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Severe Insomnia


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My mum had severe insomnia for 20 years, but last year went to a cbt course for insomnia and is completely cured. I got her to dictate me the main tips:

Use the bed and bedroom only for sleeping

Never read in bed or have a lie in

If your daughter wakes up in the night she should get out of the bedroom and only return when she’s sleepy

Most importantly: have very regular timetables, go to bed at same time and get up at the same time, whether you’ve slept or not

Avoid naps

no caffeine

If there’s an insomnia course she could attend that would be worth considering

Hope she gets over it soon! x

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  • 1 month later...

Did clonidine help someone with insomnia? I have hyper pots so might try that for the POTS sometime but never heard anything with sleep. I am having bad insomnia, using Ambien. Gabapenin helping but still trouble. Might consider Trazadone-did not know it lowered BP, might be good for me. I need more sleep for sure.

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  • 1 month later...

Clonidine did not work for sleep for me, thank you though. It caused HR's to go all over even in the Clonidine ER form and the patch.

Clonidine is, as noted earlier a centrally acting alpha agonist. Higher does can overload the peripheral alpha receptors I have read.

Klonopin is a benzodiazepine, intermediate to long acting, (Clonazepam) if this helps earlier question.

Have not solved my sleep problem.

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Potluck

Have you tried B6 the active form P5P. It will help raise GABA levels at night. Our cardiologist would rather see Tyler takes this instead of GABA. With the supplement GABA, it's hard to tell what you are really getting and P5P will raise GABA levels naturally if the body is deficient in this area. Tyler has been getting a deeper sleep since I added this. He still uses the extended release clonidine. It does not affect him at night. He takes this when he is at the hospital for treatment and I'm able to monitor it then. I'm so sorry the clonidine did not help you. The strange thing is that Tyler cannot take this during the day time when he is sitting up. It lowers his blood pressure. The only thing I can figure out about it helping at night is that it must be helping with teenage hormones and adrenal surges. That's my guess.

Juneflower

How is your daughter doing?

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If your doctors are reluctant to prescribe any sleep medicine, I would check with them before trying any over the counter medicine too. I think it is very hard to fall asleep with low BP. I have had this too. BP drops even more during sleep so her body may be fighting letting it get lower. I hope she is able to figure out a way to increase her BP and feel better soon.

My sleep tricks haven't been working lately. I hadn't thought of this possibility! I'm going to take a bit of Midodrine (my doctor allows me to increase/decrease dosing as needed) near bedtime and see if it is helpful. Thanks for the idea!

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Hi Jackie

On the Midodrine, I was told to make sure that my son took his last dosage 2 hours before his bed time or it would not help with his blood pressure at night. I think I was told this by his doctor but I think there are some old post on the forum that talk about this also. Hope it helps.

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I also was told to watch it because it can make supine blood pressure too high. Fortunately mine doesn't get too high even when I'm supine as long as I adjust dosing accordingly, so I can take it at night or when I'm in bed all day.

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