Will my sleep return to normal after I readjust to Fluoxetine?

[Foxhound3857]

I think I accidentally tapered myself off of Fluoxetine for missing days too often and it finally caught up with me. I'm 10 days into it again and my anxiety and inability to sleep is pretty bad as of late. I do my best to help mitigate the anxiety via deep breathing and meditation, but it only does so much, and what used to be a 9AM rising time for me has now become 6AM, even if I go to bed at 1AM or later, and it's impossible for me to go back to sleep in the morning, even with a sleep mask and/or ambient noise. My appetite has suffered too, something I'm slowly trying to normalize again (endured roughly five days of fasting because my anxiety/nausea was too severe to force myself to eat anything).

This morning I went to Walmart early and bought some Dimenhydrinate, the cheap Equate version of Dramamine. Just one pill did a hell of a job suppressing my anxiety and going back to sleep, but it leaves me drowsy and lethargic when I finally get into action. I'm hoping cutting it in half will mitigate that somewhat.

But it's been years since I've had to re-adjust myself to my medication and I don't remember what happened the last time I did. I believe my anxiety went away after some time, but does anyone else who takes antidepressants remember having these sorts of issues when first starting/restarting them? Did they go away for you after a while?

 

[Neapolitan Ice Cream]

Sleep is a complex issue with Fluoxetine, aka. Prozac. It's traditionally very activating, so can meddle with your sleep. On the other hand, if it is alleviating your symptoms of depression and anxiety, better sleep will follow. Traditionally, it is prescribed along with a starting dose of say, a week, of a hypnotic (such as Zopilcone) or a more long term sleep aid such as 50mg Dosulepin, a sedative antidepressant. Also bear in mind that when tapering off Fluoxetine, great care must be taken for fear of nasty withdrawal side effects which could include over-sedation or, conversely, insomnia. If you are tapering off, take it dead slow and you'll get there.