Can you help with this Scenario? Benadryl back firing?

[[wo...]]

Last night I took a benadryl and it was more like a stimulant than a depressant.  But two nights earlier it only took about 15 minutes until it took effect.    I rarely take it so my tolerance is low to it.  I am just past the 5 week mark.  I am noticing other meds that are also having different effectiveness as well.

[[Wo...]]

i noticed the same thing. Works the first night, backfires the next. People think if its not a benzo, its safe. But its not true. That's why I tell people to stay off anything you don't have to take.

[Guest [ba...]]

I've taken benadryl occasionally for some years, and have had no problems with it.  That's not to say that I sleep well every time that I take it.  Sometimes, there are just things going on in my head that precludes easy sleep.  That's my fault - not the pills.

[[Si...]]

Yeah, usually people that are paradoxical to antihistamines always are. I'm one of those people. When I take any antihistamine it's like smoking meth. Usually people go into tolerance really quickly though when they take them. Within a few days the effects can be mostly nullified. It's one of the reasons most people skip a bunch of days or rotate meds for sleep. It most likely is just be a coincidence that you reached a temporary tolerance while a wave was hitting. I found out early on (and I had TERRIBLE insomnia) that if I didn't sleep well for a few days, got a really long night in, then for sure I'd have a terrible night the next night (I wasn't sleeping for 2 or 3 days straight at one point). Your body has a balancing mechanism that gets screwed up in withdrawal. So the balance can be off kilter and much more extreme than usual. I did try to play the game of tricking it to balance it out by waking up early on the nights I did sleep. Bad idea. It didn't work well at all. So I decided that I'd sleep anytime and as much as my brain would let me.

 

Good luck, it will even out for you!

[[me...]]

Benadryl is completely unpredictable for me at this point--most of the time it just revs me up. Same with almost all the other OTC sleep stuff such as melatonin, doxylamine, lavender oil, valerian, magnesium, etc...At this point I've decided that my body needs to figure out how to sleep on it's own, and that is working okay for the most part.