Insomnia. Losing Hope. :(
Hello.
TLDR: did well on Lexapro but gained too much weight. Developed severe insomnia after stopping Lex. Tried Buspirone, didn't help. Now on Prozac and can only sleep about 4 hours. Does this ever pass???? Longer post below.
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During the pandemic I went on Lexapro because I had bad anxiety. It helped me a lot but three years into taking it i realized I was gaining too much weight. As soon as I stopped taking it i stopped gaining weight. But even though I tapered off slowly, once I stopped taking lex, I also couldn't sleep anymore. So bizarre. I've always been a troubled sleeper but after stopping, I got insomnia so bad it would often take 5 or 6 hours to finally fall asleep (I got muscle twitches every time I was about to fall asleep). This started in September 2024 and never got better. I could only sleep with a sleeping pill (Lunesta, Xanax, or CBN/THC) but I'm not supposed to take them every night.
Finally in Dec 2025 I started Buspirone. It didn't work. Heart was racing, insomnia didn't improve.
Now I'm on fluoxetine. I just started a week ago on 5 mg. So far my anxiety is not better. If anything it's worse and I'm irritable. I do feel pretty hungry which concerns me about weight gain. But the worst thing is that now I can fall asleep right away when I go to bed at night, but every single night I wake up 4 or 5 hours later and absolutely cannot go back to sleep. I feel very fatigued. Very hopeless. I know you have to give SSRIs time so I'll try to be patient but it's been years since I've slept more than six hours. My immune system is shot. I can tell because it takes me forever to heal from injuries and illness. I just want to sleep and stop gaining weight and not be anxious and be healthy.
I don't really like my psychiatrist but am not sure if I can switch right now due to insurance. He kind of blows off my questions and doesn't give me any kind of plan about medications or dosages. Basically just asks me which meds I wanna try and how much I wanna take. 😢 So I didn't have guidance on that which is why I'm reaching out here. Thank you.