Meds For Nightmares?

[NotApplicable]

Anyone who takes medication that help not to have nightmares or actually reduces them? And if possible not cause any weight gain. Im really tired...

 

[JEKBreatheandBelieve]

I tried chlonidine. It had two effects for me- either I had insomnia or I had more frequent nightmares. A lot of people take prazosin and it works well for them. Since I had a bad reaction to the chlonidine and am very sensitive to medications, my psychiatrist at the time chose a different route. I take Klonopin an hour before bed. Then I take nortriptyline and ambien to help with sleep. It hasn't taken away the nightmares completely, but if I follow the routine of using those three medications together, it does help me get a reasonable amount of uninterrupted sleep. Ambien supposedly has the quality of being able to help re-set your sleep cycle. I haven't experienced any weight gain as of yet and it's been about 2 months. Talking to a psychiatrist/doctor about what you experience and what your goal is will help that person best figure out what is best for you and can tell you about the side effects which can be different for different people as well. I hope you can find something that works for you.

 

[Candleflames]

I take prazosin. It's a blood pressure med so has no effect on your weight. For me it works wonders. many other sufferers take it with a variety of result. The doing away with nightmares just happens to be a side effect.

 

[NotApplicable]

Thank you guys. I have to talk to my therapist about seeing a psychiatrist.
I was actually in a lot of medication and about 3 months ago i've stopped everything. I was taking chlorpromazine for sleep. It's not that it helped with nightmares, it was helping me to fall asleep rather than staying asleep, but in combination i guess with the rest of my meds ive gained a lot of weight.
I was not willing to start taking medication again but the past weeks i get little to no sleep and i can't handle it any longer

 

[desiderata310]

I take Prazosin as well. It helps a bit. I also take Ativan but I worry about getting addicted.

 

[anonymous]

I took prazosin and I couldn't breath on it every time I went walking I could hardly breath :(

 

[desiderata310]

Clonidine didn't work for me.
Pretty much talk to the doctor and see what will work.

 

[Crow]

Cultated magnesium at night has helped me

 

[anonymous]

• I know you didn't ask but, In the long run, the nightmares were released by discovering what part of me I needed to recover, that would echo back into my psyche, and dissolve the conflict in the nightmare.--
• For example, in the dream where I couldn't breathe and was strangled; what turned it around was studying breathing and actor's voice (Linklater Technique.), for 2 years.--- Also, a dream where I was being tortured to die, was turned around by taking a handgun safety class. ---Likewise, I recovered a protective aspect of myself by taking a full force self-defense class, 4 times. I kept taking each class until I had a breakthrough, which was demonstrated by the. nightmares ending.

• The meds I used, to get enough sleep to function while I worked on the layers were:

When I wasn't working, I could use supplements:

1. Specifically, the form, L-tryptophan 800 mg in capsule form, gave me 3-4 hours a sleep at a time. I would take them with a 1-2 Benadryl tabs.
2. Melatonin-gave me headaches.
3. Kava kava is relaxing, and it can help me fall asleep.
4. Valerian root-gave me terrible dreams.

When I started to work, the flashbacks intensified; the more I move and the greater the stress, the greater the flashbacks.
In the order I tried them:

1. Ambien-helpful for 3-4 hours
2. Lunesta-helpful for 3-4 hours
3. Trazadone-aweful-it really disturbed my sleep
4. Prazosin-aweful, made my heart pound, no sleep.
5. And I have ended up with lorazepam .5 to .75 mg with clonazepam 0.25 to get 5 hours sleep. My psychiatrist knows that I need at least 5-6 hours to sleep, to keep my PTSD managed (I get more depressed and cry a lot, if I don't get enough sleep.). I have been on this dose for over 4 years. Addiction concerns are simply the reality that comes with my PTSD.
6. One medication that I didn't expect, that knocks me out-for that reason I only take half the dose, (I started to take it for a back pain that would wake me up), was generic, low dose, flexeril. So if you have back pain, this could help.
7. A doctor has told a woman friend of mine, that since she is menopausal that a mini dose of progesterone may be helpful to sleep.

 

[Tinyflame]

Stress worsens mine. Any med or more aptly resolving/ dealing with it helps them stop (just for me).

(When I can actually sleep.)

 

[lux.]

I take prazosin and haven't had any problems with it. It's a blood pressure medicine so you'll have to monitor your BP at first to make sure it doesn't lower it too much. I haven't had any breathing or heart problems from it. It reduced the frequency of my nightmares a little, but it really, really helped with the intensity and vividness of the nightmares. I used to have ones that seemed so real and were so terrifying. I'd wake myself up kicking and screaming. Once I punched my cat (but not hard; he just gave me a funny look :) ). Now they're much less vivid and scary.When I went to a trauma disorders hospital they had a lot of people on really high doses of it. They checked our BP every morning and night. If it was too low, you couldn't take it. Since then I haven't had to check it on my own. I get a little lightheaded in the morning, but that's probably more from bulimia, and it generally goes away after I eat breakfast.

I'd definitely recommend trying it out.

 

[lux.]

I forgot to mention that there are also a few therapeutic interventions for nightmares. One I've tried and found helpful is Image Rehearsal Therapy. In the morning when you first wake up and the nightmare is most clear in your mind, you write it down with as much detail as possible, trying to really create a vivid picture in your mind. But you change the ending so that you emerge victorious--defeat the attacker, escape, get rescued, any positive ending. Then you read that several times throughout the day, each time trying to really emerse yourself in it and create as vivid an experience in your mind as you can, focusing on the positive ending. You also do it right before bed, maybe when you get in bed. I've only tried it a couple times because sometimes I don't remember the nightmares well enough to do it, but it really helped. If you have a trauma-informed therapist, he or she can probably help you with it.

I also have a therapist who's trained in art therapy, and we sometimes do kind of the same thing, but through visual representations of the nightmare. A couple days ago I had a bad one and I drew a picture with oil pastels of these big black figures with red arms reaching toward me, a small figure (I was a child in the dream) with no arms or legs, just a little snowman-shaped ball of a lot of colors to represent the intense and varied feelings. My therapist and I talked about it and she gave me a couple ideas of how to change it. The one I picked was to cut myself out and glue myself onto a picture of a safe place, adding in whatever would make me feel most safe and happy. Some people really don't like art therapy, but if you do, it's pretty cool