Insomnia and Sleep Disturbances

[susan]

Thanks Robyn. You might have hit the nail on the head regarding my own doc as she is very anti sleeping tablets in general, she gives them to be grudgingly as I have a hospital letter on my file from a Consultant saying I should have them to assist in the Management of my Fibromyalgia. I think many Medics have their own personal preferences when it comes to this kind of thing. It's actually all gone a bit off my radar at the moment. I go through phases of not wanting to take them and other phases when I seem to be able to put it in perspective. I take two low dose tablets a day including the zopi and it doesn't seem like a biggie at the moment. I seem to blow hot and cold on how I feel about it, sometimesit bugs me and then when I speak to contemporarys who Are on 10 tablets a day, I start to think what am I worrying about.

xxxx

[Robyn]

You are definitely on a very low dose, so I wouldn't worry about it at all. I have recently upped my dose of diazepam to 4mg (which would be roughly about 6mg of zopi) mainly because I had to increase my dose when the oestradiol wasn't working, and typical of me, I'm impatient and I always try to reduce the dose too quickly and it often turns around and bites me.

Prof Ashton's recommended reduction is 1mg of diazepam (roughly 1.5mg of zopi) every 1-2 weeks and I've done it quicker than that, so I need to start practicing what I preach to other people and start taking it a lot more slowly.

[susan]

Thanks again Robyn. I think we have had a similar conversation before, where we both concluded that there are far worse things than needing one sleeping tablet to help us to get off to sleep at night.

For me it is a trade off if can sleep OK then I have better days. Plus I worry what lack of sleep does to the immune system. I think if you have a reasonable amount of sleep you can then ward off more of the bugs and viruses that fly around and can also bring you down both physically and mentally. With meno and life in general the last thing I often feel I need is a two week cold virus on top of everything else !

xxxx