Tramadol nightmares

[beena]

SWIM has been taking and addicted to Tramadol (amongst other things) for about two years. She has suffered from various withdrawal symptoms when she has tried to stop use. Recently though a new element has arisen to the withdrawal symptoms she suffers from....if she hasn't taken the dose she needs to take before going to bed at night when she falls asleep she starts to have nightmares. They're not like normal nightmares though - SWIM is very aware that she is sleeping and that she's having a nightmare....she tries to wake herself up and she can actually sense that her body is paralysed cos she is asleep. It is a really horrible and quite frightening experience that is quite difficult to describe too.
SWIM's boyfriend has watched her whilst she was having one of these experiences (he shook her to wake her up when he realised something was wrong). He said that her eyes were flickering very fast (her eyes going to the back of her head) and that she started making choking noises. SWIM thinks the noises was her straining herself to try and wake up.
Other times SWIM has screamed aloud and woken herself up with the noise. If SWIM just goes back to sleep (without getting up and actually taking the tramadol first) the nightmares start again....and this will happen until SWIM does get up and take the tramadol - that is how she can be so certain that it is tramadol withdrawals that is causing this to happen.
SWIM has to get up in the middle of the night, take tramadol and then sit up and wait at least 30 minutes for them to kick in before she can go to sleep again.
SWIM was just wondering if anyone else suffers with these kind of withdrawals or has even heard of anything like it before?
SWIM is addicted to other drugs too, such as crack-cocaine, morphine (MST) and heroin and she has never experienced anything like this from those drugs, which SWIM would consider far worse addictions....it's very strange...SWIM hates it.

[msmogadon]

Hi SWIBeena

These nightmares sound like hypnagogic hallucinations. SWIM used to get these after a valium binge. The body goes through different stages in its sleep cycle stage 1, stage 2, stage 3, stage 4 and REM. The stages have to pass through 3 & 4 to reach the REM (Rapid eye movement) stage which is the stage when dreams etc are produced.
When a SWIM takes sleep producing drugs the bodies sleep stages do not reach stages 3 & 4. So the the sleep you get is not enough for the body to restore itself properly.
When said drugs are not taken the body goes into rebound making up for the REM missed out.

taken from markspsychiatry.com/2007/07/23/
We enter into a lighter stage of sleep when we are dreaming. Our brain has heightened activity but our muscle groups are paralyzed. This paralysis is temporary and normal during this stage of sleep as it prevents us from acting out our dreams. Some disorders of sleep inhibit the muscle paralysis and the person can sleep walk or act out their dreams while their brain is still sleeping.

This is probably why this is happening to SWIY. It has happened to SWIM and its freaky as fuck . Sometimes SWIM could feel someone touching her but couldn't move to do anything about it.
Hope this helps

[TRAMADOL]

SWIM has major nightmares if SWIM dosen't take SWIM's dose before bed, and will wake up in a major panic if SWIM sleeps too long.
SWIM's nightmares are usually of being chased or pursued with lot's of violence en-route.
If SWIM takes Tramadol regularly spread throughout the day AND night SWIM doesn't suffer from this.

SWIM also wakes up to audio hallucinations of the door bell ringing or the telephone, this may sound like nothing but it happens regularly and gets you panicked that there may be something wrong with your loved ones or, panic because someone is ringing your door in the middle of the night.

When SWIM cold turkied from Tramadol before the morning panic attacks were so bad SWIM took Propanolol (a beta blocker used for anxiety attacks).