Because of a “drug trial” no workouts were done today except the most ethereal rowing of all: rowing done exclusively in my mind.
Evening yesterday, I decided to try a drug. It was a drug which had been prescribed in the hope it would help when I had insomnia.
What should be explained is that the sort of insomnia I’ve had is the variety where I have no trouble going to sleep at night the first time. But after waking in the middle of the night to use the bathroom I become wide awake. When that happens my metabolism also increases and I become too warm and wide awake after getting back into bed .
After discussing it with my doctor she prescribed Trazadone. A lot of doctors prescribe it for insomnia though it is not intended as a sleeping aid. It helps a lot of people but a lot of other people report that it doesn’t help or has undesirable side effects that outweigh any help with sleep.
Realistically I didn’t know whether the night would have any episode of insomnia. But I decided to try the Trazadone just fro the sake of learning what it was like. I took 1/2 dose before going to bed, as directed with food. Waited an hour for it to take effect. Felt no effect, so went to bed anyway. Fell asleep like I normally do. Woke 90 minutes later which was a bit early to go to the bathroom but went anyway since I was awake. Had a medicinal taste in my mouth and both mouth and eyes felt dry. Went back to bed. Fell asleep again. Woke 90 minutes later but felt like I hadn’t slept though I had no memory of laying awake. My hands and feet felt very cold but my body felt warm. Became wide awake and got up.
Extremely wide awake though “medicated” is one way to describe how I felt. It was almost 2:00 am so I decided to take the other half dose to see if it would help fall back to sleep. Took it with food. The extreme non-sleepy wakefulness persisted. Hands and feet still felt unusually cold, like blood vessels were a bit constricted in extremities.
Took my blood pressure, which is normally okay and it was unusually high, at 141/73. Also, though my heart rate was normal, at 53 when I was sitting to take blood pressure, the heart beat had a somewhat strange feel to it, as though it was sort of “thumping” a bit hard with each beat.
I did some work in the garage, turned on TV to check news, played chess and other video games. Did some reading. Was wide awake until well after sunrise. At 7:50 AM, I decided to go to bed and just lay there quietly to find out if I could get any sleep or if I should just give up trying until evening.
I did fall asleep and had very strange dreams. Woke at about noon and got up for the day, feeling rather awful in a medicated way. Had dry, unpleasant tasting mouth and eyes. Actually I didn’t taste my eyes as that previous sentence might lead you to believe. Mouth tasted strange. Eyes felt dry. Mouth felt dry too. Felt thirsty and drank a cup of ice cold distilled water which tasted very good.
My mind felt awake but it also felt like there was a cloudy bunch of sticky cobwebs in my head. Though it was after noon, I decided to make a little coffee. So I made about 16 oz of Starbucks Organic Yukon, which is my current home-brew favorite.
The coffee helped clear the cobwebs but it took all afternoon for me to start feeling normal again.
Before trying the Trazadone last night, I looked for videos about it on YouTube. Found a very comprehensive video about it by a medical student. Also found two videos about it by medical doctors and two videos about it by pharmacists. Watched all of them and they all seemed pretty much okay with its use as a sleep aid.
Found one video about it, which I didn’t watch until today in the aftermath of Trazadone. Its title is where I got the idea from for today’s blog post. It is called “Trazodone is a Trazodon’t (for me)” (and that is a live link to it).
So… though I don’t have the identical reasons as the lady who made the video linked to above, Trazadone is now a TrazaDON’T for me too.
Happy rowing to you!
