Hi, I'm yeliaB

In 2006, I acquired a postoperative hypoxic brain injury. While there was a fair bit of temporary fallout from this, one permanent problem has been my sleep, with me consistently getting no more than a few hours of light sleep every night. No deep sleep. No REM sleep. Not exactly sustainable. For several years, I went to a series of specialists who all prescribed a variety of drugs they claimed would fix all my sleep problems. None did. I did, however, have several years of symptoms from discontinuing one drug so I could start another one. There was one in particular (can't recall which) that left me feeling a strong urge to scream every waking moment for several months. I finally ended up in front of a neuropsychiatrist who--amazingly enough--claimed they'd be able to fix all my sleep problems. He prescribed 200mg of Trazodone before bed and sent me on my way. We quickly discovered that 200mg was way too much for me, as taking it even a few minutes before being horizontal in bed put me at risk of face-planting on my bathroom floor. We went down to 150mg and stayed there for a few months before again dropping it to 100mg. This was in 2013, and I've been taking Trazodone ever since. Then I accidentally missed a dose. I tossed and turned all night long, unable to sleep. It wasn't a terrible experience, but I could tell that I had to make sure that I always took my two 50mg tablets. One night, despite all my precautions, I missed another night. This time, for whatever reason, while I didn't sleep well, I did sleep a bit. This made me wonder if I still needed it, so I intentionally skipped the next night's dose, too. Bad idea! It was genuinely terrifying. I won't go into the details, but suffice it to say that there was no way I was going to keep taking something that had such a deathgrip over me. And so I started a taper, on my own, by splitting tablets. I was able to go from 100mg to 50mg in quarter-tablet steps, once a month. It was a bit rough initially, but by the time the next month came around, I felt okay. I tried using the same quarter-tablet reduction on my remaining 50mg dosage, but my symptoms got worse and worse. Eventually, I was in such agony that I went back up to 100mg, stayed there a while until my symptoms subsided, and then redid the taper back down to 50mg, where I've been ever since (2018, maybe?) But I still wasn't okay taking something that could inflict such misery on me, so I studied tapering, visited various community sites, read research papers, and bought my own copy of the Maudsley Deprescribing Guidelines (which was useful for general tapering knowledge, but not so much as far as tapering Trazodone). As 2025 was coming to an end, I planned my strategy, got all the necessary equipment, and used it to try a 0% taper in January of 2026. Since taking my "tapered" 50mg capsules felt just like all my nights taking a 50mg tablet, I felt confident enough to try a 10% taper for February. And another 10% for March. I also tapered by 10% for April, which means my current dosage is 36.45mg. With each taper, it takes a couple of nights at the lower dose before I start to feel it, and, so far, about two weeks before the symptoms subside back to something I'd call "normal". And that's where I'm currently at. If I can sustain a 10% monthly taper, it'll take me at least 3 years before I even start thinking about when to take the final step down to zero. If anyone has any questions, comments, or concerns, feel free to send 'em my way, and I'll respond as best I'm able.