Originally Posted by nancys

For those that might come across this thread in the future, I thought I would update this thread with our current experiences. My daughter's concussion was Oct 11, 2009 - so we are almost at the 5 month mark.

A month ago, we started my daughter on 25 mg of trazodone at night. I was told it would knock her out, but it didn't. On the advice of our presriber - we increased her to 50 mg. She tried that dosage for 5-6 days, but it made things worse - didn't sleep at all one night, and dry mouth/stuffy nose side effect. We put her back down to 25 mg and were going to re-evaluate. She's been on this dosage for 2.5 weeks now.

Things that I have noticed:

1. An improvemnt in her mood (not surprising because it is an antidepressent but we are using it at a really low dosage).

2. While she is still slow to fall asleep - it is better than without - perhaps 1 hour vs. 2+ hours.

3. I think she is sleeping better because she is much easier to wake up in the AM. Before I could barely brag her out of bed at noon with lots of fighting. Now, I can pretty consistently get her up by 10:30. Still not early enough for school, but a HUGE improvement.

4. Over the past few days, the headaches have greatly decreased. I don't know if it is due to the trazodone or just that she is finally starting to get better.

5. Memory - still an issue - but we are seeing improvements as well.

It is difficult to know how much the trazodone is helping vs. just time vs. a little neurofeedback or the combination of all of the above. I do know the trazodone is helpful for sleep as she did have a harder time falling asleep because she forgot to take it earlier in the evening. I do know she is much better than she was even two weeks ago. She even told me she is starting to feel more normal again.