Sleep meds

[sleepyone101]

Has anyone taken a sleeping pill before their overnight sleep test? My sleep doctor told me that benzo's are ok to take before the test. I thought that some benzos suppress rem sleep though.

[Julie]

Most take 1 Ambien.

[greatunclebill]

I take an ambien before every sleep study. It makes it easier to go to sleep and stay asleep. I take all of my day and night pills before the test. My doctor knows what i am taking and he's good with it. the subject hasn't come up with the tech.

[Okie bipap]

For my last tests, the nurse practitioner at the sleep clinic wrote my prescription for Ambien to use during the sleep tests.

[sptrout]

Has anyone taken a sleeping pill before their overnight sleep test? My sleep doctor told me that benzo's are ok to take before the test. I thought that some benzos suppress rem sleep though.

Xanax (and its generic cousin) reduces, or totally eliminates, deep sleep if taken regularly. (I do not know about "one & done" in your case.) I have learned this sad fact through years of experience. I mentioned this to my prescribing doctor and he said that he did not believe it. Just search the Internet for Xanax and deep sleep; you will get a bunch of hits it is a very common problem. Xanax and its generic cousin do not affect REM sleep as far as I can tell and use to measure years ago when "Zero" was still available. During the six months that I was using Zero (before the company went bankrupt), I rarely got more than 2-4 minutes of deep sleep a night, REM sleep about 90 minutes. Funny how many doctors still prescribe "benzos" as a sleeping pill, either ignoring the deep sleep problem, or unaware of it.

Now, just to expand on my experience for the fun of it since it does not apply to you. I suffer from chronic back pain and for a few years I was taking strong narcotic pain medicine during the day, but not needed at night while in bed. Then my pain doctor decided to have me try "Exalgo", which is extended release (24 hours) Dilaudid. It turned out that Dilaudid, at a high enough dose at night, killed my REM sleep. So, for a period of a few weeks I was not getting either REM or deep sleep. Now that is a miserable situation. You think that you are sleeping all night, but are actually just getting light sleep at the most which made me exhausted all day long. Thank goodness that I still had my "Zero" that was showing that I was not getting any useful sleep. I downloaded all the raw data collected by Zero and made a ledger size chart that show my sleep for all six months. The use of Exalgo correlated exactly with my loss of REM sleep. I gave the chart to my doctor and he was shocked to see the perfect correlation. He added that he had read of such a thing happening but had never seen proof of it. (BTW - - This was a super blind study. I had no idea what had happened until a few weeks later and no one even knew (including me) that I was collecting the damning evidence.)

Sorry, way more than you wanted, but maybe some reader will come across this message and learn why they cannot get any good sleep with or without SA problems.

[ChicagoGranny]

Now, just to expand on my experience for the fun of it since it does not apply to you. I suffer from chronic back pain and for a few years I was taking strong narcotic pain medicine during the day, but not needed at night while in bed. Then my pain doctor decided to have me try "Exalgo", which is extended release (24 hours) Dilaudid. It turned out that Dilaudid, at a high enough dose at night, killed my REM sleep. So, for a period of a few weeks I was not getting either REM or deep sleep. Now that is a miserable situation. You think that you are sleeping all night, but are actually just getting light sleep at the most which made me exhausted all day long. Thank goodness that I still had my "Zero" that was showing that I was not getting any useful sleep. I downloaded all the raw data collected by Zero and made a ledger size chart that show my sleep for all six months. The use of Exalgo correlated exactly with my loss of REM sleep. I gave the chart to my doctor and he was shocked to see the perfect correlation. He added that he had read of such a thing happening but had never seen proof of it. (BTW - - This was a super blind study. I had no idea what had happened until a few weeks later and no one even knew (including me) that I was collecting the damning evidence.)

Sorry, way more than you wanted, but maybe some reader will come across this message and learn why they cannot get any good sleep with or without SA problems.

You put me to sleep.