Question
Good Morning,
I am a 55 year old, healthy female. I quit smoking 5 weeks ago. Initially, my medical provided me a month's supply of Zyban to help the cravings. After 5 days of using Zyban, I was unable to sleep at all... and quit taking it. I have not had a full night's sleep since. I fall asleep easily, but awake after 2-3 hours and stay awake. Is this related to no cigarettes or has Zyban distrupted my sleep pattern? I never had a sleep problem before this.
Answer
Zyban is like an antidepressants and all the other meds to stop smoking like an antidepressant when stopped abruptly will cause nightmares, listlessness, and insomnia.It would have been better to simply lower the dosage a little at a time which gets the body better accustomed without it.Since you have some insomnia, try the following things.However if after a month or two things have not improved then I suggest you speak to your physician about getting evaluated for a sleeping disorder.You can go the website sleepnet.com click on insomnia, and read about resetting your chronobiologic clock.This is basically done by waking up and going to bed every night the same times,even if you get no sleep,regardless when its time to get up do it.Next stay away from the following things at least 3 hours before bedtime,pepsi,coke, chocolate, exercise, alcohol.Also do not stay in the bed twisting and turning you have to correlate sleep with only the bed not being listless,so get out of bed and do something boring like reading a book, until your more tired again,then go back in the bed,dont fall asleep on the sofa.Also the old proverb drink warm milk is true.Milk when heated contains the amino acid tryptophan which can induce sleep so try a glass before bedtime.You can also try in the health food stores melatonin however I think the medical dose is 3mg. however if its stopped it would only do the same thing, but if you still have the insomnia you can ask your md if you can try it for a week or two.Also if you are on any other medications, tell your physician as many other meds have insomnia as a major side effect.Then as stated before if after a couple of months all else fails,get a complete blood and urine workup to rule out anything else, and then seek an evaluation at a sleep center.Feel free to write again.Good luck,karel
