Thursday 08th May 2008 – To Stilnox or not to Stilnox…

( STILNOX - also known as Ambien, Hypnogen, Myslee, Nimadorm, Nitrest, Sanval, Stilnoct, Zolfresh &  Zolt.)

To Stilnox or not to Stilnox that is the question. I am an insomniac and have been for as long as I can remember.  I don’t sleep very well at all.  I go through periods of sleeping 5 broken hours a night to then being awake for 24 hours and then dropping form exhaustion but only for an hour or so.  You would think that after I dunno 30 odd years of this I would be used to it by now.  Sadly I am not.

The past 4 weeks I am averaging around about 5 hours of sleep and when I say sleep I am averaging 5 hours of very interrupted or broken sleep.  BossMan is heavily involved in the Sleep Apnoea field tells me that I am fucked and the other day he gave me all these statistics and facts which I cant quite remember but I do remember him telling me that I need to get better sleep and to get it quickly.  Basically I am like a car accident waiting to happen. 

As frustrated and tired as I am I really don’t know what it’s actually like to sleep for 8 hours of straight sleep.  So last night was sheer and utter hell for me.  I lay awake until 4 this morning and I had to be up by 6am.  I was physically exhausted, my eyes were stinging and my body was crying out for sleep. Now before you ask I have indeed reduced my coffee intake to 1 -2 cups per day (used to be 9 cups a day and that was not only because I love coffee but it was to keep me from falling asleep at my desk) so I am no longer pumped up on caffeine.

So tonight after work I raced to my doctor begging for help.  Her solution to my issue was to write me a prescription for Stilnox.  I told her that I was not too keen to go down the pharmaceutical path and questioned her as to the side effects and I could have sworn that they had taken this drug off the market.  She sort of quickly ushered me out of the surgery and I paid $50 bucks for her 5 minutes of attention.   Look, I hardly ever take pain relief for minor headaches and aches and pains so to be given a script for heavy shit. Ahhhh not too sure about this.

Stilnox is a prescription drug that is used only for a short-term and is for the treatment of insomnia and some brain disorders.  I’m told that it usually takes about 15 minutes to kick in.  Which in a way is rather tempting & tantalizing.  Think about it, I pop this pill, wait 15 odd minutes and then POW sleep.

I came home and googled (God love Google) Stilnox and investigated all the side affects and it had me rather alarmed.  Things like people falling asleep but getting no rest, a woman who piled on the weight but couldn’t work out why until she found she was binge eating straight out of the fridge during her sleep, a woman who woke up holding a paintbrush only to later discover that she had painted her front door, driving whilst sleeping, patients experiencing hallucinations and memory loss.  I think I am weird enough, taking Stilnox may just either make me “normal” or really tip me over the edge.  I am tempted though as I would just love some real quality sleep.

What would you do if you were me?  So I pose the question again, To Stilnox or not to Stilnox?

Reney