Jennita

Medications and ECT are things that only tend to worsen existing problems with sleep. In some cases, they can even cause the problem in the first place. Believe me, I know where you are coming from. I developed a sleeping problem due to a reaction to codiene for an illness; before that I had no problems.

Instead of telling me the codiene was to blame and it would subside if I were patient, more drugs seemed to be the only answer they could give. I ended up on worse drugs(benzodiazapines) than the codiene and the sleep got much worse.

At first the benzo helped; then the infamous tolerance set in and I found myself going 4, 5 , 6 days without any sleep at all ....while STILL taking medication! Yep, it got that bad. Yet I couldn't just drop the med, I was told I could have a seizure if I did!! Whaaa? I was in shock, had no idea what I was dealing with.

After many months I felt I would die if things didn't change. Typed in benzo withdrawal and found much info on the subject and how pills destroy the brains own ability to sleep. I was scared but determined to get natural sleep back because I read even though the brain can't sleep on it's own, it can recover that function over time, sometimes very slowly, but it can.

I weaned myself off the benzo and into hell for awhile. But slowly, natural sleep did return...not as fast or as much as I wanted but it was natural and refreshing, even short periods of it felt so good, much better than the few hours I might happen to get from the med if I was lucky.

At 5 months off pills, I went to a new doc for a chest cold and gave her the background. At that time I only was sleeping 14 hours a week, a big improvement from the months before but still not much sleep. She told me at 5 months off, I should be done recovering and I would not sleep more that 14 hours unless I went on an antidepressant or benzo.

Did that scare me? A little. But the information I got on the internet said different, and since doctors got me in this mess to start with, I decided to decline her advice.

I stayed off all medications. Guess what? 14 hours turned into 18, then 21 hours a weeks, then 28, then 35, 40, well, you get the picture....that doctor was completely and totally wrong.

I won't kid you; sometimes recovery is VERY protracted in some people...not all people...but I was one of those....took me 4 years off pills to sleep everynight without fail and at almost 5 years off I am still not up to my normal amount but closing in on it with slow, continuing improvements. In between I still can have a horrible night but I just chalk it up to not being fully recovered yet. This is why many people continue to have problems because it is extremely hard to wait it out and many just go back to pills.

But such protracted withdrawal is usually from benzodiazepine severe tolerance/dependancy; other drugs/methods may not produce such long recovery.

I figured since tolerance left me no choice, I would reject all drugs that would claim to solve the problem. It's been hard, but well worth it.

Continuing with things like ECT or medications will just produce a dead end IMHO. My suffering was horrible but in the end I am winning, given back natural sleep at last......and with that, my life and health.