2 replies to this topic

[Mrs Nightminds]

Hi everyone,

I know this medication has been mentioned elsewhere on this site but I wanted to come in and share my positive experiences with it... http://en.wikipedia....iki/Agomelatine

I'm going to cut and paste what I posted on another forum I visit...

" I just wanted to pop back in to let people know (but obviously not to offer medical advice!) that my doctor and I have been able to find a medication that really works but wasn't expected to!

The sleep specialist tried me on a stimulant but I really didn't react to it well and it didn't help with my tiredness anyway.

I started to question the logic behind giving stimulants during the day (considering the associated risks and side effects) and not addressing the poor sleep structure at night.

Long story short, my psychiatrist (who I was referred back to to monitor the stimulant) suggested I try something called Valdoxan. She gave it to my initially to help with the anxiety that the stimulant had caused but she suspected it would help me sleep at night as well with no hangover effect. It interacts with your body's own natural melatonin supply to reset your circadian rhythm. It basically gives your body an extra dose of melatonin to tell it it's time to go to sleep.

The thing about it that is thought to be of most help to me (and would be to people with Narc.) is that it is THOUGHT to supply you with Short Wave Sleep which is a part of a person's sleep architecture that someone with Narc. doesn't have. It's this stage of sleep that is restorative. It's a newish medication (2-3 years?) and is therefore a higher cost associated with it (but PHI can help).

Anyway I just wanted to put it out there in case there are other people struggling to find something that helps."

Obviously I know one medication that works for one person may not for another (the stim I tried (dex) I know works for other people, but not for me).

[Mrs Nightminds]

I meant to add, too, that I've recently had to have some valium at night and it seems to have surprisingly helped things along as well. Dexamphetamine caused severe anxiety (hence the intro of Valdoxan) and after 6ish weeks my pysch and I felt that I still needed something more added to the mix for the anxiety. We made an attempt to go back on to Effexor XR. I'd previously been on Effexor for 6 ish years due to depression/anxiety following the birth of my eldest son. I'd needed to wean off it to do the night time sleep study and then the MSLT. Our logic was that I've been on it before, it helped me then, and we didn't want any false starts with any others.

I took the first dose of Effexor and that night it caused really bad insomnia and the anxiety I felt because of the insomnia is like nothing I've ever experienced. I slept for two blocks of one hour at a time and when I wasn't sleeping I was crying/sobbing and having panic attacks. I obviously have a lot of un-addressed anxiety around being tired/not being able to sleep. Surprise surpise! Anyway to counteract the anxiety and to get my sleeping back on track my GP gave me some valium. I've taken that and the Valdoxan for the last few nights and it's really helped. I'm surprised considering how sedating valium can be but it really feels like it's given me even more of a boost where my night time sleep in concerned.

I'm also going to be looking for another sleep specialist. This guy, and I think it COULD be common but I'm unsure, really pushed the stimulants as the first port of call. I questioned the logic of giving someone with a long mental illness history stimulants in the first place (hence the referral back to my psychiatrist because he (sleep specialist) "doesn't deal with people's psychiatric histories" -his words - and in fact he challenged me on whether or not I had "proper" mental illness. After a lot of reading I started to think that addressing the QUALITY of my night time sleep before even considering stimulants would be best for me and my psychiatrist (who KNOWS my history) agreed with me. Hence the Valdoxan.

Just wanted to put it out there

[Maximilian]

Valdoxan is meant to reset your sleep architecture, so it sounded great to me. Unfortunately, as with lots of these drugs, it made me more tired and extremely groggy the next day. I took it for 2 months as I really wanted it to work. It didn't.

It's used mainly as an anti-depressant I hear.