Please only answer this poll if you have tried all (or at least 3 out of 4) of the medications listed. I am curious to see if our local docs are at the very minimum acknowledging our sleeplessness.*We already know for the most part they ignore our pain. Thanks for your input, I am looking forward to getting the results of this.

4mg of Xanax. Granted, my PCP only prescribes me #30 2mg though.....

Yes, my PCP used to prescribe me .5 X 4 a day (120 a month)Well, after being on that for 3 years, I told her that it simply wasn't working anymore for me. I guess I was assumming that she would up me to the 1mg tablets. Instead she put me on Ativan. I absolutely hated it... It did nothing for me but make my tongue feel weird. That is when I had to go looking for an online doctor to address my panic issues.. She said "well I don't like to go above a half a milligram on any Benzo.( that is a tataol of 2 mg a day, yippy) Since the XAnax isn't working for you anymore, we'll try the Ativan since it is supposed to last longer than the Xanax." What a joke..The Xanax would have worked fine if she just would have upped the dosage of it. I am no doctor, but even I understand a person can build a tolerance for a drug after being on it that long. Even when she was giving me the .5's, it just simply couldn't get me through the month anymore and she alwasy wrote on my script "no early refills" . O well, what can you do? That's when I decided I might as well depend on the online docs until they all go bye bye She would not change her mind on the issue either. I begged her to put me back on the Xanax to no avail. Even to try some Valium, nothing. "Take the Ativan on a regular basis, whether you need it or not and it will quell your panic attacks.. yea right.

I guess nobody likes my survey

Or maybe this just means nobody has insomnia?

chloral hydrate 500mg

Or Dalmane 30mg.

Wow I have not seen or heard of Dalmane for ages, was a really popular med in the late 70s and early 80s. Flurazepam I think from memory, it's half life though it pretty darn long so I think that is why people went to shorter acting stuff and then came the horrific Triazolam... Halcion, that is what Bush was on when he threw up on the prime minister of China.

When I was a teenager I stole some Halcion samples from my dad to try to get high, I took too much, wound up walking around in a psychotic daze doing really weird things for hours and hours like trying to light the house on fire, trying to get my girl friend to have sex with me and 4 other people at the same time and calling friend of mine really racists names.... it was truely a psychotic episode, to this day my parents think I took some LSD, I never told them it was halcion, but that was 25 years ago.

IN ANSWER TO THE SURVEY, MY PREFERENCE IS 2-4 MG OF ATIVAN OR 2-4 MG OF XANAX.

Never had lunesta or ambien or any of the new stuff. Klonopin works too but again long half life and good for a 10 hour sleep instead of 7-8 hours.

Tranxene (Chlorazepate) 3.75-7.5mg q hs.

I like 2mgs xanax followed by 2mgs rivotril. Wonderful sleep combo.

2MG xanax works like a charm for my insomnia.
PCP gave me some a boat load of samples of Lunesta 2mg and while it did make me drowsy...it failed to keep me asleep(not to mention the horrendous taste it leaves in your mouth.)

I would have to say, 2 Soma. works like a charm, i am out like a light about 20 min. later.

I've had ambien, lunesta (way before it was sold in usa) temazepam,(restoril) trazadone, valium and xanax. I dont like valium or xanax for sleep, but good for anixety. Lunesta leaves a metal tast in your mouth. temazepam works but takes a good long while for it to kick in. Ambien works faster ( and will be a generic verision in usa somtime after oct 2006 according to what I'v read about ambiens patent)
trazodone does not do much, I dont think it was originally made for sleep but depression and sleep ( i think it is simmilar to an ssri.) My doctor gives me temazepam for long term use, so I have not asked him to give me any other benzos. IF I need any other benzo's I dont want to risk my doc taking me off temazepam. So other benzo's must be found another way. But to awnser the question I feel ambien is best for sleep. (ps I know ambien is not a benzo, but it is close enough)

Xanax is actually not intended for long term use as a sleep aid. Call a pharmacist or doctor and they will tell you the same thing. There are plenty of other sleep aids out there that are less addictive and much more effective for a sleep aid. I take Restoril (30mg) which is a benzo and Remeron (30mg) which is an anti-depressant with strong side effects that make you very drowsy. So those two combined help me alot. I have taken Xanax for a long, long time and I am taking 4mg per day. I can tell you from personal experience also that it is not the best medication in the world for sleep. Can you use Xanax to go to sleep? Sure you can, but you would be better off in the long run getting the proper medication for sleeping.

I like Ambien but by itself, it doesn't put me to sleep (except at about 30mg, which I don't like to take at 1 time). For me ambien + 10mg Valium works well. At nights that I have to get to sleep fast, I prefer Ambien + 1-2mg xanax. I would not recommend nor do I take xanax daily. It is very addicting and tolerance increases rapidly. As the song says "don't ask me how I know, I just know!)

ludes dude ludes... LOL..

I really am sorry I missed out on the qualude thing, it was long gone by the time I was old enough to experiment as teen or now need medications appropriately as an adult, but I must say I would have liked to have given it a try.

For any of y'all that have taken it for anything at any time, is its effect similar to anything that I may be familiar with?

