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Prazosin for preventing trauma nightmares :)

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zero

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Greetings.

There is a med called "Prazocyn," which is truly hateful to pronouce well, that was shown to help vets dealing with nightmares from ptsd.
I believe it blocks alpha waves? beta waves? that bring recurring, emotional, flashback, trauma nightmares!

It's freaking cool! I've been on this med for a couple of years, and then was off for about 6 months, when I asked to go back on it.
This med actually stopped my trauma nightmares. It's also like being on vacation; not having freaking, recurrent visions of the dang dream for hours afterwards.

I thought I'd mention it! :) If your doctor knows about it, and if you're able to take it, may help, eh. :)

Now I just have regular, scary, crappy, bad dreams where there's like creepy things and scary stuff!!! It's so much better than the emotional drag of the trauma nightmares though. (Usually me trying to explain something logically to people that don't care.)


/love
 
I believe it blocks alpha waves? beta waves? that bring recurring, emotional, flashback, trauma nightmares!
Prazosin is an alpha-1 blocker, most commonly used to treat high blood pressure. It's also been shown to help PTSD folks with sleep, and possibly nightmare reduction. As an alpha 1 blocker it has specific interactions with the central nervous system (among other things), and can diminish norepinephrine uptake....which essentially means, it can limit the fight-or-flight response.
 
Does this mean it’s not recommended for people with average or low blood pressure?
You'd need to talk with your doctor; but generally it's not a problem. When taking Prazosin for sleep, it's just a one-a-day, low dose. Taking it for BP regulation, the dose is much higher.

I've got low blood pressure, and prazosin worked fine for me. It did make me a little lightheaded, if I had to get up middle of the night to use the bathroom I needed to be more aware while walking. But not at all difficult to manage.

Everyone's got different things going on in their system, so consulting with your doc is your best bet.
 
Just wanted to thank zero and everyone else for the information about Prazosin. I have been having a terrible time sleeping, because of intense nightmares. Reliving trauma nightly or not sleeping at all is tough. I called my doctor and he sent a prescription for it to my pharmacy. It will be ready tomorrow. So, hopefully this will be my last horrific night.
 
Hey @joeylittle , at what dosage did you find the prazosin had an impact on sleep?

I take 2mg personally. It doesn’t effect my blood pressure enough to notice. I also take Mirtazapine at night so I don’t know what effect it will have on sleep because the low dose Mirtazapine will knock you out. I started prazosin on 1mg with no change in nightmares so bumped up to 2mg and it’s been like night and day difference. It’s a very convenient side effect of the medication.
 
Thanks, @Rainman8772 .
I'm also on mirtazapine at night, though mirtaz on its own was never enough to knock me out even at higher dosages, so I take phenergan and quetiapine for sleep too. I suspect it is the phenergan that does the heavy lifting for me on the insomnia front.

Awesome to hear the benefit you're getting at 2mg prazosin.
I'm currently on 1mg, I had to start out on 0.5mg and work up slowly as I have low blood pressure and am typically sensitive to meds.
I hope I can try 1.5mg soon, I might email my doctor and ask. Nightmares are running wild at the moment. Would love some respite there.
 
Mirtazapine only has the zombie effect at doses below 30mg. Higher doses have a different effect. Most reviews I read before agreeing to take it say the best sleep effect is in the 15mg range for it. I would have to agree with them. My PDoc is a military reserve doctor. They use up to 20mg of prazosin but most see results in the 1-5mg range. He is the best one I have been to because of the nature of where my PTSD originates.
 
I've tried mirtazapine dosages of 15/30/45/60 mgs, and I personally found no added benefit at the higher dosages compared with at 15mg now. It does exhibit synergism with venlafaxine though, which is cool.

I really hope I can get some nightmare relief with the prazosin. Nothing has been able to make them budge for pretty much three years straight. I miss restful sleep.
 
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