I have a prescription for zolpidem tartrate ER 12.5 but haven’t had any success finding it at either Publix or CVS pharmacies. Is anyone finding this medication and if so, which pharmacy? A pharmacist told me that pharmacies have different suppliers and sometimes one can have it in stock when others don’t.
Apparently there is a nationwide shortage of this medication that’s been ongoing for many months. My prescription has been on backorder for 4 months now.

Hi,
American here. I got a prescription for zolpidem tartrate (ambien) and presciption for adderall....yes please don't judge me...
I just don't want to get arrested or get my medication confiscated. Are these medication legal in Prague?
I also will be stopping in Zurich are these meds legal if I bring in carry on here as well?
​
​

This is an unfinished post. I will be adding more in the coming days and as people suggest them

*Disclaimer: These are my own personal experiences. Someone with less severe, occasional, or insomnia caused by other factors such as stress may not respond the same way as I do. Everyone's body and brain chemistry work differently and this is not a substitute for a doctor's advice. I have no medical training, just a lot of personal experience as I have been dealing with severe insomnia for well over 15 years. *
I see a lot of posts like "Experiences with _____?" and as someone who has tried almost everything, I decided sharing my experience with each one may be helpful. I'll be listing my overall experience, the pros and cons, and probably a rating out of 100. They'll all be sorted into their own drug categories. It's hard to remember everything I've taken, so if I've missed anything, please let me know in the comments. I'm also open o trying new things (legal and available in the US), so if you have any suggestions, I'll try them out and add them here,
For reference, I have pretty severe chronic insomnia that is clinically "idiopathic" but is made slightly worse from ADHD and recently acquired chronic pain. Even with the best sleep hygiene, without sleeping pills, I just don't sleep. I get around 1-3 hours of poor-quality sleep every 72-100 hours when I don't take anything.
Now for the list. I will be labeling each medication and/or group/class as such:
🔒 ^{Prescription required (USA})
🔓 ^{Available over the counter (USA})
✅ ^{Very safe/ low risk}
⚠️ ^{Moderate risk}
⚠️⚠️ ^{High risk}
🚫 ^{Very high risk. Should only be taken in severe and specific cases.}
💀 ^{Very dangerous. Do not consume.}
DOE - Duration of effects

🔒⚠️Sedative/ Hypnotics (Non-benzodiazepines or Z-drugs)

Sedative/ hypnotics, or "non-benzodiazepines" in general are the most widely prescribed treatment for insomnia. They are less dangerous than benzodiazepines, having a lower chance of dependence and lower mortality rate when combined with other depressants such as opioids. The word "non-benzodiazepine" is misleading, leading people to believe that they are "not" benzos, when they act very similarly, and on the same receptors, the just have a slightly different molecular structure and cannot be labelled as such. Although they are known to be safer, they still have a high chance of dependance, abuse, and adverse effects.
*Not all of these have been available to me, so I will only list the ones I've done. If you have similar insomnia to mine and I've tried ay that I haven't listed, let me know in the replies and I may add your experience.*
​
🔒⚠️Lunesta (Eszopiclone)
Dose Range: ^1-3mg
Onset: ^{30 - 90 minutes}
Duration of effects: ^{3 - 6 hours}
Experience:
I was on Lunesta for only a few months. I started at 2mg and shortly after, switched to 3mg. It took around an hour to kick in and I noticed a very strong metallic taste in my mouth shortly after I began to feel the effects. It was very strong, and water only made it worse, I had to have a glass of juice to drink in the middle of the night instead of water because the taste was so strong. It felt very similar to a mix of a low dose of Ambien and a low dose of Ativan. It was pretty subtle. It did not work to put me to sleep, but if I did fall asleep, it worked pretty well to keep me asleep. I was pretty disappointed it didn't work because it had a lot of promise. It was very relaxing and caused a good amount of drowsiness, so I could definitely see it working for someone who has slightly less severe insomnia. Though, I have read experiences from other people saying it did absolutely nothing for them, and others saying it works amazing, so it's definitely a hit or miss medication.
Pros: Slight euphoria but still a low chance of abuse, gives a sedating and confused feeling without the "Ambien urges", no next day drowsiness
Cons: Causes a terrible metallic taste, works for some but does nothing for others, possibility of dependence if take for more than a few weeks
Recommendation: 65/100 Would definitely recommend giving it a try if the typical "sleep hygiene, melatonin, and supplements" doesn't work for you. Not many downsides trying it out.
​
🔒⚠️Ambien IR (zolpidem instant release)
Dose Range: ^5-10mgOnset: ^{15 - 45 minutes}Duration of effects: ^{4 - 8 hours (therapeutic dose})Experience:
I've takes this many, many times (always 10mg). I've probably been prescribed it around 10 years total and it's still my go-to if nothing else is working. It starts to work in around 15 minutes, and I start to feel a little "weird", my mind starts to slow, and I start to take a little while to respond to people. It's a very uncommon side effect, but I always need to go to the bathroom shortly after it kicks in. It no longer causes any amnesia for me, but it's the most common side effect people notice. For me, it's a hit or miss. Sometimes it will knock me out within an hour of taking it, as long as i attempt to sleep. Sometimes ill be eup all night cleaning, cooking, or just doing semi-weird things. I've never done anything crazier than putting my mattress in the living room (for some reason) but some people will (rarely) sleep eat, sleep drive, and there have even been reports of murders done on ambien. But like I said, very rare. It does cause a delusion of sobriety, so people usually feel the need to take more than they need. I had a time where I had a pretty bad adverse effect because of this, mixing my dreams with reality and ended up calling the police. This is also very rare, especially if you only take it as prescribed. It does cause some depression if im in a bad place while taking it, nothing crazy, just a geeral low feeling. I have also had withdrawals a few times after stopping it. They're usually just a combination of feeling weird throughout the day and a terrible time sleeping at night. As in if I'm able to fall asleep, i toss and turn all night, wake up every 15-20 minutes, and get pretty confused when I wake up.
Pros: Great for onset insomnia, usually makes your mind too slow to stay awakeCons: Delusions of sobriety, odd behavior, can worsen depression, can cause dependency, does not keep you asleep, the high can be addicting
Recommendation: 90/100 I'd recommend this to anyone who's tried all of the non-scheduled medications and doesn't have a history of depression. As long as you set rules for yourself, like right after you swallow the pill don't get on social media, don't leave your front door, no cooking etc. and you have someone else kind of watch for any worrying behavior, it can be a great medication. There's a lot of scary stories, and I've listed some scary things here, but the majority of people either just go right to sleep or act a little silly. I'd highly recommend.

