Ok, here’s what I just did. I looked through that log, collected all the names of pharmaceuticals in there (Klonopin, Vyvanse, Lunesta, Melatonin), and searched each one’s wikipedia page for sleep-related effects and side-effects. And I found this:
While benzodiazepines induce sleep, they tend to produce a poorer quality sleep than natural sleep. Benzodiazepines such as clonazepam [Klonopin] suppress REM sleep.
So that’s probably a net negative, sleep-wise, although there might still be non-sleep-related reasons to take it.
Wikipedia has this to say about Lunesta:
In the longest, largest phase 3 trial, patients in the Lunesta group reported falling asleep an average of 15 minutes faster and sleeping an average of 37 minutes longer than those in the placebo group. However, on average, Lunesta patients still met criteria for insomnia and reported no clinically meaningful improvement in next-day alertness or functioning.
Vyvanse has insomnia listed as a side effect. It’s not clear from the log whether you just used it once, in which case that’s unimportant, or for a long time in which case it is. Melatonin is sometimes used as a sleeping aid, but in my experience it’s pretty weak. It may be effective against a particular cause of insomnia, but it didn’t do much for me and if it didn’t do much for you, well, that’s not that surprising.
So, the good news is that the reason using drugs to help you sleep hasn’t worked is that they’re lousy drugs. The next step is to go through the wikipedia page for insomnia, and collect a list of candidate substances. Then read the page for each one, cross off the ones that sound bad (mainly based on side effect risk), and get a list of candidates to try. Bring this list to your physician, let him veto any subset, get prescriptions for any remaining ones that require prescriptions, and then try each one in turn.
Well, Vyvanse is modified amphetamine, so yeah. I also have serious focus problems. I was only on it for a month or so, and found it ineffective for the same reasons as other stimulants. I think in the sleep log I had just taken an isolated pill I had left.
But your advice is good. Going through the options very thoroughly might turn up something.
Ok, here’s what I just did. I looked through that log, collected all the names of pharmaceuticals in there (Klonopin, Vyvanse, Lunesta, Melatonin), and searched each one’s wikipedia page for sleep-related effects and side-effects. And I found this:
So that’s probably a net negative, sleep-wise, although there might still be non-sleep-related reasons to take it.
Wikipedia has this to say about Lunesta:
Vyvanse has insomnia listed as a side effect. It’s not clear from the log whether you just used it once, in which case that’s unimportant, or for a long time in which case it is. Melatonin is sometimes used as a sleeping aid, but in my experience it’s pretty weak. It may be effective against a particular cause of insomnia, but it didn’t do much for me and if it didn’t do much for you, well, that’s not that surprising.
So, the good news is that the reason using drugs to help you sleep hasn’t worked is that they’re lousy drugs. The next step is to go through the wikipedia page for insomnia, and collect a list of candidate substances. Then read the page for each one, cross off the ones that sound bad (mainly based on side effect risk), and get a list of candidates to try. Bring this list to your physician, let him veto any subset, get prescriptions for any remaining ones that require prescriptions, and then try each one in turn.
Well, Vyvanse is modified amphetamine, so yeah. I also have serious focus problems. I was only on it for a month or so, and found it ineffective for the same reasons as other stimulants. I think in the sleep log I had just taken an isolated pill I had left.
But your advice is good. Going through the options very thoroughly might turn up something.