I am Having a lot of trouble at night with sleep. I have been taking oxycodine for the past month to help deal with the pain and insomnia. I really want to stop but I don't know what to do. I tried last night to not take the narcotic but the pain was so bad that I gave in around 3am. I keep telling myself that taking the oxy is only temporary until the PN goes away. Anyone have any suggestions?

Thanks for the advice and help

Sorry you are not resting; and sorry in advance I am not going to give you great advice....when I wasn't resting; nothing was working...I even tired garlic milk....yup....but the pain was way out of control...what worked for sleeping was muscle relaxer...but it left me so groggy in the am...now I am on LDN (Low Dose Naltrexone) and I sleep most nights..I still wake up w/ pain but I go back to a good sleep..once a week though my mind doesn't shut off ...and once in while I get bad dreams.....BUT I am finally sleeping...which makes it easier to deal with the chronic pain....

My hydrocodone would wear off around 8-9pm and I couldn't take any more for the day. My Dr. RX Zolpidem to take around 10;30pm. It was rough from around 9 till 11pm but 20 min after taking the generic Ambien, it would knock me out. Blessed sleep and a minimum of 5hrs at least. There are withdrawal issues but a person has to sleep to heal. I am still taking Zolpidem. Good Luck, Ken in Texas.

I have had pockets of good and bad sleep. I have taken up supplementing melatonin again many nights. It doesn't keep me down, though it allows me to get settled again after waking easier.

I agree with Ken on feeling better with rest. With work and family for a long time I just plowed on. I've gotten to the point where I sleep and rest where I can, which is acceptable to my wife, thankfully.

I slept last night, was up from 5-6 am and then laid down again.

If you and your doctor agree on a medication or plan for rest, go with it if it works. I'm leaning toward a sleep study and then medicating if need be.

Good luck to you.

I take 1000 mg of Valerian Root at night and 3 mg of melatonin. Most nights, that will suffice to get me to drift off to sleep at some point.

As a back-up, I have script for Zolpidem (generic Ambien) which my doc doles out stingily. A half a pill (which amounts to 2.5 mg) is enough to knock me out.

I will say, however, that "Ambien sleep" is not a good sleep to me. It's better than no sleep, but it's not as good as regular sleep. I can feel the difference.

This past Thursday night, I resorted the Zolpidem as I had to get up unusually early, and I wasn't feeling the sleep coming on. Despite getting about 6 hours of Ambien sleep, I still felt tired the next day. I had the worst flare of symptoms I've had in a long time. I went to bed that night covered in espom salt lotion and lidocaine patches. I felt 100% better yesterday after sleeping well.

Obviously getting good sleep is better for the body all around, but I'm going to be watching to see if my bad flares can be correlated with tiredness. That would be one vicious circle....you can't sleep because you're in too much pain, and not sleeping makes your pain worse.

I use my magnesium lotion when I have pain in my feet or ankles... it works in minutes and allows for a good night's sleep too.