🔒⚠️⚠️Benzodiazepines

Benzodiazepines aren't usually prescribed to specifically treat insomnia. While there are a few that were created to treat insomnia, the others are usually only prescribed for short-term use or as a last line in chronic, treatment resistant insomnia. They are very addictive physically as well as psychologically and should be treated as such. They should not be demonized; people should take them carefully and be aware that tolerance builds quickly, and it doesn't take long to experience withdrawals. Withdrawals can range from very uncomfortable to deadly.
🔒⚠️Restoril (Temazepam):
Dose range: ^{7.5mg - 30mg}
Onset: ^{15-60 minutes}
Duration of effects: ^{30 minutes - 3 hours}
Experience:
I was prescribed this at 2 different points, 4-5 years apart. It felt very similar to any other weak benzo but had more of a "confusing" and drowsy feeling. I was prescribed 15mg, but occasionally took 30mg. I started to feel the effects around 15 minutes after ingestion on an empty stomach. It caused my mind to feel slowed, loss of short-term memory, muscle relaxation, and lethargy. I had to actively lay down and try to sleep in order to fall asleep, but sleep came pretty quickly. There were days I would take it and think I didn't feel it, so I would feel the need to take another. There was very mild drowsiness the day after, but it was negligible and gone within 20-30 minutes after getting out of bed. It only worked for 1-2 weeks before tolerance kicked in and I no longer felt the effects of the highest dose (30mg) and chose to switch to a different medication rather than cycle it. I did not have any withdrawal after stopping, as I've only ever taken it for a few weeks at a time.
Pros: Very sedating, no euphoria so low chance of abuse, short DOE so no next day drowsiness
Cons: Short DOE so you have a very small window to sleep, builds tolerance quickly, chance of dependance/withdrawal, delusion of sobriety can cause you to take more than needed.
Recommendation: 55/100 It worked well enough while it did work, and i can see it working even better for less severe insomnia. I would only recommend it to occasional or short-term insomnia due to stressful periods.
🔒⚠️Ativan (Lorazepam):
Dose range: ^0.5-2mg
Onset: ^{5-30 minutes}
Duration of effects: ^{4 - 8 hours}
Experience:
I've been on this a few times, once for around 8 months for anxiety (2mg, 3x a day), and once strictly for sleep (1mg 1x a night). It did not work on its own when I was taking it only at night, I always needed a Benadryl/other antihistamine and melatonin along with it. It did help with the anxiety around not being able to sleep. When I was taking it regularly throughout the day, it worked amazing when it came to sleep. I was so tired after being on it all day that I passed out at the same time every night and woke up feeling very refreshed at the same time each morning. I would never recommend (nor would any doctor prescribe) taking it multiple times a day just to be able to sleep at night. It did cause lots of "dramatic" and irrational behaviors, periodic suicidal ideation, and a suicide attempt that I had no memory of. This is an uncommon side effect for benzos (which is why I only put moderate risk), but it does occasionally happen when taking any depressant medication. Since I was taking it frequently for months on end, I did end up withdrawing pretty badly. I had tremors, terrible anxiety, a general "weird and very uncomfortable" feeling, then eventually short-lived delusions and auditory hallucinations a few weeks after stopping cold turkey.
Pros: Very good for sleep anxiety, long DOE, mildly sedating, mild or no euphoria so less likely than other benzos to be abused
Cons: Cannot be taken with alcohol, possibility of depression or suicidal thoughts/ideation, very likely chance of dependance and withdrawal
Recommendation: 30/100 I would not personally recommend this medication to treat insomnia alone. It DOES have some sedating effects, but not any better than some less dangerous medications. If this medication works for your insomnia, it's likely that there is a safer alternative. The only time I would recommend it, is if you have no history of suicide attempts or severe depression, you have severe anxiety, and it is cycled frequently with one or more other non-benzo medications.
🔒⚠️⚠️Valium (Diazepam):
Dose range: ^2-20mg
​
Onset: ^{20 - 40 minutes}
​
Duration of effects: ^{4 - 10 hours}
Experience: I was on this recently, I started at 2mg and switched to 5mg. It did not work for me at all, I felt nothing even when taking more than prescribed. I've had a similar experience when I've been given it before procedures such as a wisdom tooth extraction. It is the weakest benzodiazepine in my opinion.
Pros: Can be mildly sedation for some people, very long DOE, very mild morning drowsiness
Cons: Chance of dependence and withdrawal, lots of people report euphoria so it's likely to be abused, cannot be consumed with alcohol
Recommendation: 10/100 Since this medication has no effect on me for some reason, I can't really recommend or not recommend it. but based on my own experience, I couldn't recommend it for anything but occasional severe anxiety attacks.
​
🔒⚠️⚠️Klonopin (Clonazepam)
Dose range: ^{0.5 - 2mg}
Onset: ^{20 - 60 minutes}
Duration of effects: ^{8 - 12 hours}
Experience: This is the medication mi currently on. I take 1mg and cycle with 25-50mg of Unisom to avoid tolerance and dependence. I take the clonazepam for 2-3 weeks and then switch to Unisom util it no longer has an effect. I've been on it for around 6 months. I started by taking it like a normal pill and it took 30-45 minutes to kick in, but medication doesn't seem to be absorbing anymore when I swallow it, so I now take it sublingually. It takes around 15 minutes to dissolve fully, and I start to feel it by the time its fully dissolved. This is another one that I have to actively try to go to sleep, because I don't actually feel mentally tired while on it. Once I attempt to sleep, I'm usually out in less than 5-10 minutes and I sleep very deeply for at least 10-12 hours. It's honestly been the only thing that has ever worked this well. I do have some next day drowsiness that lasts 30 minutes to an hour after getting out of bed. It only works for a few weeks until I have to take a break and switch to Unisom, but once I switch back to the clonazepam, it works just as amazing as before. I have slight amnesia while on it, but it's never caused me to do anything crazy. It does cause an increased sex drive for me personally.
Pros: Increased sex drive while on it (pro for me, con for some), very sedating, muscle relaxant, little next day drowsiness compared to some other medications.
Cons: Increased appetite while on it, muscle relaxant properties can cause sore muscles, big chance of dependance, can cause euphoria so high chance of abuse.
Recommendation: 70/100 I would recommend this to anyone besides people in a similar situation as me. If you haven't tried everything else, don't try this. If nothing else works, you don't have a history of addiction, your insomnia is very severe, and you're aware that you can't continuously take it every night, I would highly recommend as long as you take the lowest dose that works for you.
​
🔒🚫Xanax (Alprazolam)
Dose range: ^{0.25 - 2mg}
Onset: ^{20 - 40 minutes}
Duration of effects: ^{5 - 8 hours}
Experience: I will say that I've never been prescribed this specifically for insomnia, but I *have* taken it to sleep many times. It's similar to the klonopin, where (at low doses) you have to actively try to go to sleep. The higher the dose you take, he easier it is to sleep. It's VERY sedating. I've never been able to actually stay asleep after taking it, I aways wake up, wide awake, 3 - 5 hours after falling asleep. It is similar to the lorazepam in the way that it caused me to be very dramatic, angry, and very depressed. It also is far more euphoric, mind-slowing, and lowers your inhibitions far more than any other benzos listed. If you take a high dose, it's likely that you will do something you wouldn't normally do and wake up without memory of it. I also had the worst withdrawal by far from this medication. After stopping cold turkey, I had an episode (not sure how long, at least a 1 1/2 months) where I basically had a psychotic break. I was completely I my own world and had delusions, auditory hallucinations, tactile hallucinations, and visual hallucinations. I had no idea where I was or who my family was and would regularly leave my house thinking someone was after me. I had multiple seizures and haven't been the same since this incident. I am, by no means, trying to demonize Xanax, plenty of people are already doing that, I just want to make everyone aware that this medication is not to be taken lightly.
Pros: Very sedating, no morning drowsiness
Cons: Very euphoric so high chance of abuse, likely to cause "benzo/bar rage", very high chance of dependence, does not keep you asleep
Recommendation: 0/100 (for insomnia) This medication is very rarely prescribed for insomnia now anyways, but I would only recommend it I the most serious cases of medication and treatment resistant insomnia, and only for a very short time just to be able to get *some* sleep when the insomnia is becoming dangerous. Its great medication for debilitating anxiety attacks, but i would never take it for insomnia unless I was at the point of wanting to end things because I couldn't handle not sleeping anymore.
Sources:
https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Restoril
https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Ativan
https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Valium
https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Klonopin
https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Xanax
https://psychcentral.com/anxiety/lunesta-lowers-anxiety-improves-sleep#safety-precautions
https://psychonautwiki.org/wiki/Ambien

