Quote from smurfra:

[FONT=Comic Sans MS]To answer your question on what a neuro-psych test is, it is a test that is used to see what parts of the brain are being used, how they are being used, and to see what the activity of them are. [/FONT]

Ok, but how is this done?? Just asking me questions, or am i hooked up to machines? Machines sound scary, so I hope it's not that.

Quote from smurfra:

[FONT=Comic Sans MS]I'm surprised that your PCP was pushing Strattera right away. Usually Strattera is perscribed after medications such as: stimulants: Ritalin (I am against the use of Ritalin,) Adderall, and Concerta; then also Well butrin is also used but it is in its own category because it is not considered as a stimulant or a non-stimulant. [/FONT]

She put me on the Strattera because of my other fibromyalgia meds. the stimulants would interact with either the tramadol (painkiller) or the elavil (anti-d, which i take at night in a very low dose for the sleep). which i can't remember, but there is a risk of bad side effects mixing the two.

Quote from smurfra:

[FONT=Comic Sans MS] The verdict is still out whether or not sleep causes ADHD or if ADHD casuses sleep problems. I don't know if you knew that ADHD is caused by some parts of the brain being over active and other parts under active? If you would like more infromation about ADHD I can recomend several websites and books that might be of use to you. One more thing, a person can have other mental health problems at the sametime of having ADHD. I hope everything makes some sense. [/FONT]

the sleep problems have only been recently, somewhat...last few years. they coincide with my fibromyalgia. when I was a kid, i slept well, could sleep through jst about any noise. even in high school, i can remember staying up REALLY late, wee morning hours, and still be functional and ok for school. there's no way i could function now on only a few hours sleep. and if the cat sneezes in another room, i wake up :rolleyes:

Oh ok. Well the AD (elavil) was prescribed to me only recently, for sleep purposes. For Fibro, low dosage AD's are often presribed to be taken before bed, to help regulate sleep. it still does help me, just not quite as much as when i first started it, which was a few months ago. It helped keep me asleep longer, i woke up less frequently. I think it also somewhat helped me fall asleep. But it's so low, only 10mg. occasionally I up it to 20mg.
The fibro doc my mom sees is more up on fibro stuff, and has her on 2 different AD's, one SSRi and one that ups the other nor-something...the combo helps her sleep better.

i've only noticed better sleep and such since starting the elavil.

Quote from lasia221:

Oh ok. Well the AD (elavil) was prescribed to me only recently, for sleep purposes. For Fibro, low dosage AD's are often presribed to be taken before bed, to help regulate sleep. it still does help me, just not quite as much as when i first started it, which was a few months ago. It helped keep me asleep longer, i woke up less frequently. I think it also somewhat helped me fall asleep. But it's so low, only 10mg. occasionally I up it to 20mg.
The fibro doc my mom sees is more up on fibro stuff, and has her on 2 different AD's, one SSRi and one that ups the other nor-something...the combo helps her sleep better.

i've only noticed better sleep and such since starting the elavil.

I'm glad it helps you sleep. Unfortunately, most drugs will help sleep for awhile, but they can poop out eventually and lose their effectiveness. This is a sign of drug tolerance. Since you need to up your dose, it could already be happening. Tolerance is usually worse with benzos and benzo-like drugs like Ambien than with AD's , but it can happen. Only answer then is to up dosages or add more drugs. That will work for a while, but down the line it's possible again to develop more tolerance and the drugs stop working.

The only reason I mention this is because I am someone who had to learn the hard way to let the brain do things it's own way when it came to sleep....I'm talking tolerance of a fairly high dose of Ativan, in which I could go days and days without sleep while ON it! I was heading down the road of a sleepless psycho I suppose. I'm just glad one day I saw it for what it was and got off meds completely.

Now, I sleep good without anything...but it took a long time to get the natural sleep back and I had to suffer alot intil that happened; it was a slow process. It had become clear my original symptoms were caused by prescribed codiene for an illness.... which were then treated with mainly benzos and an attempt at an AD along the way....both these classes of drugs are alot worse than the original codiene. I wish I had known about the codiene back then; I could have avoided the benzo/AD drugs....athough it is narcotic with nasty withdrawals, codiene symptoms are much shorter lived than those other drugs.

I guess you can take the AD but just be informed of the possibilities of tolerance and worsened sleep issues in the future. Natural sleep does have a way of returning over time. My mother-in-law didn't sleep at all many nights for a year after her husband died. Now she sleeps everynight. Also, older people usually don't require the same sleep as younger as my mother-in-law sleeps around 5 hours a night and she says she feels rested from that. I hear many of her friends and my own mother say the same. But on particularly active days, she will sleep a bit longer.