Taurus80

When I got first tried to get sober and I was in the hospital. The doctor prescribed me trazadone for sleep. I started on 50 which didnt help and went to 100 and then 150. 100 didnt make me tired enough and 150 was too much. I had many nightmares while I was on it but I was also detoxing from alcohol and cocaine which could have caused them. Trazadone works well for a many people. I stopped taking it because the 150mg dose made me too tired to care for my baby daughter in the night. If I wasnt a mommy I would have kept taking it. Its good for sleep.

janbear

Trazadone is what i take to help me get some sleep. I take a higher dose. I have not any ill effects with it for me either. I usually get 5 to 6 hours sleep tops and then i am up and ready to go. Like others said, everyone is different.

SilentKiller

I like it as a sleep aid. I have a heaviness in my chest when I take it though, probably becasue of it bing a seditive. I take anywhere from 50 to 100mg as needed. I have heard bad effects from erowid.org

ClayTheScribe

I used Trazedone 100 mgs for a while to get to sleep. Always left me groggy in the morning and made it harder to get up. Now I take Ambien 10 mg and I like that much better. I would just rather take a pill specifically for sleep than an antidepressant that makes me sleepy.

Live

Remember to take it early enough so that you aren't groggy in the morning.
It took my body about a month to get used to it.
At first I had headaches and was just plain silly when mixed with caffeine (coffee) in the morning.

I used it successfully for years, but it does cause vivid dreaming in me and I have switched to doxepin and like it so much better. ....as the dreaming thing was becoming more regular and disturbing....that was always related to what was going on in my life...no problems, no dreams, y'know?

GassyJack

anyone on Trazodone experience ringing in the ears? I started Traz about 5days ago - i only take 25% of a 50mg tab at nite. Was having troubles sleeping for months and months ever since quitting drinking (2yrs Dec) usually no problem falling asleep i would just keep waking up every hour or 2.
Since i started Traz i had some of the best sleeps .. was great!

but this ear ringing is driving me nuts. It started yesterday(Sunday) if this is just temporary and will go away as i get used to Traz then fine, i can put up with it. If not then i will stop taking traz before i get too far into it.

myxomatosis

wow i didnt know how common this med is. i also got prescribed it, 100 mg, at first it didnt work for me, cause i took it just once or twice. i think you have to take it a while for it too work.
it puts me to sleep now, but too much, even half a pill and when i finally sleep im out for 12 hours. thats too much, lost the whole day, just like drinking. ive tried half and even quarter pills, its good for when i cannot sleep, and will def take it over drinking.

but be careful, its powerful stuff, and whatever you do dont mix it with any alch, i did and was high out of my mind for like 24 hours.

plus im not too sure about taking an antidepressant for an extended amount of time when im not depressed, i can imagine that screwing up your head. i want to look into ambien, it sounds better for you, a med just for sleep and nothing else.

Cleansing

Interesting.
I've tried 100, and 1250mg, and it did nothing. I took 200mg and I fall asleep great. I wake up early enough, and don't really feel tired. I miss this med, because now I don't sleep until 3:30am and I wake up around 10:30 am. That's not a good schedule for me. I see my psych doctor Thursday, and plan to ask him for a one month supply of Trazadone just til I get settle in more.
When I was in rehab, I was on 200mg, and someone else I was cool with took 300mg. I read somewhere that 50-100mg is the range for insomnia. You guys are taking lower dosages too. So that's what I find interesting about all this stuff. But like they say, everyone's body reacts to these meds differently.

kj3880

Man, trazodone completely knocks me out. I tried a 1/2, then down to a quarter, but even that much made me feel like a zombie. My b/f told me it had no effect on him whatsoever when he took it years ago for sleep. It's a weird drug.

Love,
KJ

stephnc

I've tried it a couple of times and I wasn't happy with it...it would make me sleepy but the effect seemed to wear off before I could actually fall asleep so I'd be awake for a few hours, finally drifting off later and not really sleeping long enough to feel rested.

Just a few days ago, my dr. prescribed Elavil for sleep - it's also an antidepressant with sedating qualities - and I've slept great on it.

