Are most doctors good about prescribing sleeping pills for stimulant related insomnia? Has anyone had a bad experience where a doctor wouldn't or forced you to lower your dose at the cost of lowered effectiveness? I have been using melatonin at 6mg, but it has little effectiveness for me.

Are most doctors good about prescribing sleeping pills for stimulant related insomnia? Has anyone had a bad experience where a doctor wouldn't or forced you to lower your dose at the cost of lowered effectiveness? I have been using melatonin at 6mg, but it has little effectiveness for me.If my memory serves me correct, my Dr was pretty much always willing to prescribe me any of the common non-narcotic sleep aids like trazodone, mirtazapine, or Rozerem. I found Rozerem to be a good drug, and since it's still relatively new your Dr may have some samples of it. It's a melatonin agonist, and I found it to be one of the more therapeutic prescription sleeping pills. It is good for going to sleep, but it's not so good for keeping people asleep like the other sleeping pills tend to do, so if waking in the middle of the night is an issue for you then Rozerem will likely be of little help.

I've noticed over the years that when it comes to prescribing narcotic sleeping pills like Abien, Halcion, Restoril, etc., that more often than not my Dr tends to wait until I have found the correct dosage of whichever stimulant drug I might be using at the time before prescribing any narcotics to help me sleep.

I've also noticed over the years that the insomnia effect from prescription stimulants becomes much less severe over time, in much the same way that the anorectic effect becomes much less severe over time. How much time? I think it varies from person to person. For me it would usually take several months for those effects to begin to diminish. For others it may only take weeks for those effects to diminish.

My doctor would work with me on it but only a 7 day dose. If you can't get your sleep cycle back to normal within 7 days there are other things that need to be worked on.

I've read that taking Melatonin doses over 3mg is a bad idea because it can cause a dramatic imbalance in neurotransmitters in your brain...not just an increase in Dopamine but it messes with others too.

There are other threads about stimulant related sleep issues--have you searched? I've read some posts where success was achieved by taking the stimulant earlier in the morning so it wasn't an issue by bedtime.
I've read theories that dehydration causes sleep issues, especially in amp users, so drinking lots of water each day helps your brain chemistry balance out.
Heck, I've even read that not having a room dark enough could be the cause of insomnia.

Bottom line is that you need to discuss it with your doctor. No doubt you'll have to work with your doc and experiment with things(meds included) in order to figure out what is really keeping you awake.

I don't know how to help you but,
ijust have some thoughts:
I would like to have an arsenal of sleep medications to try, but I would only use them if I was moving from time scheduals, the majority of the time, personally, i've decided, should be without any medicines to help me sleep, but I think it'd be great to have some in my medicine cabinet when I am changing sleep scheduals, then I'd just use it for, oh I'd guess 3 days, and then hopefully the impact on changing scheduals wouldn't be as big. I heard that the only ones that increase sleep, in studies, were gabapentin(Neurontin ®), which increased deep sleep (4th stage?) sleep in a geriatric study, and another study said that bupropion(Wellbutrin ®) increased REM sleep. I think there might be some scientists that are working on a newer generation of sleep medicines, but I don't know anything specific.

Amitriptyline is very effective at stopping on-going periods of insomnia in my opinion because it is very reliable at making one sleep (whether you're lying in bed, standing up, or sitting at the computer) at appropriate doses and does not have associated rebound insomnia (for short term use anyway, I suppose it could happen for long-term). However, I do believe it is contraindicated for those taking stimulants, though I'm not sure how bad it actually is as I've never have taken the two together. It also is packed with side effects like dry-mouth, potential cognitive impairment (mainly if taken in high doses (which for insomnia is often the case; for me, it was 150mg doses) or for many days in a row), etc.

I've used benzodiazepine-like (drugs that work similar to benzos) drugs such as Ambien before, but was not particularly impressed. Rebound Insomnia is common.

I'm against melatonin usage (I used to advocate it) because I think that it may cause insomnia in the long run if taken in inappropriate doses. I think the main reason why one doesn't acquire a tolerance to melatonin might be because it is not active during the day and we are easily able to recover sensitivity on a daily basis. When one takes mega doses of melatonin, even with it's 30-60 minute half-life, there is still enough melatonin to help one sleep in one's system for half the day, which I'm thinking migh desensitize one to melatonin (which is a bad thing). Anyone with a better explanation is welcome to come and explain. :-) At least, that's what appeared to happen with me. Your mileage may vary. The use of rozerem may differ though, as it is not actually melatonin.

I don't really have a problem with insomnia and medication though. I never really did. I can take it late in the day, and can (usually) sleep medicated. The medication can inhibit one's natural tendency to feel sleepy at night time though, even if it does allow one to focus on sleep in the first place.

Like the others stated, it may just be a matter of getting used to the medication. As always, consult your doctor.

lol Ed no one wants to take sleep meds everyday, I sure don't.
Amitruptyline causes seizures with amphetamines.

I'm trying to figure out if my sleep issues are even stimulant related. I take my last dose of instant release meds at 1-1:30PM and try to sleep at 11PM. The half life of Dextrostat is 12 hours, but the med wore off at 5PM. Does anyone think my problem is from stimulants?

Amitruptyline causes seizures with amphetamines.

Right... or more specifically, it lowers the seizure threshold (meaning, it *may* lead to seizures). I have read of people taking tricyclics and Adderall before though, so it's not unheard of, but just not the safest thing to do. And this is also true of buproprion and I wouldn't be surprised if it was true of mirtazaipine. And in this instance, because a high dose would be required, it definitely would not be the safest thing to do.

Hydroxyzine is another antihistamine that can be used for this purpose (it's often used as a non-benzodiazepine anti-anxiety drug). It might be safe to take with CNS stimulants, so it may be worth a look.

Strange, I've been taking amytriptaline for quite some time with dexadrine. I haven't had an ill effects yet (not to advocate it, knock on wood). It does make it harder to speak the next day. Seriously, I have to concentrate on speaking to not sound like a drunk (though maybe that's exageratting it a bit). As far as affecting me in other cognitive areas I don't notice too much of an effect except for being somewhat sedated the next day. Oh, and the constipation. That sucks. It's like all I ate for dinner the night before was sand.