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?

i had insomnia for years.

i took advice i read on the vitiamin forum i think it was...by mrsd.

started taking meletonin, calcium and magnesium at night. magic. i used to get maybe 2 hours a night. i still wake from pain and have to move, but i can fall back asleep. hadn't been able to do that in years and years.

try doing a search here. after grandmonkey goes to bed, i'll see if i can find the threads.

amn...it's an antihystimine. which can cause drowsiness

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.

Yes. Benadryl is a cold medicine, but it has another use as a sleep aid.

Benadryl (chemical name is "Diphenhydramine") can be found in TylenolPM, Unisom, Nytol, and a lot of the other name brand and store brand OTC sleep aids.

I have a shellfish allergy, it's not too bad, I just get hives from it, and take Benadryl whenever I somehow get my non-seafood meals cross-contaminated with shellfish.

When I ran out of Benadryl one day, my dad handed me a bottle of a storebrand sleep aid that is just Benadryl. Even the pills looked the same except for the color (store brand Benadryl is pink, this OTC sleep aid is baby blue) Since Benadryl no longer seems to make me sleepy, I carry that bottle with me when we go out to eat, just in case someone ignores me when I tell them not to cook my food anywhere near the seafood.

I have that problem with Sudafed. It wires me like crazy! Benadryl helps me sleep.

I am very med sensitive and have reactions to weird stuff. I am one of about 5 people in the world (that I know of) who are anaphylactic reactive to Zantac. One of those tiny little pills almost killed me. I am also allergic to Salmon, but no other fish. Must have something to do with my allergy to iodine. None of the docs have been able to figure that one out. I can't even have anything cooked on the same grill with Salmon. I get tired of going to the ER...

Yes, I have a MedicAlert tag...