Clonidine

[ahalo]

So as I mentioned in a prior thread Lithium while working beautifully has caused me to have super vivid dreams. And I've been dreaming about people who I am cut off from (one is my sister who was violent towards me, and the other is her little boy who I took care of primarily for over a year up until about 6 wks ago). Anyway, the other day I thought my nephew was with me and I woke up and he wasn't and as the day progressed I was convinced my sister and nephew had died and I would have know way of knowing. Etc etc. Other scattered thoughts.

Anyway my pdoc prescribed Clonidine saying that it should keep me from having the vivid dreams. He said it's prescribed to people sometimes who have PTSD and has been effective with nightmares, etc. I'm wondering if anyone has tried it and if it was effective? I suppose I'll find out soon enough. I'm starting on a low low low dose and slowly ramping up so it'll probably be a bit before I find out. But I'm anxious for relief. I've been sleep phobic the last few days and I love to sleep so it's kind of sucked

Any insight greatly appreciated into this med Never heard of it til now.

[Velvet Elvis]

I've taken it for sleep. I don't remember any effects on dreams but it did help me relax overall.

[seamonkey]

I'm on .1mgs for sleep. I have to take seroquel with it for sleep. I take all my meds except the seroquel around 5, take the seroquel when I'm ready for bed and I'm out. The only side effects I've noticed is that I'm out of breath a lot easier and I've lost my appetite

[AnneMarie]

I'm on .2mg twice a day for hypertension. Watch you blood pressure. It lowers it, so you can only take so much without having hypotension problems.

[ahalo]

So far this is doing what it's supposed to do, and I don't have any problems yet at the lower dose (.1) with feeling light headed when I stand up or anything like that. The only think I noticed is that I must sleep 9 hours when on it lol. 9 hours really is the amount of sleep I generally "need" to feel my best during the day but for the last year I've had so many sleep problems I rarely got what I needed. So I just have to start planning around that and remind myself to take my pills before 3am otherwise I won't be up until noon. When it kicks in along with the clonazepam it's impossible for me to fight the sleep, which is actually a good feeling for me IDK why I fight it but I think I get distracted and start thinking of things to do lol. That's the ADHD. Thanks for the insight. I'm thinking of staying at this dose. My pdoc said I could raise it to up to .3 after 2 weeks but if it keeps working at .1 I'm not raising it. I don't want to sleep 20 hours lol.