Ambien is my best friend and worst nightmare. I took it for years and it worked great, but the side effects were scary...I'd do things like go to the store or order products from the internet after taking the medicine, then not remember anything the next morning.

Cornbrosia

If your opposed to getting priapism steer clear of the trazadone. But if you take enough of it you will sleep. I have always found seroquel to be more powerful and wierd

historyteach

Trazadone can be a very good sleep aide.
I found it didn't *put* me to sleep, but *let* me go to sleep.
I was also able to fall back asleep if I woke up during the night, while on it.
And that was always a big issue for me - getting back to sleep.

To avoid that "hang-over" feeling in the morning,
I was told to take it 10 hours *before* I wanted to get up in the morning.
That's enough time for the body to process it,
so you don't get the groggies.

Foamy125

It gave me weird nightmares... i kept waking up from sleep to really weird things to an alternate world, it all felt really real, i can distinctly remember some of those dreams better then i can most of my my real memories and more vividly too and each time i would end up just ending up back in my bed feeling like i just woke up to go through an entire "dream" sequence again, having me "get up" again, till i FINALY woke up to actuality. but that was also back when i had a 5 day episode of no sleep because of some bad meds (strattera or some crap, really rare reaction...) a doctor gave me. the actual sleep they give me wasn't all that great, it felt really light, like i had been awake but sleeping, kinda like when you fall alseep in a classroom for a while, that is when it helped me sleep... If any one could actualy recomend a better sleep aid who had a similar situation... lol that'd actualy be great...

perspective

I know everyone is different, but I feel the need to say what happened to me while on this...

I had been on it for a couple of weeks to help me sleep (50-100 mg) and the last time I took it I ended up having difficulty breathing, chest pain, couldn't talk, literally froze when I opened the door to tell my sister to call 911, lost the grasp of my cell phone, collapsed, and past out for 45 minutes...

It scared me to the point where I'm scared to take any type of medication since (its been about 2 weeks now I think).

Also, I've heard from my sister that her ex ended up having a very painful erection the next morning that he had to go to the Dr for (I've heard of this happening to other men as well while reading things online).

iloveme

I have been prescibed Trazadone 50 mg as needed for sleep as well. I only had 25 mg and I experienced a groggy, stupor with mild head-ache in the morning. I probably won't use it again d/t this untoward effect unless I feel desperate.

Slag

I was prescribed I believe 250 mg of the stuff. I hated it......felt thick headed for an hour or so after i woke up.

I felt like I was not in control and vulnerable. I stopped taking it and I got back to my workout regimen. That helps a great deal.

FaultyWiring

I used to use this in lieu with Paxil - a bad combination... my doctor pulled me from it because of it's well known risks. I'll never touch the stuff again.

TwelveSteps

Thanks for everyone's replies in this thread -- I was prescribed 50mg Traz last month after my doctor advised me to stop taking Ambien as it's not intended for long-term use and was starting to lose effectiveness.

She suggested I try half a dose for the first night but I decided to take the full 50mg -- I was having really bad anxiety that day anyway -- and had a crazy reaction! Extremely vivid dreams, some disturbing, like I have never had before. At one point I had an unbelievably realistic dream that I woke up, sat up in bed, and watched a stranger came into my bedroom and sit down on my bed, I could swear I was awake but then finally *actually* woke myself up by screaming. I talked to my doctor and she suggested I try it again with the half dose, but I've been kind of afraid to!

Anyway I did a lot of web research the next morning to try and get more information on nightmares with this drug, and so just wanted to add my two cents on it for the benefit of anyone else who might have had this experience.

GG

Severian

My Trazedone experience was similar to TwelveSteps. Felt really stoned, but had troubole falling asleep. Then I had horrific nightmares and woke up screaming and sweating. Then felt hungover the next morning.

El Gato

I've been taking 200mg for a few months. I'm asleep within 20 minutes and stay asleep until the bladder demands attention. It's been a wonder drug for me. I slept no more than 1.5 hours at a time for over a year before trazodone.