Suggest Remedy For Insomnia While On Mirtazapine

Posted on Mon, 24 Aug 2015

Question: I was prescribed mirtazapine to help me reduce the tamazepam I've been taking for 2-3 years. 15 mg a night.
Starting very slowly with only one night a week taking mirtazapine then for 2 weeks than skip tamazepam once every 4 nights for 2 weeks then evey 3 nights and so on.
Goal is to get off of temazepam. 1/2 mirtazapine had me in a stupper all the next day. Not a good feeling and left me feeling very tired. Do i have to take anything to replace the temazepam and work my way off of it. I have had insomnia with varying cycles for over 30 years. Can you make ant recommendations?

Answered by Dr. Dr. Chintan Solanki (7 hours later)

Brief Answer:
increase in dose of mirtazapine will help

Detailed Answer:
Hello,

Thanks for writing to us.

One option is do not skip dose of temazepam but reduce dose 25% every 2 weeks.

You can simultaneously follow sleep hygiene measures if not following yet.

You can find the same in following link:

http://sleepfoundation.org/ask-the-expert/sleep-hygiene.

Other option is to increase dose of mirtazapine. And if at all you are not comfortable with mirtazapine, quetiapine(seroquel) is good option.

Option of replacing temazepam with other benzodiazepine is there but it is same all again.

Discuss above points with your treating doctor.

Hope I have answered your query, i will be happy to help further.

Regards,

Dr.Chintan Solanki

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Above answer was peer-reviewed by : Dr. Chakravarthy Mazumdar