Monday morning I got up early enough to visit my doctor. Due to my insomnia, I had delayed a follow-up visit to him while tapering down to one tablet of mirtazapine when needed i.e. when I need a good sleep before morning.
After 5 minutes of talking to my doctor, he recommended stretching exercises - and I countered with "I practice tai chi". So he suggested cyclobenzaprine (flexeril), a tricyclic antidepressant with strong muscle relaxant properties i.e. another antihistamine chemically different from benadryl and mirtazapine.
This drug has a slow onset of 2-6 hours but lasts for up to 20 hours.
I know because after I got home around 11 PM, it took me about 2 hours before the first effects hit me, but had taken one tablet about 8PM. By 4AM I was off to bed.
It's unknown if dissolving the tablet in my mouth leads to this delayed effect. Then most of Tuesday was spent in bed. I'd only gotten up around 5 PM.
There may be a synergy with alcohol, because I slowly sipped a Colt 45 circa 9.45 PM at a friend's place and was out of there by 10:25 PM.
However, I felt no alcohol buzz; this may have been due to smoking a couple cigarettes for most of the time at my friend's place. In fact, I believe nicotine may have been the protective factor, as it kept me alert and less likely to yield to both alcohol's and flexeril's sedative properties.
When I awoke during the time before 5 PM, I just felt the need for more sleep. This, most likely, was a "hangover" effect due to the combination of alcohol with flexeril and trace amounts of mirtazapine.
Therefore, the mixing of liberal amounts of alcohol and/or other CNS depressants with Flexeril is not recommended. This includes mirtazapine and other psychiatric medication. Also included is gabapentin and other anti-epileptic drugs.
Updated: 20111116.1625
Flexeril is a muscle relaxant which has sedation as one of its side-effects. Currently, I use flexeril 10 mg daily.
Mirtazapine is being marketed as an antidepressant, however, it has antihistamine side effect of sedation in low doses. I used to take this medication at 2 doses of 15 mg daily. Over a year after I first wrote this article, I no longer take mirtazapine.
Gabapentin is used for nerve pain and is used mainly to control seizures in epilepsy in high doses. Currently I use it for its ability to reduce anxiety at 2 doses at 100 mg per capsule.
20121225.0841
Currently I use 10 mg of flexeril and 200 mg of gabapentin at bedtime. The gabapentin helps improve the ability to enter deep sleep and the flexeril helps me to fall to sleep.
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