I have a very specific experience on both Ambien (Zolpidem) and Lunesta (Eszopiclone) that I know, from conversation, other people share. I’ve had several people say, “Yeah, that happens to me too!” But I haven’t come across yet in this community.
I get about 3.5 to 4 hours sleep, then wake up somewhat suddenly (not like a startle or shock, just suddenly awake, with eyes open). I’m then very awake and can’t fall back asleep, at least for several hours, by which time it’s too late anyway.
It happens to my wife too, and she calls it “Turning on the lights”. My friend calls it the “3 and a half hour Ambien wake up call”.
I switched from Ambien to Lunesta a few years ago to see if it’d be different, but got the same result.
My hypothesis is that, as the drug wears off to a threshold that starts to become noticeable to the body (the half life of both drugs is 6 hours, so I guess 4 hours would be about 30% elimination), it actually triggers some people to wake up. But I don’t know jack about psychopharmacology.
I still take Lunesta about once a week. Specifically on nights when I really really can’t fall asleep. I figure that 4 hours of the weird, fake-feeling, buzzy-head ambien/lunesta sleep is better than 1-2 hours of restless regular sleep.
Is there an actual scientist or drug expert out there who can corroborate my hypothesis, or provide another explanation to this drug reaction that I know others have had?

1. Women were routinely excluded from medical research because of andronormativity.Which led to women being underrepresented in medical research historically.

There is this idea that prior to 1993 when the NIH created the revitalization act,there was wholesale and routine exclusion of women from clinical trials because researchers just wanted to focus on men. However, the reality is more complex than the simplistic narrative that women were just excluded because we don’t care about them. Now there is a grain of truth to the idea that women were excluded from clinical trials, the FDA released guidelines in 1977 recommending that women of childbearing potential are excluded from phase l and early phase ll clinical trials.The fact that these guidelines exist to some people is evidence of women’s health being neglected because they are women, but when you look at what the guidelines say,it becomes clear that the FDA’s goal was not to exclude women because they thought it wasn’t important to include them in clinical trials.
They are instead taking a cautious approach to including women in clinical trials due to what happened with the thalidomide scandal.They wanted to ensure another tragedy like that doesn’t happen again. This is why they only recommend not including women of childbearing potential in the early phases of clinical trials where they are trying to ensure that it is safe, and find out the appropriate dosage to use. They make sure that there is at least some evidence of this drug being safe to administer in a specific dosage before risking giving it to a woman who is pregnant or may become pregnant. Phase ll and lll of the clinical trials test both safety and effectiveness with a much larger sample of people.
The document also makes it clear that these are not mandatory requirements for continuing clinical trials or getting new drugs approved. These are recommendations, some people interpreted this guideline as most women being banned from clinical trials altogether. However, that is not what the guideline says. So part of the reason why this idea came about is because of people misinterpreting and/or misrepresenting what the guideline actually says. Usually because they get their information from secondary sources instead of looking at the actual guideline. When you look at the guideline it is clear that the FDA is not against women being included in clinical trials, or just disinterested in studying women. They tried to strike a balance between safety and inclusion.
Inaddition to this, people also believe that women were underrepresented in clinical trials due to them being routinely excluded. This perception of women being underrepresented in clinical trials is what led multiple government agencies to create national offices dedicated to women’s health. Perception is not necessarily reality though. The truth is that there is no evidence of women being underrepresented in clinical trials overall. This study shows that women were a slight majority of participants in clinical trials and epidemiological studies, and another study also shows no evidence of women being routinely excluded from clinical trials. Some women may have been excluded in trials for certain reasons, but overall there was no pervasive bias against women that lead to them being excluded. Some people have pointed out the fact that women are underrepresented in clinical trials for certain diseases like heart disease and aids, then claimed that this is evidence of disregard for women’s health.
However, there are actually reasonable explanations for why less women were in these trials that have nothing to do with sexism. Heart disease was thought to only really affect men for a while due to a limitation of the Framingham study were they only included people under 68 in their sample. The problem with this is that heart attacks and heart disease tends to affect women later on in life. So the study appeared to show that these cardiovascular health issues were not really a problem for women which is why they were excluded from some of the earlier trials. Another reason why women may be exclude from heart diseases trials is due to them having more comorbidities and taking more medications, because they tend to get the disease later on life when they are older and sicker. These are extra variables to take into account which makes it more difficult to study heart disease interventions in women.
When it comes to aids, the disease was thought to only affect gay men for a while, because the first cases of the disease were in gay men. More women were included in clinical trials once it was recognized that they get the disease as well. This is all discussed in more detail in this article.Also, women were not even the only ones to be underrepresented in clinical trials for certain diseases. As the studies show, men were underrepresented in clinical trials on cancer, reproduction, and sex hormones, so this is obviously not a gendered issue. So overall, what we can take away from all this information is that women were not routinely excluded from clinical trials on the basis of their sex because of anti-female bias. When women were excluded there was usually a reasonable explanation for it. Some seemingly arbitrary cases of exclusion happen for both men and women.

