Hi:

My dad completed his treatment almost 2 weeks ago. However, he seems to have developed a terrible case of insomnia. It is odd because he was so tired during his treatment and slept all the time. Has anyone else experianced this? If so were there any medications that helped?

Thanks,
Boston

I went through an insomnia phase about 2 years post Tx. I got some sleepers from the doctor, like Ambien CR and it seemed to help for a while. My sleeping patterns are still a little weird though.

Not a doctor here but many of us have a big letdown post Tx leading some to a state of depression but probably affecting all as we feel the affects of being "abandoned and cut off" from our daily doctor visits. We are told that we FINISHED Tx but we feel horrible and we also wonder what next, am I cancer free; what about recurrence, etc, etc. Our mental activity can cause a lot of adverse affects during and post Tx so his inability to sleep may well be attributed to his mind working in overtime behind the scenes so to speak. I have always maintained that the mental part of this cancer is 50% of our battle yet even at CCC's almost all of their attention is focused on the actual killing part and it's physical side effects. IMO all CCC's would do everyone a huge favor if they added a physiologist to the active part of their team and made us see them at the very beginning, at the very end and maybe a few times in between and afterwards.

Painkillers cause insomnia...currently it's my life. I wound up in the ER last week due to crashing from lack of sleep, close to 3 days straight, among other issues.

So if your dad has been on an opiate or is coming off of them then insomnia can be a side effect. Generally dr's will prescribe Ambien (evil side effects for me) Lunesta and then something like a benzodiazepine (lorazepam, clonazepam etc..) I've been on em all really, amitryptaline, trazadone, benzos...I don't see them working well for me at all. Last night to finally get to sleep I took trazadone, lunesta and clonazepam, not sure if that was safe but at that point I didn't care.

any of those drugs listed above you can ask your dr about to see if they'll help

Be Well

Eric

I really do think that a lot of this problem comes from the over abundance of sleep and lying around that I did during TX. It was rough to go from sleeping 18 hours a day to not being able to sleep well at all. I Agree with EricS on this too, the copious amounts of Opioids that we are on also lead to making this problem worse.
Erik

I've had chronic sleep deprivation for at least two months. Mine seems closely tied to salivation issues. It started this way: when I nodded off to sleep, I jerked awake almost immediately due to feeling like I would choke or gag on my thick saliva, and/or this saliva would start dribbling out of my mouth.

To compensate, I take long rests during the day.

About 2 weeks ago my salivation pattern changed, but only somewhat. However, it was enough that I now fall asleep for as much as an hour at a time -- a luxury. I still use a thick towel under my head because of sporadic dribbling.

Caution: be extremely careful when driving in a sleep-deprived state. For the time being, I minimize my driving. And on Texas freeways where I used to cruise at 70, I now average 50-55. Also, I have to be vigilant against nodding off at the wheel.

Gee, it's quarter to three in the morning where I live, and I am sitting here posting on OCF. Insomnia? My experience was I would wakeup and could not sleep for about 3 months after radiation TX then it settled down. It was wonderful to then sleep thru the night. When the cancer came back and they did the Cyberknife, the cycle has restarted. So it may be September before I sleep the sleep of the just. Right now though I sleep like a baby (up every couple of hours) I do try and make it positive by taking an extra can of Jevity as a pre dawn snack which seems to help falling back asleep. Why do we all have similar stories? DavidCPA and EricS and Ari have spelled out three reasons: mental turmoil, opiate pain pills, and the choking mucous. Right now I have a trifecta (or hat trick for hockey fans).
Good news: it will get better and better. Plus what a great excuse to nap !
charm

Wow, I'm having this trouble in spades. For me it's been more than four months since TX of radiation plus Cisplatin, and I feel as if I've had insomnia since the end of treatments. Interestingly, I slept fine during most of my treatments (I've found many references to people who get insomnia at diagnosis, but I maintained a very positive outlook at first.......this changed dramatically near the end of my treatments).

My third and final chemo session, and/or the pain/nausea cocktail of drugs, slammed me down psychologically hard at the end, and I feel as if I've hardly slept since.

Now I'm experiencing chronic insomnia, chronic loose stool (partial/rapid digestion?), numb feet (??), and a general lack of optimism.

Anyone experience anything similar at this point? How did it turn out?

I think this post has listed quite a few reasons that really make sense.
I know that with several of my clients that I treat that have medical issues the part after treatment and during the waiting stage is very stressful. While you are in treatment,you have a feeling of taking action---of fighting back. When that ends, it often feels that you are just waiting to hear from others if you are ok or not. Talk about not being in control!!!
I know I experienced some of it after my husband initially finished his treatment. Of course,I was thrilled for him but there was some discomfort at not doing anything to fight the cancer.
For me, that feeling has pretty much gone away and we're just really enjoying the breaks between medical stuff where you just get to live your life again.
However, some of my clients tell me that their anxiety stays elevated during the in between periods for quite a long time leading to a lot of long, restless nights.
I think it's very important to let your MD know that you are experiencing this. There are many behavioral and medical ways to get help to sleep.

I took trazadone for my insomnia. My doc said it is non habit forming and ok to take once in a while. It helped but not what my idea of a sleeping pill woould be. Even while taking it, I still would wake up several times per night. This is a habit that I still do without taking the meds. I never realized that nearly all of us had this side effect.