Yes, I know Benadryl as a sleep aide very well...this would be one of the cold medicines that I was taking for insomnia...It quit working for me as a sleep aide.

After 5 episodes of Boston Legal, I finally fell asleep around 530am.

I just woke up about 5 minutes ago. (it's 1245pm)

At least I managed to stay asleep for the most part, and had some seriously bizzaro dreams. Weird...and I didnt even take anything. Where the heck do the weird dreams come from?

Too much Boston Legal, Maybe.. I love that show.

I'm glad you, at least, got some sleep..

It sounds more like your internal clock needs adjusting then you are lacking sleep. Ultimately you pulled off 7 hrs of sleep.

Although this may be inconvenient (and is definitely worth trying to change!), you are not currently working and have no children . . . so this sleep schedule probably isn't as disruptive as it is for people who are/do. I know lots of people who have to work 3rd shift because they are "night people" . . . but this schedule CAN be adjusted, with time and perseverance.

Are you getting exercise and tiring yourself out in the daytime? Could you take up yoga or learn how to hypnotize yourself in order to relax? You could try brain-challenging exercises (learning new & complicated things in the early evening) so that you are tiring your mind out . . .

The first thing you could do though, is to NOT sleep at 5:30 am, or at least to only sleep for a few hours when you do. Chances are you would be much more tired in the evening.

Cherie

Once while waiting to board a plane, I overheard a couple women planning their Benadryl and Bloody Mary's to help them sleep through the flight.

The shar pei take Benedry for allergies, or emergency calming when necessary. Same dose as us, and much cheaper from the vet.

I've been reading up on Benedryl and found that some people have the opposite reaction to it....Anxiety and panic attacks. I already have an axiety disorder so I better be careful.

Some have said it works great at 50 mg for sleep and others say that dose would have them flying off the walls. It's not unusual for people to have opposite reactions to meds, but I'm glad I found this out.

I may buy the cheap stuff and try it, though, to see if it works for me. Anybody else have this opposite reaction to Benedryl?

yup sally. i learned the hard way.

give lil'monkey any and she is up and running for 24hrs straight. dr said to give it to her after her surgery when she was 5. that was NOT a fun night.

When I was using it about...10 years? ago, to get to sleep. It worked great for me for about 8 or 9 months. Then it started to do the opposite effect. So, I switched to Nyquil Liquicaps (pill form of Nyquil) That worked pretty good for me, there was no alcohol that I know of in it, and because they were pill form, I knew exactly how much I'd taken. (when you're chugging the liquid form, it's hard to tell how much you took)

Then one day in 2001 there was a story on the news about there being an ingredient in Nyquil and some other cold medicines that was raising the chance of stroke happening in women of my age. (I was in my late 20s then)

So, I quit using it that night, after a couple of days I was sleeping "almost" normally. I was occasionally trying other stuff, but I was working for WalMart at that time, and WM managers are slave drivers, so I was not really having that big of a problem sleeping. I'd come home exhausted and heat stroked (they had crappy a/c there and wouldnt let us have a fan in our area)

After I lost my job at WM (they fired as many people as they could after 9-11) I got a job for Hobby Lobby, they werent as big a slave driver as WM, but I was still working hard enough to not have to worry about insomnia much.

I dont think I've had insomnia this bad in at least 8 years. It's certainly lasted longer than any bout of insomnia before.

I'm betting that most of my insomnia problems have stemmed from having MS. I didnt know about the MS till last year, but I can look back and see some signs of it as far back as late 1996, but I think I've had it longer than that...actually possibly since childhood.

I did actually go out shopping with my parents today, and we walked around a bit (with lots of rest breaks for both my parents) so at least I actually moved around a bit today and used up some energy.

I think I'm going to break down tonight and take 1/4 of one of the sedatives that my doctor Rx-ed to me last month. I do stay up so that I can chat with my boyfriend on Skype at night, but I think I'll send him a message saying that I'm going to bed early tonight... Maybe I can reset the internal clock and see if I can sleep as if I'm on Central Time, instead of Greenwich Mean Time.

I can't take benedryl. It effects my anxiety problems more. I am jumping off the walls. Actually the effects make me feel worse after then when I have an anxiety attack.

I take Lorazepam for my attacks. But the dr. has me take just one pill before I go to bed so I can sleep. I have a very bad case of insomia. I also can't have anything with caffeine in it, that sets off the body.

This body is just one big ms puzzle.



Joyce (also known as Jappy )

I'm confused, isn't Benedryl cold medicine, OTC?

Yes, Cindy. Benadryl or dyphenhydramine also used in Unisom was the first OTC antihistamine to be used in this country. We use it when people are having allergic reactions to anything. It's probably one of the quickest acting antihistamines available, although there are many others out there such as Zyrtec; however they are not used as much for immediate allergic reactions as Benadryl is.