2. Women get worse health care treatment due to gender bias.

Another claim that gets made a lot by feminists is that there is widespread anti-female bias in health care leading to worse treatment for women. The evidence to support this claim typically comes from studies showing that women receive less of some form of medical treatment compared to men. This could be painkillers, referrals, medical procedures, etc. The mainstream media has made this claim and has cited these studies as proof that women’s pain is not taken as seriously as men’s pain. A perfect example of this can be found in this episode of The last week tonight show with John Oliver.In this episode John Oliver cites multiples studies to back up this claim, if you were to just look at this episode you might think there is widespread bias against women in health care, but if you dig deeper and do research on this topic you may come to a different conclusion. Let’s look at the studies that John Oliver cited. The first claim he made about women being less likely to be referred for knee replacements then men came from a quote in an article by The New York Times, I was not able to find the study to support this claim, because there was no reference to it listed below or in the article, so I will skip this claim.
The next claim he made regarding life-saving interventions comes from this study.This study was a prospective cohort study meaning that men and women who were admitted into the hospital were simply observed overtime to see what treatments they received. According to the study they were actually able to account for some relevant factors like comorbidities, severity of illness, and diagnosis, but there were other relevant factors that they could not account for like presentation of disease, race, type of medical insurance, patient preference, etc.The researchers acknowledges this limitation in the study and says this.

Our study had several limitations. Because it was observational, we were unable to establish causal relations. We also were unable to determine population prevalence rates for all ICU admission diagnoses and, thus, could not explore reasons for different admission rates among men and women for all conditions. Similarly, information was not available for all critically ill patients in all ICUs in Ontario. However, we used a broad spectrum of teaching and community hospitals and ICUs within a research network well known for its ability to capture valid and detailed information at the patient level. There may have been variables that we were unable to measure that had important effects on the reported associations.

This study cannot be used to claim that there is a bias against women in health care which leads to them getting inferior treatment, but it is being presented as if it can. The next study is about gender disparities in receiving painkillers for abdominal pain. The study found that women received less opioid analgesics then men. This study also suffers from some limitations that prevents the researchers from making a definitive claim of gender bias. This is why they use more conservative language by claiming that gender bias is a possible explanation for the disparities.

Gender bias is a possible explanation for oligoanalgesia in women who present to the ED with acute abdominal pain. Standardized protocols for analgesic administration may ameliorate this discrepancy.

One major issue with this study is that they did not record follow-up pain scores which may have influenced analgesia administration. They were also unable to control for the severity of illness, and comorbidities. Another issues is that they could not determine whether or not patients refused treatment. Also, other factors that are very relevant for this particular study are reasons for why the health care professionals did not prescribe opioid analgesics. Health care professionals may be hesitant to prescribe opioids because it can lead to addiction. If a patient has a history of opioid addiction then that may be a reason to not administer opioids.Lastly, they also did not measure nonanalgesic medications to treat abdominal pain. Below is a quote from the study.

We also did not measure the use of Non analgesic medications to treat abdominal pain (e.g., H2 receptor antagonists, proton pump inhibitors, gastrointestinal ‘‘cocktails’’).

So again, this study cannot be used to claim that there is gender bias against women in health care. Lastly, you can read this article addressing the claims made about heart attacks if you want.
This is something that you will see a lot with these studies that people cite to claim gender bias. There are some important variables that are not controlled for in these studies. This is because health care treatment is such a complex thing that is influenced by so many factors that it is essentially impossible to create a study that controls for all of them, especially when you consider unobservable variables, like the way the patient communicates with their health care provider. This is one of the main reasons why I don’t think there is sufficient evidence to claim that there is gender bias in health care. There are so many things that can influence treatment. Age, race, painscore, diagnosis, comorbidities, hospital overcrowding, patient preference, insurance, location, contraindications based on test results, etc. So as you can see, health care treatment is very complex and there are a lot of factors to consider. Another issue that could potentially lead to more women being misdiagnosed or having negative experiences in healthcare, is the fact that the prevalence of autoimmune diseases is higher in women compared to men. Autoimmune diseases are difficult to diagnose, because the symptoms overlap with symptoms of other diseases.
This can lead to women being misdiagnosed more then men or feeling like their being gaslit by doctors. There could also be differences in the presentation of some conditions in men and women that may contribute to either sex being relatively more likely to be underdiagnosed or misdiagnosed. For example, girls may be better at masking their autism which can lead to them being under diagnosed, while boys may show more obvious signs of dysfunction. Additionally, studies don’t consistently show that women are given less treatment. There are multiples studies showing no difference and there are also studies showing that men were given less treatment. You might have seen feminist cite this research article or this one to prove that there is pervasive bias against women in health care. However, if you look at the studies cited in these papers not only do they suffer from some major limitations which includes not controlling for the many variables that I listed above, but they are also cherry picked studies that only show women getting less painkillers. Here are some other studies with different results.
Gender-Associated Differences in Emergency Department Pain Management

The patients were evaluated by 84 providers, 60 of them male. According to the providers surveyed, female patients described more pain than did male patients (P<.01) and were perceived by providers to experience more pain (P =.03). Female patients received more medications (P<.01) and were less likely to receive no medication (P =.01). Female patients also received more potent analgesics (P =.03). Linear and logistic regression analysis showed that patient perception of pain was the strongest predictor of the number and strength of medications given; patient gender was not a predictor.

Impact of Physician and Patient Gender on Pain Management in the Emergency Department

Analgesic administration rates were not significantly different for female and male patients (63% vs 57%, P = 0.08), although females presenting with severe pain (NRS ≥8) were more likely to receive analgesics (74% vs 64%, P = 0.02).

