Try reducing your dose a little more each week.Īlternatively, if you already take a low dose and are using the medication every night, start taking your medication every other day.
#Benzo withdrawal insomnia help professional
Gradually tapering the dose under professional supervision can help you prevent rebound insomnia. If you are already taking sleeping meds, it's vital that you do not discontinue their use abruptly. Thus, the best way to avoid rebound insomnia is by avoiding sleeping medications altogether. ‘Prevention is better than cure’ is a phrase health professionals swear by, and with good reason. 11 Klonopin is a long-acting benzodiazepine with a half life of 30-40 hours. 9 Intermediate-acting drugs include Lunesta (6 hours) 10 and Silenor (15.3 hours). 1 Short-acting drugs include Sonata (average half-life of 1 hour), 7 Halcion (1.5-5.5 hours), 8 and Ambien (2.8 hours). Rebound insomnia may be more likely to occur after you use short- or intermediate-acting benzodiazepines.
Long-acting drugs have a half-life of more than 24 hours. Intermediate-acting drugs have a half-life between six and 24 hours. Short-acting drugs have a half-life of less than six hours. After another two hours, or four hours total, the concentration will drop in half again, leaving you with 25% of your starting dose.īenzodiazepine drugs prescribed for sleeping problems are grouped into three categories based on their half-life: 1 Medications with a longer half-life may lead to longer-lasting rebound insomnia.īy definition, a drug’s half-life is the amount of time it takes for your body to clear away half of the drug.6 For example, if a drug has a half-life of two hours, then two hours after taking it, you will have 50% of the original dose remaining in your body. Sleeping medications with shorter half-lives tend to cause harsher rebound insomnia, but fortunately, the effect is shorter-lived. The half-life of a drug describes how long it is active within your body. Why Is the Half-Life of a Drug Important? Rebound insomnia may also last for varying amounts of time based on your own biological factors and the sleeping medication’s half-life. Don’t take a higher dose than recommended, or you may be putting yourself at risk for rebound insomnia and other withdrawal symptoms. 1 If you’re using sleeping medication, make sure to follow your doctor’s instructions. Some studies have found that higher doses of sleeping pills may be more likely to lead to rebound insomnia. The exact duration of rebound insomnia depends upon a couple of factors. Symptoms may last anywhere from a few days to a few weeks after you stop taking a sleeping pill. Sudden changes in brain chemistry can lead to symptoms of withdrawal, including rebound insomnia. Your brain, which is used to higher-than-normal levels of these substances, can no longer relax as easily as it once did. When you stop taking sleep aids, the levels of sleep-supporting neurotransmitters drop sharply. 2Īs you continue to use sleeping medications, your brain gets used to having altered levels of different neurotransmitters, and you may eventually need to increase your medication dose to fall asleep. 
Benzodiazepines help enhance GABA’s relaxing effects. GABA calms nerve cells and slows down different processes in the body and brain, helping improve sleep. Sleeping pills also influence these neurotransmitters.įor example, benzodiazepine drugs induce sleep through a neurotransmitter known as gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA). The ease with which you fall asleep depends upon an intricate balance between different neurotransmitters (chemicals in the brain). This phenomenon can be difficult to deal with on a psychological level - if you have rebound insomnia, you may start to lose confidence in your body’s ability to get to sleep on its own. If you have rebound insomnia, you may have trouble falling asleep or staying asleep. Rebound insomnia is difficulty sleeping that occurs once you abruptly stop taking commonly prescribed sleep medications like benzodiazepine hypnotic drugs. Start Sleeping Better What is Rebound Insomnia?
0 kommentar(er)
