Lunesta

[goldenacres]

It's 3 weeks since I've been having a pretty serious depression, including anxiety & sleeplessness. I was put on a new antidepressant LexiPro (15 days now), xanax as needed, which I only need to "take the edge off" when Im shaky, and Lunesta to sleep. This is the 2nd time I've used Lunesta. Last year, it did the trick, it would put me to sleep within an hour, and keep me alseep for most of the night, within 2 weeks I was able to stop taking it & get back to a normal sleeping pattern.  This year I started taking the Lunesta again, & have now refilled the RX, so it's about 3 weeks on it. It will put me to sleep within an hour, but I wake up in about 4-5 hours. I'm not wide awake, but I kind of toss & turn til it's time to get up. I'm the type who needs 7-8 hours good sleep.

The reason I am posting is that yesterday I had a fairly good day, got out & did a few errands, came home & cooked, called my sister, all things that I have trouble with when I am in a deep depression.  My husband was tired so we went up to bed at bout 10, I took my Lunesta, and almost 2 hours later, I was awake!  It wasn't the heart pounding lying at the ceiling wakefulness I can have, but I was definitely not falling asleep. I took another Lunesta. I fell asleep fairly quickly, still woke up about 5 hours later, but was able to just rest in bed for a couple hours.

Any thoughts, suggestions?  I took Ambien generic last year when the anxiety & sleepliness first hit. That knocked me out pretty quickly, but when I woke up 4 hours later, I was not usually able to fall back asleep, which I why the doc switched to Lunesta.  Any thoughts on the Ambien CR? I dno't know if my HMO will even pay for it, I pay $70 for a months worth of Lunesta.

Don't know if it matters, but I am on the lowest Lunesta dosage, and I weigh a little under 140 pounds. Can you build a tolerance?  Is there anything better out there?

[ILADVOCATE]

From what I was informed by my psychiatrist Lunesta although not a benzodiazepene is related to one so a person might find that it is less effective over time. One other sleep aide you might ask your psychiatrist about is Rozerem which is an FDA approved medication that works like melatonin to adjust the sleep cycle and is non addictive.

[Paxiled]

You can also try plain old melatonin.  It's also a pharmaceutical product, but because it's identical to a hormone produced naturally in the body it can't be patented so it's very inexpensive.  It's extremely well researched, and no amount has been found that can kill a rat.  1mg would be a good dose to start with, even .5mg.  Cost you about six bucks to see if your body clock is to blame.  My guess is it might be the Lexapro -- antidepressants can be stimulating or sedating, depending on the person, and medication often interrupts normal sleep patterns.  Good luck with whatever you try, but remember, all prescription sleep remedies will probably eventually stop working so it's good to try and figure this out.