No gender-related bias in acute musculoskeletal pain management in the emergency department

Pain management measures (ie, analgesia administration, waiting time for analgesia, pain relief and patients' satisfaction) were prospectively assessed in 328 patients (150 women and 178 men, average age 36±18 years) who were treated in our ED for acute musculoskeletal pain. Patients' subjective pain rating on arrival were similar for men and women (59±24 mm vs 61±26 mm, respectively; p=0.47). Interestingly, physicians using the same scale assessed the women's pain level to be higher than that of men (75±25 mm vs 63±22 mm, respectively; p<0.001) and higher than that of women's subjective pain rating (75±25 mm vs 61±26 mm respectively; p<0.001). Nevertheless, the rates of analgesia administration, waiting time for analgesia, pain relief and patient satisfaction were similar for both genders. Physicians' own gender did not affect analgesic care.

Prevalence and treatment of pain in adults admitted to Italian hospitals

The probability of receiving analgesic treatment was higher for women (OR ¼ 1.33, 95%CI: 1.14–1.54) and significantly lower for general medicine wards compared to surgical wards (OR ¼ 0.55, 95%CI: 0.45–0.64), while it was unrelated both to the patient’s self-reported pain and to the level of pain assessed by the nurse (Table 4).

Do Gender and Race Affect Decisions About Pain Management?

No overall differences with respect to patient gender or race were found in decisions to treat or in the maximum permitted doses.

Disparities in Analgesia and Opioid Prescribing Practices for Patients With Musculoskeletal Pain in the Emergency Department

No gender or financial status disparities were found.

Pain in the Emergency Department with One-Week Follow-Up of Pain Resolution

Women were no less likely to have received analgesics in the ED (24%, versus 22% for men) or to not be prescribed analgesics (33%, versus 35% for men), although they were more likely (60%, versus 39% for men) to have taken analgesics in the week following the ED visit (χ2[1]=7.490, P<0.004).

Some other studies have been cited to claim that women get inadequate treatment for heart attacks, because they receive less aggressive treatment then men. However,one of the major confounders that is not adjusted for is age. Women tend to be older then men when they get heart attacks. Older people regardless of gender also receive less aggressive treatment. This could possibly be due to greater potential risk because older patients tend to be sicker and more frail. This paper cites tons of studies that find differences in treatment with men receiving more aggressive treatment, and tons of other studies that show little to no difference in treatment. The studies that show little to no difference control for age, while the others don’t. The exception to this was with bypass surgeries were the results were mixed even after age was adjusted for. The researchers suggests this could be due to some other factors.

Proposed explanations for gender differences include possible sex-related differences in anatomy (e.g., blood vessel size), operative risk and suitability for percutaneous coronary intervention (PCI) versus bypass surgery (Rathore et al. 2003; Bertoni et al. 2004; Jacobs and Eckel 2005; Barrett-Connor 2007).

I think this paper illustrates the point I’m trying to make. There are many factors that influence health care treatment. Therefore, I don’t think people can claim gender bias based on these observational studies.There is another paper reviewing 90 studies on gender differences in stroke treatment that came to this conclusion.

Sex differences in stroke treatment and outcome are small, with no unequivocal proof of sex discrimination. Women have less favorable functional outcome because of higher age at stroke onset and more severe strokes.

Aside from observational studies, there are some experimental studies using vignettes and virtual human patients. Vignette studies are studies where participants are presented with a hypothetical scenario, and then are asked what they think about it. The results of vignette studies are mixed. Some show no difference, while others show that women are perceived as being in more pain. In virtual human patient studies participants are shown videos of a virtual patient expressing pain, and they are asked what they think about it. These studies mostly show that women are perceived as being in more pain.

Virtual human patient studies

The influence of sex, race, and age on pain assessment and treatment decisions using virtual human technology: a cross-national comparison

Additional research has consistently shown that patient demographic characteristics such as sex,race, and age may influence the pain assessment and treatment decisions of health care trainees and professionals.Citation8–Citation14 Virtual human (VH) technology has been used to demonstrate that females are perceived as experiencing higher pain intensityCitation8,Citation9,Citation12–Citation15 and are more likely to be recommended medical treatmentCitation8,Citation9,Citation12–Citation14.

SEX AND RACE DIFFERENCES IN RATING OTHERS’ PAIN, PAIN-RELATED NEGATIVE MOOD, PAIN COPING, AND RECOMMENDING MEDICAL HELP

Both male and female participants rated pain intensity for female VHs as significantly higher than that for male VHs, F (1, 73) = 4.92, p < 0.05. Both Caucasian and African American participants rated pain intensity for female VHs significantly higher than that for male VHs, F (1, 73) = 6.93, p < 0.05.
A main effect for sex of VHs on sex of participants was found. Both male and female participants’ ratings for recommending medical help were significantly higher for female VHs than that for male VHs, F (1, 73) = 5.98, p < 0.05.

Pain Assessment and Treatment Decisions for Virtual Human Patients

Participants assessed VH patients who were male as having greater pain intensity than those who were female, F(1, 90)=11.74, p=0.001, partial η2=0.12. Table 2 presents the results for pain intensity.
There were no significant findings for pain treatment ratings. Table 2 presents the nonsignificant results for willingness to administer opioid analgesics.

Vignette studies

This is a systematic review of 5 studies.4 of the 5 studies are vignette studies, and 1 is observational

Patient satisifaction surveys

Additionally, the 2018 study about gender norms in health care is a theory-guided literature review. Which means that it is a paper that is designed to only look at studies with gender disparities, and studies about gender norms in health care. They mention this in the paper.

This review was theory-guided with a preunderstanding that gendered norms exist in health care, which has influenced the selection of our search terms. Our directed literature search might be criticized as it potentially excluded studies that did not find/report gender differences. However, the aim of this study was not to prove if gendered norms in health care exist, which earlier research already has shown [2, 3, 13], but to collect and analyze gendered norms and gender bias as described in pain literature and deepen the knowledge about them.

