citalopram

published by Stevie on Sat, 07/14/2012 - 14:02
English

I have been taking citalopram for 2 years for migraine prevention.  I also grind my teeth at night.  A sleep study I took about two and a half years ago disclosed no sleep apnea. 

The report from my zeo, which I recently purchased, consistently shows that I am awake most of the night.  It shows that I have been awake for three hours after retiring, and before beginning any REM and/or light sleep, even though, in the morning, I don't feel as if I was awake for a long time before falling asleep.  The report for the night shows 1.53 hours of Rem sleep and only .08 of deep sleep.  I don't feel sleep deprived but am puzzled by the results of the monitoring. 

Can you shed any light on these results?  Is the zeo analysis based on muscles in the face (that is, might it be record that I am awake based on teeth grinding when I am actually asleep?) or actual brain waves?  Could the citalopram be masking the brain waves during sleep in some way?

Puzzled.

Forums:

Paradise

Mon, 07/30/2012 - 02:59

<p>I can't directly answer your question about your SSRI but I can tell you my experience with benzodiazepines that I used to take for PLMD. Quite simply, they dramatically changed my sleep architecture. I learned of (and bought) the Zeo during my taper off the meds. Initially I was getting 1.5 to over 2 hours of REM and only 5 to 15 min. of deep sleep. As I continued to taper those numbers started shifting. The week after my last tiny dose, REM averaged 21 min. and deep averaged 44 min. Different medications impact sleep in different ways. It's fascinating to me to monitor med usage with the Zeo. I'm a teeth grinder, too, and haven't noticed that it causes Zeo to report excess wake-ups, whether or not I use my night guard. Zeo tends to under report my wake-ups.<br /><br />Needless to say, I'm really sleep deprived and would give just about anything to get all that REM sleep back!<br /><br /></p>

gwgaston

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 13:23

I am on clonazepam (Klonopin) 1mg 3/day, and my numbers are like those of Paradise for REM and deep sleep. I get lots of REM and light sleep, but my best deep sleep time has been 9 minutes, with an avg closer to 5 minutes. I really want to get my deep sleep numbers up but I take Klonopin for a number of reasons: OCD and SAD (physiological) and it provides... this is hard to believe as my doctors (PCP, ENT nor Psychologist) do not understand this: Direct topical relief to nerve pain on my tongue on the left side near the back (where my ENT had performed surgery in the past) of the tongue. Gabapentin does nothing for me. None of the other Benzos help either as I have tried diazepam (Valium), lorazepam (Xanax), and lorazepam (Ativan) and none have this immediate impact on my tongue. If I run out of clonazepamI use a liquid Diphenydramine solution to 'numb' it and this works for an hour or so.

Also sleep meds such as zaleplon (Sonata) give me just light sleep with very little REM and no deep sleep, so I do not use that prescription.

gwgaston

Tue, 07/31/2012 - 13:37

And I meant to say in my last reply that all documentation I read abou the Zeo only mentions brainwaves. Other sleep devices that do not  record brainwaves usual work via some combination of breathing, heat rate, and moment of your body (teeth grinding would seem a light movement if at all to most devices).