Insomnia...

[trseaman]

Me too, sort of... As my 3yr old started crying around 3am and I couldn't get back to sleep either... Surfed the internet for awhile but nothing new at that time of the morning. Tried the couch around 4:30 and finally fell asleep. Of course woke up at 7am with both kids jumping on me to watch cartoons!!! Ahh Kids!!!

Tim

[Chuck(G)]

Wait'll you get older, Wade. Sleep gets to be harder and harder to come by. A really good night for me is 4 hours. A 20-minute nap in the middle of the day saves me.

I've tried stuff like Ambien but it just makes me feel grumpy in the morning.

Sigh.

[Chuck(G)]

Hate to recommend drugs, but...

A couple Tylenol PM really take the edge off, especially if you feel like someone kicked your ***.

The amino acid L-Thianine will also have a similar effect, FWIW, but it can be tough to find...

A couple of 3mg melatonin tablets will generally make you drowsy enough to sleep, but won't keep you asleep. I'll sometimes take a couple of diphenhydramine HCl (antihistamine) tabs to keep me asleep, but I'm very groggy the next day.

My wife sleeps like a log. When she has an early morning wakeup time, I tell her to forget about setting the alarm clock--I'll be awake then. I always em, even if it's for something like a 4:30AM trip to the airport.

So it's not all bad...

[TubaRay]

I was drawn by the title of this thread--Insomnia. Once I thought I had insomnia, it turned out I was just unable to sleep.

[WoodSheddin]

I'll sometimes take a couple of diphenhydramine HCl (antihistamine) tabs to keep me asleep, but I'm very groggy the next day.

I have insomnia also. I was subscribed Ambien and it did no good. Then I was subscribed Benadryl. I thought the doctor was a quack when I heard that recommendation. BUT, the 2 Benadryl capsules kick in in about 45 minutes and I crash.

Never had the groggy next day thing. In fact I get the exact opposite. Because I actually go to sleep before Midnight instead of 2:00am-4:00am I feel elated and am able to finally get tasks accomplished the next day.

BTW, without a VERY supportive wife to wake up with the boy at sunrise he would have never gotten to pre-school on time with me sleeping in every morning till noon.

[Chuck(G)]

I have insomnia also. I was subscribed Ambien and it did no good. Then I was subscribed Benadryl. I thought the doctor was a quack when I heard that recommendation. BUT, the 2 Benadryl capsules kick in in about 45 minutes and I crash.

Same active ingredient as generic diphenhydramine HCl, just more expensive:

http://www.pfizerch.com/product.aspx?id=252

I think that diphenhydramine is the only FDA-approved OTC sleeping aid, which also just happens to be an antihistamine. So you might as well buy the cheep stuff--in 25 mg tablets, so you only have to take one. I usually take mine with a couple of capsules of Valerian (the herb, not the Roman emperor).

Dunno why your doc didn't tell you about the generic--maybe he gets a bottle of Dickel from the Pfizer salesguy/gal every Christmas.

But for me, Benadryl the night before makes me groggy as heck the day after until well into the afternoon.

If I try the "don't go to bed until you're sleepy" cure, I wind up with a staggering headache and then I really can't sleep...

When you’re lying awake with a dismal headache, and repose is taboo’d by anxiety,
I conceive you may use any language you choose to indulge in, without impropriety;
For your brain is on fire—and the bedclothes conspire of your usual slumber to plunder you:
First your counterpane goes, and uncovers your toes, and your sheet slips demurely from under you;
Then the blanketing tickles—you feel like mixed pickles—so terribly sharp is the pricking,
And you’re hot, and you’re cross, and you tumble and toss till there’s nothing ’twixt you and the ticking.
Then the bedclothes all creep to the ground in a heap, and you pick ’em all up in a tangle;
Next your pillow resigns and politely declines to remain at its usual angle!
Well, you get some repose in the form of a doze, with hot eye-balls and head ever aching.
But your slumbering teems with such horrible dreams that you’d very much better be waking;

For you dream you are crossing the Channel, and tossing about in a steamer from Harwich—
Which is something between a large bathing machine and a very small second-class carriage—
And you’re giving a treat (penny ice and cold meat) to a party of friends and relations—
They’re a ravenous horde—and they all came on board at Sloane Square and South Kensington Stations.
And bound on that journey you find your attorney (who started that morning from Devon);
He’s a bit undersized, and you don’t feel surprised when he tells you he’s only eleven.
Well, you’re driving like mad with this singular lad (by the by, the ship’s now a four-wheeler),
And you’re playing round games, and he calls you bad names when you tell him that "ties pay the dealer";
But this you can’t stand, so you throw up your hand, and you find you’re as cold as an icicle,
In your shirt and your socks (the black silk with gold clocks), crossing Salisbury Plain on a bicycle:

And he and the crew are on bicycles too—which they’ve somehow or other invested in—
And he’s telling the tars all the particulars of a company he’s interested in—
It’s a scheme of devices, to get at low prices all goods from cough mixtures to cables
(Which tickled the sailors), by treating retailers as though they were all vegetables—
You get a good spadesman to plant a small tradesman (first take off his boots with a boot-tree),
And his legs will take root, and his fingers will shoot, and they’ll blossom and bud like a fruit-tree—
From the greengrocer tree you get grapes and green pea, cauliflower, pineapple, and cranberries,
While the pastrycook plant cherry brandy will grant, apple puffs, and three corners, and Banburys—
The shares are a penny, and ever so many are taken by Rothschild and Baring,
And just as a few are allotted to you, you awake with a shudder despairing—

You’re a regular wreck, with a crick in your neck, and no wonder you snore, for your head’s on the floor, and you’ve needles and pins from your soles to your shins, and your flesh is a-creep, for your left leg’s asleep, and you’ve cramp in your toes, and a fly on your nose, and some fluff in your lung, and a feverish tongue, and a thirst that’s intense, and a general sense that you haven’t been sleeping in clover;
But the darkness has passed, and it’s daylight at last, and the night has been long—ditto ditto my song—and thank goodness they’re both of them over!

[Rick Denney]

Have you tried turning out the lights and closing your eyes?

I have found that both of those steps are required for falling asleep.

It sounds dumb, but I can't tell you how many times I ended up staying up all night because I was waiting for a book, or the television, or the Internet to make me sleepy.

Rick "closer to Chuck than Wade in age but who needs and better get 8 hours to perform optimally" Denney

[Uncle Buck]

Bloke, I have a cousin who tells their kids that Benadryl is "camping vitamins." It has never worked for us. For some reason, it wires our kids up instead of putting them down.

We found this out for the first time the hard way, on a 4 hour flight from Orlando to Salt Lake City. A very, very long 4 hours, for us and everybody else on the plane. (Fortunately, the rest of the passengers understood that we were doing everything possible - no stupid glares from idiot passengers who've never had to take care of a young child for more than 5 minutes.)

To the original question, of course different things work differently for everybody. My usual problem is my mind racing - I just can't stop thinking about whatever dumb thing was worrying me that day. Medicines (all the ones mentioned here) make we talk in my sleep and roll around a lot, and that has gotten me in trouble before. The only things that help me without unintended side effects (including an angry spouse) are a hot bath, or reading in bed until my eyes feel tired.

[tubacdk]

Benadryl

Call me a terrible parent...Call Human Services...Call 911...whatever...

I don't think you have anything to worry about... our doctor actually recommended this for our kids while traveling. it seems to help with our 4-year-old, but it gets our 2-year-old wired up. go figure.

[ZNC Dandy]

Drixoral knocks EVERYONE out that I have seen take it. Have you tried your little green buddy Ny-Quil?

[Chuck(G)]

Drixoral knocks EVERYONE out that I have seen take it. Have you tried your little green buddy Ny-Quil?

Available here only with a doctor's prescription, as it contains pseudoephidrine--a meth precursor.

[ZNC Dandy]

Drixoral knocks EVERYONE out that I have seen take it. Have you tried your little green buddy Ny-Quil?

Available here only with a doctor's prescription, as it contains pseudoephidrine--a meth precursor.

Really? That is asinine. Here in Ohio you can buy it over the counter, but they keep it behind the counter at the pharmacy. So if you're sick, and the pharmacy is closed you're screwed. Just another example of someone making something illicit, from something useful, and ruining it for the rest of us who are content to buy our drugs and not "home brew."

[LoyalTubist]

Here in Vietnam, you don't need a prescription to buy any medicine but all medicines must be bought in a pharmacy, where everything is hidden away from public view. This includes aspirin, Alka-Seltzer, and Preparation-H. Pharmacists are allowed to dianose illnesses, despite having only spent two years of training to work in a drug store. Cough drops are sold as candy in supermarkets. However, Altoids are only sold by druggists.

[Chuck(G)]

Really? That is asinine. Here in Ohio you can buy it over the counter, but they keep it behind the counter at the pharmacy. So if you're sick, and the pharmacy is closed you're screwed. Just another example of someone making something illicit, from something useful, and ruining it for the rest of us who are content to buy our drugs and not "home brew."

No argument here. Using access to medical professionals to obtain access to a drug that's available over-the-counter everywhere else just to control its distribution is stupid.

Any idea where I can get some codeine-with-aspirin tablets? They're available OTC in Canada and are really great for stubborn tension headaches...