This paper also doesn’t give us an idea to what extent this actually affects treatment in general. Studies that look into gender norms are qualitative, they have to be to get the in-depth information that is needed to know more about gender norms. The downside of this is that the generalizability is very limited with qualitative studies. I think if we are going to really try to understand how pervasive the issue is, some sort of quantitative survey would be more useful. The best thing that I could think of is patient satisfaction surveys. These surveys are meant to give you an idea of the quality of healthcare services that patients receive .Lets look at some of them.
These first two are from Gallup, overall men and women showed no difference in patient satisfaction scores. There were small differences in some measures, but no difference overall.
Gender Comparisons: Patient Satisfaction and Loyalty
Healthcare Satisfaction: Men vs. Women
The next source is a systematic review. This paper found that women had slightly lower odds of submitting a patient satisfaction score that was higher than men’s. The odds ratio was 0.98 which means they were 2% less likely to submit a higher score. The author said this difference was not likely to be relevant, and that this systematic review alleviates any concerns that gender might impact patient satisfaction scores.Next, we have the 2022 kff women’s health survey. This survey showed that women were more likely to have at least one negative interaction in the past two years, but the difference is not huge.38% of women reported having at least one negative interaction in the past two years, compared to 32% of men. Lastly, here is a report titled “Gender Disparities In Health Care in Medicare advantage". I thought it would be a good idea to include this one because alot of older people with health conditions use Medicare. According to the report, the patient experience was similar for men and women across all 8 patient experience measures.
Even though these surveys also can’t control for the various factor that influence treatment, at least they can give us any idea of how health care services are for men and women in general. I think these surveys cast doubt on claims of pervasive misogyny in health care. So to summarize, there are three lines of evidence used to support the claim that women are mistreated in health care, observational studies, virtual human patient studies, and vignette studies. Observational studies show mixed results, and do not account for many important variables, some of which are unobservable. This means that they are not adequate to support the claim that women are being mistreated because their women. Virtual human patients studies are probably the strongest evidence, because they are the best simulation of a real world interaction, while also still having experimental control. The participants get to see the virtual human patients facial expressions like they would see with a person in real life. It is not exactly the same of course, but it is the closest to a real world situation. Most of the virtual human patient studies I found showed that women were actually perceived as being in more pain, and were more likely to be recommended medical treatment.
I was only able to find one study showing that men are perceived as having greater pain intensity, but there was no difference in pain treatment rating or willingness to administer opioid analgesics. Now there could be studies that I overlooked, but given the amount of studies that I found showing that women were perceived to be in more pain. I think that it is safe to say that the results of virtual humans studies are likely to be at the very least mixed. Then there are the vignette studies where participants are just shown written hypothetical scenarios. The problem with this is that text based vignettes lack ecological validity, because reading a hypothetical scenario is very different from dealing with a patient in real life. The results of the vignette studies were mixed. Another thing that I noticed that is worth mentioning is that a lot the vignette studies and virtual human patient studies had small unrepresentative samples. This severally limits the generalizability of these studies. There is also little to no difference in patient satisfaction between men and women.
Overall, I don’t think there is sufficient evidence to claim that men or women are dealing with widespread mistreatment in health care settings due to there sex. I think that it is a given that there will be some legitimate cases of sexism in health care, but i don’t think there is sufficient evidence to claim that there is pervasive sexism against women in health care.

3. Women are routinely over medicated, because drugs are not tested on women.

Whenever I see this claim being made, this is the source that is cited. However, this is kind of misleading because the study that is cited isn’t conclusive, and they even acknowledge that they have not definitively proven that women are being routinely over medicated.

Among the 27 drugs for which VB ratios were the only format of adverse event data, sex-biased PKs predicted sex-biased VigiBase ADR reporting ratios in 74% of instances (20 of 27 drugs were PK–VB ratio “concordant,” Table 2). In all but a few instances, VigiBase contained thousands of ADR reports, but as noted above, the number of men and women treated with each drug was not specified, nor are the links between the drug and specific ADRs known. It remains likely that some ADR sex differences in the VigiBase reflect unequal numbers of women and men treated with a given drug.

There are some other studies that analyze the proportion of women included in clinical trials for drugs, as well the subgroup analysis of drugs, and the safety and efficacy of those drugs for men and women. Here are those studies linked below.
Gender differences in clinical registration trials: is there a real problem?

Our data showed that, overall, women are studied in adequate proportions, and that some type of gender subgroup analysis is performed for most drugs that are approved. The subgroup analyses on efficacy showed that the majority of drugs are equally effective in males and females. While there was a higher proportion of females with side effects compared with males, these differences were relatively small, and likely to be of little clinical significance. It is important to realize that gender difference is one of many variables that cause variability in drug response for efficacy and/or safety in any target population. Other factors include weight, age, genotype, phenotype, ethnicity, hormonal status, fasting conditions, polymorphisms of metabolizing enzymes, receptor expression and sensitivity, co-medication interactions, co-morbidities, pregnancy status, gut microbiome status 18-22. Many of these factors are known to induce substantially more variability than gender if they are distributed heterogeneously in the target population .

Sex based subgroup differences in randomized controlled trials: empirical evidence from Cochrane meta-analyses

Our empirical evaluation of statistically significant sex-treatment interactions from the CDSR revealed only eight (7%) statistically significant sex-treatment interactions among 109 topics. This is not much beyond what would be expected by chance alone. With only eight statistically significant interactions, it is likely that the number of false positives outnumbered the number of true positives. Also, certain reviews had more than one topic, which could lead to an overlap of topics with non-independent data. However, even when we selected only one topic for each review or allowed for multiple comparisons with one outcome per review, the statistically significant sex-treatment interactions would still be uncommon (4/41 (10%) and 7/61 (12%), respectively), not far from what is expected from chance.

Differences in Efficacy and Safety of Pharmaceutical Treatments between Men and Women: An Umbrella Review

Findings, based on 59 studies and data of more than 250,000 patients suggested that for the majority of drugs no substantial differences in efficacy and safety exist between men and women. Some clinically important exceptions, however, were apparent: women experienced substantially lower response rates with newer antiemetics than men (45% vs. 58%; relative risk 1.49, 95% confidence interval 1.35–1.64); men had higher rates of sexual dysfunction than women while on paroxetine for major depressive disorder; women discontinued lovastatin more frequently than men because of adverse events. Overall, for the majority of drugs sex does not appear to be a factor that has to be taken into consideration when choosing a drug treatment.

So, overall this evidence goes against the claim of women being routinely overmedicated, and also shows that drugs are tested on women. Most drugs seem be about equally safe and effective for men and women, with some drugs being either worse for women or men. Now when it comes to how many adverse drug reactions are reported, it is true that women report more ADR’s then men, but men seem to report more serious and fatal ADR’s.
Reported adverse drug reactions in women and men

We find that female ADR reports outnumber male ADR reports across the globe, in all adult ages and by all available reporter types. Male reports however, to a larger extent, more often contain serious and fatal ADRs than female reports.

However, this is not solid evidence that women are being routinely overmedicated. There are so many factors that can cause the disparity, one of them being the use of contraceptive, which the study did control for, and this reduced the proportion of women reporting ADR’s. The fact that men report more serious and fatal ADR’s could also suggest that women are more likely to report ADR’s in general even if there not as serious. There are numerous reasons for why this could be the case, and the study suggests a few reasons. The main takeaway though, is that this is far from definitive proof. This is just information from a database that people can report to, with no way to actually prove causation.
Lastly, feminist will mention the drug zolpidem as a prime example of androcentrism in medical research, but even this has been widely contested.

