• Welcome to Phoenix Rising!

    Created in 2008, Phoenix Rising is the largest and oldest forum dedicated to furthering the understanding of and finding treatments for complex chronic illnesses such as chronic fatigue syndrome (ME/CFS), fibromyalgia (FM), long COVID, postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome (POTS), mast cell activation syndrome (MCAS), and allied diseases.

    To become a member, simply click the Register button at the top right.

trazodone --> ambien?

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
I had trouble with a particular generic of trazodone recently. Until that time trazodone was working great for me. Now my doc wants to take me off trazodone entirely and start me on ambien. As I read up on ambien, I'm becoming concerned that this is not a good idea. It seems to me that the ambien works as a sleep initiator (which I don't need) and not a sleep maintainer (which I do need). I have some other concerns as well.

Does anyone have any thoughts/knowledge/experience on this?

Thanks!
 

November Girl

Senior Member
Messages
328
Location
Texas
I took Ambien for several months when my brain was waking up from many years of low-level seizure activity. I was getting back to normal, but felt hyper! The trazadone just wouldn't help me then. I never liked the ambien all that well, though I never had any of the scary side effects. I felt hung-over the next day - don't remember all the reasons now why I didn't like it. I was glad when I could again rely on trazadone.

The generic I have now is 150 grams. It's scored for breaking in half or in thirds. I usually take 50, but have on occasion taken more - all the way up to the 150.
 

shiso

Senior Member
Messages
159
I took Ambien and trazodone together, with no noticeable side effects and pretty consistent sleep (around 7 hours, plus another hour or so of shallow sleep) for almost a year. After a while though, it started wearing off at 5-6 hours and that's just not enough sleep, even if it's medicated ME sleep, so I need a better solution. good luck...
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
good sleep maintenance meds, one is an antihistamine doxylamine, they normally come in 25 mg doses, good to start with 1/4 tab and see how u go. Another sleep maintenance med is doxepin a tricyclic ad and many start with 10mg and go up in those increments, some dont need higher doses, others work upto 100mg. Google both meds and have a read both good for keeping u asleep. cheers!!!
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
I had trouble with a particular generic of trazodone recently. Until that time trazodone was working great for me. Now my doc wants to take me off trazodone entirely and start me on ambien. As I read up on ambien, I'm becoming concerned that this is not a good idea. It seems to me that the ambien works as a sleep initiator (which I don't need) and not a sleep maintainer (which I do need). I have some other concerns as well.

Does anyone have any thoughts/knowledge/experience on this?

Thanks!
Is the good brand of Trazodone not available anymore? If not, maybe you could try Elavil. It's very similar to Trazodone. They do make an extended release version of Ambien, but that should be one of the last options and not the first.
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
Is the good brand of Trazodone not available anymore? If not, maybe you could try Elavil. It's very similar to Trazodone. They do make an extended release version of Ambien, but that should be one of the last options and not the first.
I think he's more familiar with ambien, and since I had such a bad rxn to the Pliva trazodone, he wanted me on something he knew.

It didn't work, btw, and I'm back on Apotex brand trazodone and as happy as ever with it.
 

Seven7

Seven
Messages
3,444
Location
USA
I Need stage 4 inducer and sleep inducers as well. I tried all w trazadone the Dr told me to do 300 to 400 mg (yeah my case was that bad) for it to work. I have been in 300 and last night I successfully started to go down, I am at 200 as of yesterday.

I am allergic to Ambien, About died. I couldn't breath and it crashed me so bad that I couldn't even ask for help. It never occurred to me that I was having an allergic reaction (they didn't warn me) so when I crashed I just thought it was time to die from CFS.:confused:
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
look into baclofen, but i found i still nneeded something like imovane or zolipem to get me to sleep but it did improve sleep quality and said to be the poor mans xyrem as it works on same receptors which are gaba B receptors. I found 25mg was enough dor me.
 

penny

Senior Member
Messages
288
Location
Southern California
look into baclofen, but i found i still nneeded something like imovane or zolipem to get me to sleep but it did improve sleep quality and said to be the poor mans xyrem as it works on same receptors which are gaba B receptors. I found 25mg was enough dor me.
Same here - baclofen really helped with maintenance for me.
 

SOC

Senior Member
Messages
7,849
I Need stage 4 inducer and sleep inducers as well. I tried all w trazadone the Dr told me to do 300 to 400 mg (yeah my case was that bad) for it to work. I have been in 300 and last night I successfully started to go down, I am at 200 as of yesterday.

