u/Halven89

From what I've gathered on Pubmed, insomnia is no known side effect from NAC, but some on here claim it is. So to you who got this side effect, how long after you stopped it did your sleep return to normal? Also, how did it disrupt your sleep?

The reason I take it (1200 mg in the morning) is because i stopped a benzo 14 months ago, so it's effects on glutamate is great during benzo withdrawals. I also have HPPD and DPDR that vary in intensity, and I believe it might help it. But since going off the benzo I wake up unable to fall back asleep after 4-6 h, so the only time I get enough sleep is when I take Alimemazine 3 times a week. It’s most likely because of my sleep anxiety, and maybe still some gaba receptor downregulation from the benzo, but I wonder if NAC can play a role.

I'm 36 yo and been lifting for 16 years, but with two longer breaks because of injuries that resulted in a massive loss of gains, and now I'm in for my third rodeo, and it’s just as horrible for my mental health and self esteem this time and the previous ones, since lifting it’s my biggest passion and identity. It actually feels like I'm in withdrawals from dome drug now when I'm not getting my boost in dopamine, serotonin and endorphines. So I'm here to give you guys a warning so that you don't end up in the situation that I'm in now.

My sleep has been shit for quite some time (average 6 h fragmented sleep because of sleep anxiety), so to prevent my tendons from getting "reactive" (first stage in the tendinopathy spectrum) I reduced my volume quite a bit and lowered my frequency to hitting each muscle every fifth day instead of every third and fourth (cycled), as I did prior. Because enough sleep (7-9 h) is crucial for tendon recovery/remodeling.

But despite this, I ended up getting 5 reactive tendons (both quads, triceps and right brachioradialis) and 1 tendonitis (left brachioradialis) in under just 3 weeks, so now I've almost fully been taken out of the game, and the worst thing with tendons, even when they're just reactive, is that it takes 3-5 months to be able to train like one used to. Sure, at month 2-3 the rehab loads should be enough to prevent further loss, but still, alot will be lost by then. This sucks so much, just seeing all that work slowly fading away, and there’s not a god damn thing I can do about it. This in turn, caises me even more anxiety over my sleep, which has a paradoxical effect. I wish thah there was no such thing as sleep, and that we where awake all the time. That or a magic pill that gave optimal sleep, no sides or chance of developing tolerannce.

So a tip if you start having sleep issues, cut back on the training ALOT and primarily focus on maintaining until it's resolved. Some of you might wonder how you know if you've gotten a reactive tendon as well. The symptoms are generally a pinching pain at activity, soreness, and achiness that are localized on or around the tendon. It’s also very common with a constant tight feeling in the acute phase. In mild cases, you might just feel the tight feeling and a mild discomfort/pain when you fully flex the muscle, the pain can also only be in certain positions or when you compress the tendon. As an example, my brachioradialis hurts real bad when I fully flex my forearm in a neutral position (forearm pushing against biceps).

Something else that's common with tendinopathies is the so called "warm-up effect", which means that they initially hurt during warm-up, but the pain goes away once you're warmed-up. If one keeps training with this, it will with time turn in to a so called tendinosis, which is when it turns chronic and the tendon becomes degenerative, which can take over a year to rehab, for some, the pain never fully goes away.

My sleep has been poor for several months, because of this I lowered my volume and frequency to prevent what now have happened anyways, which is that I under a 2 week period have gotten several reactive tendons (both quads, left brachioradialis, right pec and super mild in my triceps), so from having lifted for 16 years, I've now been forced to stop training most of my body, which sure has taken a toll on my mental health (I feel like utter crap).

Anyways, has anyone here had a reactive tendon or tendinitis? If so, how did you approach it? Pretty much all of the litterature seem to be on tendinosis, that is, chronic degenerative tendons. What I have found just makes me more confused, since some say rest, others isometrics for some time, then gradual loading. But for my quads, even isometrics worsens the stiff/tight feeling and mild sore like pain in the VMO area.