Saturday, April 19, 2008

Sleep Disordered, Part 4

I've now gone back to see the nurse practitioner at our primary-care physician's office about trying to kick my dependency on sleep meds. For months, I'd had to take a combination of one 30mg Temazepam (Restoril) capsule and two caplets of "Simply Sleep," (Tylenol-PM without the Tylenol, or diphenhydramine hydrochloride [i.e., benadryl]) to sleep through the night. Temazepam is a pretty nasty med when used habitually, and it was starting to have a few side effects that made it clear I needed to get off it. The NP has prescribed a protocol that at least will get me off Temazepam and on Rozerem, which supposedly isn't a sedative but, rather, is supposed to help restore the body's natural sleep rhythm. For the first two weeks, I'll be taking 2mg Lunesta with 8mg Rozerem, then cutting down to 1mg Lunesta with 8mg Rozerem, then cutting down to just the 8mg Rozerem. Eventually, I'd like to take nothing (and like it!), but we'll see. I've been on the new protocol for three nights, and each night seems to be better than the last; I think I'm actually suffering a few mild withdrawal symptoms for leaving off the Temazepam, but that could be simply the effect of the mulberry pollen that's at high levels in Albuquerque currently.