Is is like a high dose Ativan type effect or something?

Just curious

Careful, your showing your age!

Smoa....how could I forget that one! 4-5 of them and I am down for the count. How in God's name did I forget those?

I think everyone's gone through all the sleeping meds, but I just take about 50-75 mgs of benadryl(diphenhydromine) and that usually does the trick. Very cheap and OTC, $5 for a bottle of a 100 about anywhere.

10mgs of valium works for me. It doesn't leave me hungover in the morning like xanax or ambien but relaxes me and takes my mind off stuff. Trazodone is about as worthless as sonata and seroquel seems pretty heavy to take just to sleep. I dislike ambien cause when I take it I can't sleep sometimes and nothings worse than not sleeping after you've taken it, you feel like a zombie. At least if I don't sleep after 10mgs of valium I don't feel as bad and can always take another 10mgs and watch tv till I fall asleep.
Some ludes would be nice.

How do you know? HehHeh. Not casting the first stone. I'm not proud of it, but I dipped into Grannie's meds a time or two. Not piggishly, just a few, although I certainly realize, in retrospect, that it was wrong, and my pilfering days are long behind me.

One can rationalize and think, well, they have a billion of them, or they aren't taking them, but it still amounts to "appropriating" someone else's property, and it ain't cool. I'm sorry I did it. But believe me, the karmic wheel has turned, and I've paid. By the way, I'm addressing myself, not the prior poster.

As to my favorite sleeping pill? Tuinal, hands down. Along with Seconal, Quaaludes, Placidyls and a few others -- The Real Deal. The other stuff they have now -- great, if it works for you, but I think it's bunk, with the over-priced and ineffective (for me) Ambien leading the pack. No offense if it's been a "lifesaver" for you. As William S. Burroughs intones so eloquently in the film "Drugstore Cowboy," rather sounding like W.C. Fields on narcotics, "This is. . .for the. . .squares." When Matt Dillon's character presents Burroughs (portraying a defrocked, junkie priest) with a bottle of powdered Dilaudid, Burroughs changes his tune. "Bless you, my son." It's pretty sick, but also funny in a gallows, deadpan sort of way.

But there's too much potential to actually feel good on these meds, which is wrong, of course. Or die, an even worse proposition.

WOW!! I have learned a lot here!!! That is very interesting to learn so many people take their benzo's for sleep. I wasn't suprised by the number of people NOT taking Seroquel. You can sleep for days on 200mg of that stuff. Then when you do wake up, you are zombiefied for the rest of whatever day you wake up. My shrink has had me on all the ones listed on my poll and she made it look like that was the only choices out there. I HAVE to take one of my Xanax with my Ambien, or it does nothing for me. SOmetimes it STILL does nothing for me, I have to take another Ambien. Then low and behold, 30 days rolls around and I have been out for days. (Doc writes for 30 days at a time) Thank you to everybody that has responed so far. I have written down the names of some of those medications that you all have listed to google them. I just have simply never heard of some of them. To think I THOUGHT I was schooled and knowledgable in the sleeping medication category!! Wow, I didn't even begin to touch upon how many other effective drugs are out there. Please keep them coming, I find this very interesting!! BTW, I agree with everyone that has tried the Lunesta. That taste is HORRIBLE!! It doesn't go away after you wake up and get going wither. It lingers all day long. If they could get rid of that side efect, that would be a great medication. Ativan makes me have that same taste in my mouth. SO does anybody know if the part of your brain that controls your sleep also controls your taste somehow?? I would be interested to find out the answer to that one. Because it is strange that all of us that have taken Lunesta get the nasty unexplainable taste..

There are plenty of OTC drugs out there that I use. Like Melatonin,Unisom and Valerian (always works) smells really, really bad though!! Trazadone is another one I sometimes use.

I was surprised to see how many people swear by benzos to help them sleep. Anyway, I've been prescribed so many different meds to help combat chronic insomnia....lunesta, ambien, seroquel, etc. etc. The seroquel (25mg, if I remember correctly) works quite well to induce sleep. I always couldn't keep my eyes open 45 minutes max after taking it, and I slept like a baby. The only problem was that it was very difficult to wake up the next morning, unless I had gotten at least 9 hours of sleep. It also had some rather unpleasant interactions with alcohol, but I won't go into those.

The thing I have found to be the most effective for me personally is a few miligrams of melatonin about 45 minutes before I want to be asleep. Melatonin is produced by your pineal gland to stimulate your sleep cycle. As we get older, our body produces less of it (especially in women, I think) which can lead to sleep problems. You can buy it from iherb.com (my favorite, as I've found they have the best prices on just about every kind of supplement, vitamin, or herb) for about $6 for 180 pills. Most of them come in 3mg doses, and if I take two or three of those, I'm good for the night. I sleep well, but I don't feel drugged when I fall asleep, and I don't feel hungover or groggy in the morning. It's really worth a try IMHO if you have sleep problems.

My PCP told me to huff ether when I can't sleep.

I used it for a while, but I switched to chloroform. It is more carcinogenic, but it doesn't leave me feeling hung over the next day.