4. Women’s health is underfunded.

This claim originated from this study.Which was then discussed in this nature article.In the study, the total numbers of Daly’s for a disease is compared to the NIH funding for that disease to determine if the funding for the disease is commensurate with the disease burden, or if it is underfunded or overfunded. Then they look at the proportion of men and women with the disease and categorize the disease as either gender neutral, female semi-dominant, female dominant, male semi-dominant, or male-dominant. If a disease is underfunded and female/male dominant it is consider male favoring or female favoring. Disease are consider gender neutral if the proportion of people with the disease are 50-55% of one sex, disease that are semi-dominant range from 55-60%,and dominant disease are disease that are at 60% or higher.In the study they also count the total number of male-favoring, and female-favoring diseases. This is determined by looking if the male or female dominant disease is either underfunded or over-funded. So for example, a male dominant disease that is over-funded is consider male-favoring, but a male dominant disease that is underfunded is consider female-favoring.
So that pretty much sums up the methodology. I think that there are multiples issues with this study that invalidates it. One of the major issues is that this study doesn’t take severity into account when determine if women’s health is underfunded as a whole. Instead the total number of female-favoring and male-favoring diseases are just counted up, and then it gives a percentage of the amount that is male-favoring. I think this is too simplistic. For example why should a headache be counted equally compared to liver cancer. Shouldn’t the underfunding of liver cancer be given more weight, because it is a more severe health condition? Another, issue that I see is with the actual measure that is used. The DALY works by adding the total of numbers of years lost and years of disability together to create this number that represents the overall disease burden for a disease. This seems fine, until you consider the fact that this would mean allocating more funds to people with diseases that are less severe for them as individual patients. There is a good example of what I’m talking about in this paper discussing whether or not health research funding should be proportional to disease burden.

To give a concrete example, according to the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, the total DALY burden attributable to lung cancer in some HICs is similar to that attributable to low back pain (Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, 2021b). Both are the cause of very substantial disability and—in the case of lung cancer—many early deaths. But the prevalence of low back pain is several orders of magnitude greater than the prevalence of lung cancer. Low back pain is just not as bad for an individual patient as lung cancer (this is like Scenario 4). If the arguments I have given so far are correct, this suggests that, conditional on scientific opportunity, more funding should be allocated to lung cancer research than to low back pain research.

The next issue that I have with this article is that it does not take into account the many other factors besides disease burden that determines funding. One of them being scientific opportunity. Which is the benefit that you can expect for the amount of money you allocate for a particular disease. This is actually mentioned in the paper under the section titled “ Disease burden as a funding criterion and NIH funding priorities". So I think I have shown that health research funding is more complex then what this study presents, and when you are comparing different disease there are many factors that need to be considered. This study uses an indirect and oversimplified way of determining commensurate funding. Which is why I don’t think that it actually proves that women’s health is underfunded. So what would be a better way to compare women’s health funding to men’s health funding? We can look at this report by the office of research on women’s health. If you look at pg. 112-117 you can see charts showing the NIH budget for health conditions. In total, funding for women's health is twice that of men’s health. The charts shows the budget for men and women’s health for each disease. There are some massive disparities in sex-specific funding in some diseases where men are affected just as much or more than women. Some examples are lung cancer, stroke, and suicide. I think this a more apt comparison, because you can compare funding for the same diseases.

5.Women have worse post-operative outcomes with male surgeons(Misogyny!)

This is the study that is cited to backup this claim. This is an observational study that only finds an association between male surgeon & female patient sex discordance and worse post-operative outcomes. They cannot determines the reasons for why this happens, but there are various reasons why this could be the case, besides hostile discrimination against women. Below are some good critiques of this study, and the conclusions that people draw from them.
Avfm
Comment on study
Conclusion: The evidence for medical misogyny is either inconclusive or invalid.

Other relevant sources

There is still no women’s health crisis
Sex bias myth in medicine
Letter to White House on boys and men’s health

Theory Based on the Trump WH ‘Pharmacy aka Stashhouse’ documents revealed… Business Insider Story & Image linked here: https://www.businessinsider.com/white-house-medical-unit-distributed-drugs-improperly-report-2024-1 You can look into it and ill admit, stuff like Fentanyl patches and Morphine are nothing to worry about, they are legit prescriptions for legit medical issues/pain and based on the documents they werent prescribed or used much at all, HOWEVER there are two drugs that you may notice stand out BIGTIME and imo they explain a LOT about Trumps mental state. Before i mention them i also want to point out another issue, the WH refused to use taxpayer money on the literally 174x cheaper versions of one of the drugs and paid something like 70x as much to get name brand drug over generic…And those two drugs are both Schedule IV btw:
#1.) Provigil (aka Modafinil, a stimulant prescribed to narcoleptics and people who do jobs like military pilots etc - it was originally called the ‘limitless pill’ and a ‘neutropic smart drug’ but i can tell you firsthand, its a stimulant that does everything illegal stimjlants do minus euphoria…#2.) Ambien (aka Zolpidem Tartrate) a hypnotic sleep aid - aka basically the total opposite of ProvigilNow let me explain my Occam's Razor (most logical) based theory on why these drugs were given out in SUCH high amounts (even one aid said they made ‘go bags’ for when they had to travel internationally and described it as ‘about 5 provigils and 5 Ambiens in a ziploc bag’ - sound shady af much?
Re: Provigil/Modafinil:It’s a stimulant & something i was given once in my younger stupider uni days when everyone had a RX for adderall/ritalin and during finals week everyone like me without an RX owould clamor for them, Provigil was given to me cuz it was all they could get but it was SUPER cheap on the dark web back then and even today from what i can tell, it felt like adderal/ritilin that lasted for EVER but without much euphoria but also without a lot of peaks/drops, its quite consistent…but i took it at noon and was laying in bed at 4am after my studying lookin at the ceiling texting the guy ‘wtf did u just give me?!”
But to tie it to Trump, its the PERFECT drug to justify his insane late night rants/lack of sleep/speed-y energy at times without him ever failing a drug test as almost NO standard tests will show Modafinil/Provigil- as he often brags about operating on 5hrs of sleep a night (btw studies show if u get less than 7hrs for most of ur life itll take an avg of 10yrs off ur lifespan - also i work in mental health and the FIRST/biggest symptom of not getting enough sleep is ‘lack of emotional regulation’ - if thats not Trump in a nutshell idk what is (well maybe narcissistic R*pist but u get my point)
Now, Re: Ambien:As most know, Ambien is a hardcore hypnotic sleep aid - and as many people know, if u take it and DONT fall asleep you can end up having insane hallucinatinos and serious mental issues where u seem actually insane, i took it as a dumb kid at like midday to see what it was like but just felt drunk af but friends said i was talking crazy (see where im going with this?)
I think that Trumps beeing playing a dangerous game of ‘stay up on Provigil from 6am to 1am, pop an AMbien so he can get SOME sleep…and im sure it works to an extent (though its terrible for ur heart to mix uppers/downers) but it lead me to this realization:
Trumps crazy all on his own but if the provigil is too strong for the ambien to overpower he’ll stay awake while on ambien which is probably the best explanation for why he posts some of his most INSANE nonsensical crap between 11pm and 3am
To Recap: Trump was using Provigil to stay alert/awake/have energy since it doesnt show up on drug tests (and also was marketed as a ‘smart drug’ so obv his insecurities played into it a bit too imo) and then tryna counter balance the lack off sleep from provigil with ambien though not only could the AMbien cause him to act crazy if he doesnt sleep through it all but if he only sleeps ‘4-5hrs’ (according to HIM) then the ambiens likely still in his system WITH the provigil hence his weird mood swings etc…imo this pharmacy (Stash house) log gives the best most logical view into Trumps substance use as we know he doesnt drink and i believe it but many have believed he was finding a loophole to be on SOMETHING (originally i figured he just got eric a bunch of ADD meds that he’d steal since adderalls generic is labeled ‘Amephetamine Salts’ lol) but THIS makes way more sense…
Thoughts?

