evilnessness Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 Anyone been on this for nightmares? What effect did it have and how long did it take it to happen? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
sixteenshells Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 I'm really sporadic with taking prazosin... it never needed to build up in my system or anything for me. I take it and I don't have nightmares, I don't take it and I have them. Kind of like sleep meds or allergy meds, it just works when you take it. I'm not sure if it's that way for everyone or not. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
MisterJoshua Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 I currently take Prazosin for nightmares. It took a while to find the right dose, but once I did it has blocked pretty much all nightmares. I do find that I always have nightmares when I don't take it now, where before I took it they were like 3-4 nights a week. It is an amazing drug. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tryp Posted April 5, 2014 Share Posted April 5, 2014 I have been on it for a couple of years, and I really like it. I found that I had to play with the dose a bit at first, but it's stable now. The mistake that some doctors make is not being willing to go high enough with it - the median dose in some of the prazosin trials was something like 9-10 mg. My initial dose was 1 mg, but my doctor told me that I could keep going up, and I found that the nightmares would sort of come and go, so I went up about 1 mg per week until I got to 4 mg, and I was stable there for a couple of months. After that, I found I was having to go up about every 3 months, because the nightmares would come back. But once I hit 7.5 mg (I ended up on 7.5 because they only come in 5 mg and 1 mg tabs, and taking 1.5 of the big ones sucked way less than a handful of the little ones) the nightmares stopped and I have been stable on that dose for nearly a year. What my doctor initially had me doing was taking some around 5 pm to help me calm down for sleep (it also decreases hyper vigilance) and then taking the rest at bedtime, but I usually take all of my bedtime medications at least an hour before I go to sleep anyway, so I started taking it all at once, and that has been working just fine for me. Before I started taking it, I couldn't lie down to go to sleep because I felt so much like someone was in my apartment trying to kill me, and I would be getting up constantly to check the locks and look in the closets and things. That is gone now. I still can't sleep in a dark room, and I haven't for years, but I am able to sleep with my back to the door now, which I couldn't do before, and which is more comfortable because it means I can roll over in my sleep and not wake up in a panic. I was also having at least 1-2 nightmares per night and waking up in a complete panic (sometimes either crying or screaming) and not being able to get back to sleep. I was terrified to go to sleep in the first place and I was exhausted all the time. Most of that is also gone now. I will still have dreams exactly the way I did before - it hasn't changed my good dreams. I also have anxiety dreams still (like the kind where you accidentally go to work with no clothes on). It seems to have specifically stopped the traumatic nightmares - which I like, because I actually like dreaming, though I still have a lot of the dreams I have always had about separation anxiety-type things, which I could do without. The biggest thing is that I don't have nightmares that wake me up in the middle of the night in a hyper vigilant panic and make me terrified to go to sleep. I have never slept this well in my life and I have tried many, many sleeping pills to try to solve my sleep problem. My doctor tells me that if I don't take it every night, that's okay. I work a job where I am occasionally required to work overnight, and I do get orthostatic hypotension from the prazosin, so I skip it on those nights, and sometimes I do have nightmares for a few nights after that, but my doctor says that that's more likely due to the disruption in my sleep rather than the prazosin. Prazosin has a short half life (about 3 hours) but I did still run into some problems with my blood pressure during the day, especially at first. The biggest thing is that you have to stand up slowly for a while, I've almost fallen a couple of times by trying to get up too fast. And you do have to check your blood pressure every so often, because some people get really low BP on it and can't take it anymore. My BP used to be around 120/80 and on prazosin it runs more like 110/70 or 100/70, but I tolerate that okay, so my doctor doesn't mind. I am sure that my BP runs much lower at night, and I do have to be careful getting up and walking around a few hours after I take it, because I will be quite lightheaded. A couple of times I have had to sit down or lie down on the floor because my BP suddenly dropped. This was all at night though, so the solution is to take it after I've brushed my teeth and then just stay in bed. The orthostatic hypotension is much better now anyway. The only annoying thing is that it gives me a REALLY dry mouth at night (I think) and I've been having some trouble with my teeth/gums that I think is because of that. I try to keep water by my bed and chew gum during the day, but it's an annoyance. Anyway. I may be a bit biased, but I am a big fan of prazosin. My nightmares were probably my very worst PTSD symptom, and they were making my life an absolute living hell. I do so much better now that I sleep. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
december_brigette Posted April 6, 2014 Share Posted April 6, 2014 Yes, I take it for PTSD nightmares and I have to take it every night. Sometimes if I take an extra long nap the bad nightmares will happen...but not as bad as the PTSD ones. (making a physical note of it to discuss with my pdoc). Anyway, I was going through a very stressful time of trying to find an apt or being homeless and the PTSD nightmares came at me full force. My pdoc was aware of the situation. I told him about the dreams and he said for me to try this. It worked the first night!!!! I still dream. Sometimes they aren't the most pleasant - one was I got a DUI in Mexico but I wasn't in jail and I wasn't the driver(I also ended up with 3 husbands but whatever...). But I didn't awake up afraid for myself or my child. I knew it was just a dream because I havent been to mexico in 25+ years and i've only been married once. That is nothing compared to the horrrible PTSD dreams. I take it at bedtime. I don't think it helps me sleep...I think it just stops those nightmares. I've had some big insomnia this week but I've still been taking all my meds. I hope this works for you and may your dreams be filled with peace, love, and teddy bears. xoxo, db Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
evilnessness Posted April 6, 2014 Author Share Posted April 6, 2014 (edited) Thanks for the information! My doctor bumped my dose up to 5 mg and I didn't remember any nightmares the first night but woke up with a racing heart. My sleep was pretty good tonight. Yay!!! Edited April 6, 2014 by evilnessness Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crodentia Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 I searched for this thread in order to look at information about dosage and how long it takes to build up. I've been taking it for nearly a month, and it doesn't seem to do anything for me. I think I may need to bump up my dosage. It worked at first, but now I don't notice any kind of difference; I still have nightmares. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tryp Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 It doesn't work for everyone - but I believe that it should work fairly immediately if it's going to. It's often dosed too low though. It works for some people at low doses, but in some of the VA trials, they were up to 12 mg. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crodentia Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Holy...I'm at 4 mg! I should definitely 1) look at the side effects again and 2) ask my doc to up the dose. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
tryp Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 (edited) Some docs are less comfortable with higher doses but don't give up on it yet - it might be able to go higher Edited June 2, 2014 by tryp Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crodentia Posted June 2, 2014 Share Posted June 2, 2014 Some docs are less comfortable with higher doses but don't give up on it yet - it might be able to go higher Thank you, tryp, and thank you everyone else, for the information. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Crodentia Posted June 3, 2014 Share Posted June 3, 2014 So here's a weird one: last night I had a nightmare, but didn't feel the emotions normally associated with my nightmares. In fact, the only reason I know it was a nightmare was because I woke up with my pulse racing, and then the emotion kicked in. So...progress? Sort of? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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