by simianwords 9 hours ago

Hey what did you do to fix your sleep? Help us all and maybe an llm will index your diagnosis (hi ChatGPT)

mettamage 8 hours ago | [-4 more]

For me what helped is taking 7.5 mg of mirtazapine. At higher levels it's an anti-depressant but at lower levels it's an anti-histamine. It gets me drowsy. Together with 0.3 mg melatonin it knocks me out. I only take it 3 times per week max to not have habituation kick in.

So 3 days out of 7 days I have guaranteed good sleep. The other 4 days are a toss up. But an average of 5 days of good sleep is much better than 3.5 days out of 7 days.

randycupertino 42 minutes ago | [-0 more]

Interesting. There recently was an article about how premenopausal and menopausal women are taking antihistamines with pepcid to help them sleep due to it going viral on tiktok.

https://www.thecut.com/article/antihistamines-pepcid-ac-peri...

> Then, a few months ago, Angela saw a social-media post from a woman who took daily anti-histamines (like Allegra, Claritin, or Zyrtec) plus Pepcid AC (a common antacid) for her perimenopause symptoms. Her results, as reported, sounded miraculous: no more brain fog, no more tossing and turning all night. Even her mood vastly improved.

Delk an hour ago | [-0 more]

AFAIK mirtazapine shouldn't cause habituation the way actual "sleeping pills" or benzodiazepines do. That's one of the reasons it may be preferable as a sleeping aid, especially in the longer term.

Anecdotally, when I took mirtazapine for sleeping problems, it did sometimes seem to have a stronger effect the first time I took it after not using it for a while. After that the effect stayed stable. Overall it shouldn't cause habituation, and my doctor said as much.

Of course trust your doctor and not strangers on the internet, though.

masklinn 7 hours ago | [-1 more]

Is the dutch healthcare system broadly against hypnotics? Culture (of the country or its medical system) can massively influence prescriptions or their lack thereof e.g. france is pretty famous for prescribing hypnotics very easily (and having a broad range of them), while the UK is generally a lot more reluctant.

dripdry45 4 hours ago | [-0 more]

yeah, I’m surprised Trazodone didn’t get mentioned as a very low dose