Sleep Medicine Specialist Questions Sleep

Sleep Medication

I suffer from depression, anxiety, and panic attacks. I can't control my racing thoughts. That's also why I can't sleep. I don't know anything about sleeping medications. I am looking for a sleeping medication that makes me fall asleep despite my thoughts to where they can not hold me back and keep my awake. I also am looking for something to stop my anxious thoughts during the day. Often these thoughts are accompanied with physical feelings. I am resorting to medication because I don't know what else to do, no one I have found has understood or been sympathetic about my situation. I feel it all day everyday, I can't stop it, I am afraid of having more panic attacks, and I can't sleep. I just need sleep right now at the very least. Also the medication I am taking now, mirtazapine, doesn't do anything, what I am experiencing is so powerful and unyielding. I have had counselors, a primary care doctor, a craniotherapist, qigong, a chiropractor. I don't feel like any of them helped me or made me feel comfortable about what I am experiencing. I always thought I needed someone who wasn't a western medicine, popular choice of a doctor, more of a homeopathic, but I have no idea what that would be. I don't know what is wrong with me. I know it's thoughts, that are feelings, that are so deep and there is so much emotion in them, they can raise my heart rate in 5 minutes. They aren't normal thoughts to me, not like someone just worried about something. They are feelings that are too traumatic for me, the act of feeling them makes me want out. I remember every one of them and where I came from.

Female | 19 years old
Complaint duration: Half a year
Medications: Mirtazapine 15 mg
Conditions: Depression

1 Answer

I am sorry you are going through this. Mirtazapine is an antidepresant. For what you are telling me you are not depressed, except for the statement that you suffer from "depression". I use Dr. Amen's method of neuropsych evaluation and the American Academy of Sleep Medicine evaluation of sleep complaints. I start with a comprehensive questionaire to investigate the root cause and then decide what pertinent tests I need. I consider the use of medications as a temporary measure while I investigate and work towards the goal of reversing the root cause of the complaints. I assess the patient as a whole. The functional medicine triads, the social environment, epigenetics, etc. Where are you located?