Jannaw, my heart goes out to you. I've had a bit of a spin in this life myself. Nothing close to losing a child though. I lost my husband to suicide in '92, 6 months after he came home drunk one night...so drunk right and wrong didn't exist for him. He attempted to rape my eldest who was 12 at the time. There were other things going on with him but we'll never know for sure what it all was. There were drugs (to this day I don't know what all he was into) but he was also hearing voices and seeing things. When they found his body, and this is the short story, my best friend dropped everything and came to me. She got me to my doctor and insisted I needed something just to take the edge off and to get me through the next week. That was Ativan. At that time I had 4 kids at home from 12 down to 3, I was working part time, going to RN school full time. Stress?? Heck, I laughed and said I gave new meaning to stressed out. I actually suffered a break down and should have been in the hospital or something. But I'd been under so much stress for so long I really didn't recognise when I lost it. That happened about 3 weeks before he died. His suicide was the icing on the cake. It wouldn't be until 2001 that I actually crashed and burned though.

As odd as this may sound, in the past no matter how bad things got sleeping was never the issue. This is the first time I've ever experienced this kind of insomnia. It's from the Mirapex. My hope is that soon this side effect will ease off. I did sleep for about 3 or 4 hours solid this morning. That's the most sleep I've gotten since the first night of the Mirapex.

We're all chemically different. What works for one may not work for another. Our bodies individual chemistries decide how a drug such as Ambien and the SSRI's and such will affect us. For instance, many people take Celexa and now Lexapro ( Lex is the daughter of Celexa - they split the Celexa isomer and got Lex) with great success. I was on Celexa and it turned me into a zombie and I gained over 50 lbs in a little over 14 months. Enter Effexor. I've heard so many horror stories about Effexor but it was a like a miracle for me. It literally gave me back my life, as if someone flipped a switch and said, "you get to be you again". There are many many drugs that do the same thing for all of us across the board. But there are drug classes such as the SSRI's and if you look at how Ambien and others work, that class of drugs too, what works differs based on body and brain chemistry and genetics obviously play a role in all that.

I'm leery of meds. I always look them up when I'm given a new one. There have been a few times that I've refused to take a drug because I thought the risks did not outweigh the possible benefit for me. Sudden death as a risk from a drug given to me to treat possible gout? No thank you. While the toe joint pain is a pain it's bearable and certainly not to the point of taking a drug that could cause sudden death for crying out loud. Vit D has got that under control now whatever the cause is or was. I became suicidal on Neurontin. That was what really made me leery. But as far anxiety and depression these need to be treated when they don't self limit and become extreme. Pain needs to be treated effectively.

As for the Chantix, I've read the horror stories and I've read the good ones too. For me the benefits of being able to quit smoking will outweigh the risk of possible sides from the drug. I've never been able to get past the physical addiction to nicotine. If I can beat that part I can and will quit smoking. To me for my healths sake it's imperative that I quit. I've not been able to do that on my own. Now I have hope that I'll actually get this monkey off my back once and for all. And the Mirapex? Unless you suffer from RLS you can't know what that feels like and how hard it is to live with. It's like PN, unless and until you've experienced it you can't know how bad it can be. Many of us with PN and RLS especially give no outward sign that anything is wrong. People look at us and say we look so healthy. Looks can be deceiving.