things: fix the problem or die trying. I was that desperate, which is my my doctor friend intervened after seeing me a year of doing that (knowing I was doing this for 3 years already). Nowadays though it is: 1. Mirtazapine 7.5 mg (one hour before bed) 2. Melatonin 0.3 mg (two hours before bed) I carry it in my pockets so I always have it so I can take it. It's a bit odd to have my sleep meds by day, but I've missed timings because I was too focused on something and wouldn't go upstairs or still at a friend's place just about to leave. 3. Mosquito and temperature control These 3 things don't nudge me to sleep. They make me sleep. For fellow insomniacs, we're all different but I hope there are one or two things that you haven't tried yet. I doubt it, but one can hope that they can help alleviate some insomnia of other people, haha. Disclaimer: I'm not a doctor etc. I'm a former lifetime insomniac. And my friend quite literally saved me. For now at least he did. Who knows how long Mirtazapine is going to work, but I'm happy to see BuildTheRobots is on it for 15 years and still going strong. I know that anti-histamine medication are able to be taken for a lifetime. So that's a promising sign.