Sleep Craze

It has been a brutal past few months. I have weaned myself off Xanax successfully but I must admit I do miss it terribly. It has been quite a few weeks since I have been off it but the effects of withdrawal are brutal, or are they?  I am actually trying to figure out if it really is still withdrawal or the new meds my doc presceribed for sleep that are killing me. Whatever it is, it is brutal to say the least. Since I stopped the Xanax my sleep has been messed up big time. I sleep but I wake up all night long tossing and turning. I wake up in the morning feeling so wore out I can hardly function let alone think straight. Rich talks to me and I feel like I can't hear him or process what he is saying. The new drugs I have been taking are low dose antidepressants. I think I may have written it before but and I truly believe if you are not depressed and do not need the extra chemicals these pills put in your system they can wreck havoc throughout your body. I am proof of that lately.

The first drug I tried was Trazadone. It is used very commonly in a low dose 25mg for sleep. You take it just before bed and you are suppose to sleep better. Well, let me tell you I slept terribly the first time I took it. I tossed and turned all night. I kept waking up choking which is something I do without drugs but it had hightented in intensity that night. I had chest pain/heaviness and my heart was racing so bad I felt as if it beating out of my chest, enough to keep me awake a lot. I tried this drug a few more nights and knew that the zombie trance I was in all day and the nightly side effects were not worth it so I stopped. I made an appointment with my doc on Friday and she switched me to another brand of antidepressants, Elevil. I tried it last night and boy and I sorry I did as my chest was tight all night and still I woke up many times. I had many of the breathing or should I say non-breathing episodes wake me up on this drug too. It was awful. Oh don't worry it doesn't end there. I also woke up at 6 am with a migraine, not as bad as the usual ones but a migraine to say the least. I have been agitated, anxious, shaky, and ill all day. It is  making me crazy. I have to believe these drugs are not for me and have made the decision to stop them and not try anymore.

I started to wonder if my shortness of breath, extreme weakness, and droopy eyelid being worse may all be because of MG and mixing it with these drugs. I did some research and read on a few sites that YES theses drugs can interact with MG. Needless to say I am happy I am seeing my Neurologist on Monday. I cannot go on like this. I am still so confused, I feel sad, and this is not me at all.  I will say it again, you cannot give antidepressants to a person who is not depressed, let alone one who is plagued with autoimmune diseases that already control every function of a persons body. As I have said many times before I do not control my body, my body controls me and it controls my life. It gets annoying especially when my kids want to come over on days like these and I have to tell them no. This starts a vicious circle of guilt for me but worse off is the fact that now my children have to worry about me more. I try to hide as much as I can from them but when there are days like this it is to hard to do. Plus it takes a lot of energy to hide it and pretend. On days like this I do not have that kind of energy to spare so I have to be truthful. This hurts more than the disease.

The rest of the day I will work on getting this evil drug out of my system. I will continue to drink lots of water. I will take a nice hot bath and hope it draws those toxins out of my pores. I will stay focused on the good. I will continue to keep the hope that I will get a good nights sleep one of these nights so I am not dragging so much. Most of all, I will never give up. I have to believe it is all going to be okay in the end. For now I look forward to hearing what my Neurologist has to say about all of this and press with life as usual!

God Bless!

Dianne