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Lord help me I'm exhausted
7 years ago
..★
★
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★.. 
I really have no clue why but I can't get any rest in this new house.
Lately I've been sleeping anywhere between 3-6 hours a night.
I'll nap during the day for maybe an hour or two while summer sleeps, but it doesn't help.
I just got some papers in the mail from DHS which should be my insurance number.
I'm considering trying to begin my sleeping meds again in an attempt to get RESTFUL sleep..
but I'm really not sure, the specific med I'm on has a tendency to cause hallucinations and...
I maaaaayyy have drunk texted people when the med failed to put me to sleep totally.
(the funny part of that is the fact that I remember it, and I thought I was letting loose on a friend
I was really mad at and totally bitching her out for what she did. I read the text the next day and
was so disappointed to find that I actually hadn't told her how upset I was, but passively, gently
hinted at my displeasure. I guess she got the message but I was still too nice about it haha.)
so I really don't know what to do. I might ask for something different that doesn't have
side effects like that. Like Xanax or something relaxing... Ambien is a HELL of a drug.
My last script, Ambien, is known for being pretty addictive. So much so that if I was taking it every night as I was prescribed, I would definitely have started to feel sick without it within a week or two. Some people might be okay with that since it's a prescribed medicine and as long as you fill your script on time and use it how it's intended then you'll never run out and never feel sick. But realistically, I realize that I do not want to stay on that medicine forever for health and financial reasons. Doctors are also never able to allow someone to stay on a medication for their entire life, either. There's a VERY big problem within the healthcare community that is absolutely not being addressed in any way.
Here's a scenario to show you what I mean:
You're having trouble sleeping, so you go see the doctor. Doc says "take this every night and it will help you sleep". The medicine works, you spend every night sleeping peacefully thanks to your medication. A couple months pass with no issues: You take it like you're supposed to, fill your scripts on time, get good rest and function during the day. But all of a sudden the medicine stops working as well, like many do after some time. Now, instead of helping you sleep, taking this medicine makes you feel mostly 'leveled out' and you start to experience some difficulty sleeping again. You tell the doctor that it doesn't seem to be working anymore. Doc had expected this and happily increases your dose just a teeny bit. Instead of 20mg (example) you're on 40mg daily. Now you can sleep well again. But the same thing happens in a couple months more. Doc increases you again, you're still on a 'normal' dosage. After several years of this, you might find yourself on a ridiculous amount of medication: 800mg every night. Despite this, your body has once again normalized and you're not sleeping soundly like you need to. You talk to your doctor and Doc says "Well, you're at the maximum allowable prescription by law. I can't give you more. Maybe you should think about coming off it if it's not helping you, because this amount of medication is doing more harm than good. It's killing your liver and kidneys." So the doctor does one of two things: A.) weans you TOO fast or just completely cuts you off and sends you into immediate withdrawal to detox. or... B.) Wean you off slowly over months or years so that you're moderately sick, uncomfortable, and unable to sleep the entire time until you're clean. And back to square one with your sleep issue.
This happened to my mother-in-law with her antidepressants. She only wanted to feel better. She wanted to stop feeling suicidal. But eventually the medication would wear off and she would feel these thoughts again. They continuously increased her dose until she was faced with this exact situation and was forced to detox. She's lucky she survived the withdrawals. Antidepressant withdrawals are especially dangerous because the withdrawal intensifies your depression and suicidal thoughts 10x while you're weaning. It's worse than it was before you started the medication.
This, sadly, is how a lot of illegal addicts are born. They seek a substance strong enough to relieve their sickness and help them fix the initial problem, but these substances are usually illegal. And if they're not illegal, then they're purchasing extra pills from dealers to get an illegal higher dosage of their prescription.
But it seems like so many physicians think only in short term... or with money. Pharma sends doctors a kickback for prescribing their medications, so the more addicts they create, the more money they're paid.
I'm not trying to demonize physicians, I just think that there's an issue that no one is talking about. I was on Prozac for over a year before I decided to come off. I had increased my dose once and when I realized that it was time to increase it a second time, I backed out and detoxed. I'm okay now without it. I just needed it for the time when I was struggling... These things should be temporary fixes, not life changes.