I am allergic to Ambien, About died. I couldn't breath and it crashed me so bad that I couldn't even ask for help. It never occurred to me that I was having an allergic reaction (they didn't warn me) so when I crashed I just thought it was time to die from CFS.:confused:

Isn't trazodone a stage 4 sleep inducer?
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
Hmm, I tend to not respond to anything that raises GABA, but if my insurance baclofen it's worth a shot. What sort of side effects are there and would I gain a tolerance to it if I took it every night?
 

heapsreal

iherb 10% discount code OPA989,
Messages
10,089
Location
australia (brisbane)
Hmm, I tend to not respond to anything that raises GABA, but if my insurance baclofen it's worth a shot. What sort of side effects are there and would I gain a tolerance to it if I took it every night?
I have read that tolerance doesn't occurr but I find it does, I just use it intermittently or until it stops working and then take along break from it. It's a cheap med and old one. Side effects I suppose would be next day sedation?. I haven't had any??
 

CallieAndToby

Senior Member
Messages
137
Location
florida
I took zyprexa for years and then they came out with the generic and it gave me a whole new set of symptoms so yes it is possible for the generic to work different despite what the pharmacists say.

Trazadone is in the tri-cyclic antidepressant category and will work completely different as compared to ambien. I have a lot of experience with both. You are right, ambien only sometimes helped me fall asleep but is terrible for keeping one asleep, I would wake up and not be able to fall back asleep. When it comes to anxiety, ambien didn't do anything for me.

The best experience I've had is with the benzodiazepines as far as keeping on asleep. Also when I wake up in the middle of the night I take more, which is fine.
 

penny

Senior Member
Messages
288
Location
Southern California
Hmm, I tend to not respond to anything that raises GABA, but if my insurance baclofen it's worth a shot. What sort of side effects are there and would I gain a tolerance to it if I took it every night?

I took it for about a year and a half, and did gradually increase my dose (from 10mg to 20mg nightly), I'm not sure if this was tolerance or if the lower dose helped some and I was being very cautious about increasing. My increase to 20mg coincided with my period of most consistent improvement - at least according to my activity levels (higher, fewer crashes) and symptom levels (lower). This could have just been a coincidence, something else going on, but it's possible I just found a better dose for getting more restorative sleep. I do feel like I could have upped my dose again after about 6 months at 20mg, though I didn't and didn't crash, so this could be some slow tolerance building. But unlike Heaps, I don't seem to develop tolerances very quickly, so YMMV.

As for side effects, it makes me a bit drowsy when I'd take it, but nothing dramatic, and I'd still need something for sleep initiation. Usually I would take half my dose about 1-1.5 hours before bed, and the second half with my sleep initiator (ambien in my case) when I went to bed. I did find that adding the baclofen, and this particular dosing pattern, allowed me to decrease my dosage of ambien (initiator). I didn't notice any day time drowsiness associated with it the next morning, though I might not have noticed if it was mild or subtle. Unlike the antihistamine doxylamine (which is my second string, baby safe, sleep maintenance med) which when I took a 'normal' dose left me seriously groggy for about 20 hours. 1/4 of the doxylamine does help me but I miss the baclofen, it worked much better for me.

Also I stopped taking the baclofen because there are some risks in pregnancy, but, other than an increase in nighttime wakefulness and muscle pain (the symptoms it helped me with), I didn't suffer any withdrawal type side effects. I think this is fairly normal, and might be something to consider if you're trying to decide between it and something with more 'strings' attached (like benzo's).
 

Shoesies

Senior Member
penny IDK about the baclofen. My bioMom was on four a day 20mg for ten years or so. She became ill with heart problems and went in hospital. They took her off baclofen cold turkey. She did not know who she was, saw fish in her room talking to her, Ellen DeGeneres was her doctor. She was placed in nursing home in my state where she suffered several grand mal seizures. When I researched detoxing from baclofen I saw that you can die...so I had them wean her off. She now lives on her own near by, and is somewhat in her right mind. <====Meaning she was somewhat crazy to start with, she still is but she knows who and where she is.
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
I took zyprexa for years and then they came out with the generic and it gave me a whole new set of symptoms so yes it is possible for the generic to work different despite what the pharmacists say.
Which generic brand of Zyprexa did you take? I tried the Aurobindo 2.5 mg and it helped a little, but not much even though I was taking Elavil at the same time.
 

Lotus97

Senior Member
Messages
2,041
Location
United States
My increase to 20mg coincided with my period of most consistent improvement - at least according to my activity levels (higher, fewer crashes) and symptom levels (lower). This could have just been a coincidence, something else going on, but it's possible I just found a better dose for getting more restorative sleep.
Yeah, I attribute a huge part of my recovery last year to get enough sleep (10+ hours/night).