Ketek & Vioxx?!💀

To start off my medical history is long and complex. I will try to pair it down to keep it concise.
I am a 21 year old woman diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome, Mast Cell Activation Syndrome and Autonomic Neuropathy. I've been doing 2 liters of LR daily with a Hickman central line since 2021. I also administer IV Benadryl PRN but I do require multiple daily doses. My other daily medications are...
Eliquis- 5 mg (2x a day) Methocarbamol 500mg (3x a day) Pyridostigmine Bromide- 60 mg (3x a day) Adderall XR- 25 mg (1x day- morning) Zolpidem Tartrate(Ambien) - 5 mg (1x a day- night) Ivabradine (Corlanor)- 2.5mg/ ½ of a 5mg tablet (2x a day) Gabapentin- 300mg (3x a day; Morning, Noon, Night) Omeprazole DR- (20 mg take 1 capsule every morning before breakfast * take at least 30 minutes before eating) Cromlyn sodium 100mg/5ml- (4 times a day. 30 minutes before meals and before bed)
I am very happy with my current treatment in this area. It allows me to function. I have tried to wean of fluids in the past, but it has never worked with my symptoms. This is not the area I need advice on.
My main problem that i need advice on is- on top of my other conditions- I also have Beta Thalassemia Intermedia and Factor 5 Lieden. I have had 4 blood clots since 6/21. Two were at least completely isolated internally of my catheter.
I am not sure if I have faith in the hematologist treating me. These are my points of concern with my care.
-My hemoglobin has been below 10 since 6/21 to. My hematologist decided I need iron. I've had two iron infusions with in the past year. While my Ferritin has now increased from 34.5 in 12/21 to 221 to 12/23 my TIBC is still 223 which is flagged as low at the laboratory which processes my blood work comparted to 279 in 12/21. My iron is currently 88, comparing to 112 in 12/21.
-My hematologist assumed me to be B12 deficient. I asked her to run labs because I had had tests when on B12 supplements that were unmeasurably high for the lab testing them. Greater than 1400. I had to go back and forth to get my levels checked. They were 788. She wanted me to supplement any way it brought my B12 to 1827. After talking to my GP, I stopped supplementing because of that. My hematologist has insisted it does matter because B12 is water soluble and easily is excreted in urine.
-Recently my hemoglobin has decreased even more. It was 8.8 in November. I had surgery and it was measured as preoperative labs. I originally brushed it off as stress. I had had COVID, gotten my period and my central line sprung a leak that required replacement all in a 3 week period. It was taken again this month and is still 8.8. Despite having a Mirena and progesterone for break through bleeding I have gotten my period again.
I am really worried I am slipping through the cracks with my current hematologist. I chose to believe she is a wonderful oncologist who just doesn't have the time or experience with blood disorders because of she needs to stay up to date in the best care for her cancer patients who are more critical than I.
I have an appointment Monday. Normal I wouldn't think twice about getting a second opinion, but I am so tired and I don't want it to seem like I am just doctor shopping.
Do you agree with my hematologists current decision and treatment or should I be concerned? What would you recommend if I was your patient?
Edit: This is a repost. I deleted to add a flair, but I couldn't figure out how.

I've had insomnia for the past maybe 8-10 years or more.
unisom/Benadryl are anticholinergics, which are not great of the brain, and can lead to dependence
valerian root= no affect
lemon balm = no affect
i've tried trazodone, but I get bad brain fog, so I stopped
Rozerem and doxepin don't seem to do anything.
I was doing some research and seems that, as far as sleeping pills go, Quiviviq is perhaps the least addictive/habit forming, with least side effects.
Seems this is related to it's shorter half life, 8hrs, compared to Dayvigo 17hrs and Belsomra 12hrs.
of course my insurance doesn't cover it.
they gave me the following list as what they cover: (why Im hesitant to try them after the --- )
Belsomra—12hr half life Dayvigo—17 hr half live
Zolpidem—ambien-z drug, high risk of dependence Temazepam—benzo—high risk of dependence Eszcomplicone—lunesta—z drug, high risk dependence Zaleplon-- z drug, high risk of dependence
Quviviq: 8hr half life--- from what I've been able to find, it has a lower chance of dependence than the other.
​
I'm torn, bc I really don't want to take more meds, and I know i'm looking for a "unicorn": non addictive, non habit forming sleep med without causing next day grogginess or serious side effects. but I gotta get some restful sleep LOL.
right now, I'll take romealton or melatonin, doxepin, ZMA and GABA 750mg with limited success (after get up first time to go to bathroom, it's all over.)
I was told in the email that I can appeal the decision, and was thinking of using the above info as part of appeal.
Any input would be great.
​
Also, on a totally different note, anyone have any change in sleep patterns after Transcranial Magnetic Stimulation?
​
​