Sleep jerks

About three months ago I started jerking violently in my sleep throughout the night - all muscle groups were affected from toes to eyes.  I also get small twitching feelings and discomfort in my legs in the evening and suppose I have restless leg syndrome.  I've been on clonazepam (Klonopin) 0.5-0.75mg per night for two months and this has reduced the jerking although I still get woken by particularly big spasms.  I have two questions.  Firstly, I was using benadryl (called Nytol in the UK) as a sleep aid just before the jerking began and I wondered if the jerks could be a side effect of this drug?  Secondly, the clonazepam leaves me feeling drowsy during the day and I have also been depressed which may be caused by the clonazepam.  Does anyone have any experience of any other alternatives to clonazepam such as valproate?  Thank you so much for any help you may be able to give.

[Abhijeet Deshmukh, MD]

Hello.

To start with clonazepam alternative, valproate is not used as a sleep inducing or anti-anxiety agent. It is an anti-convulsant drug.

Clonazepam does not lead to depression. Please consider the possibility of an independent depressive disorder. In depression, the sleep architecture, in terms of the REM and NREM phases, is disturbed, many times manifested by jerks.

It seems you had problems sleeping. This is an integral part of depression. Please observe for more symptoms of depression, like sadness of mood for most part of the day, feeling tired easily,  loss of appetite for food, not feeling like going out much, not socializing much, etc.

Please keep me posted.

Regards