I've tried Chameleon and Valyrian root tea blends before thinking they might make good sleep aids, but I've never had any luck with them. A lot people say they find those very relaxing, but I wasn't even catching a placebo effect.
So for a while I just assumed all this herbal tea bullshit I see in stores and pharmacies must be just a step above homeopathic products. They're probably pretty good if you like the taste of the herbal blends and find sipping a warm beverage relaxing in itself, but otherwise a waste of time. Clearly if they really worked they wouldn't be sold in large supermarket chains. Instead they'd be relegated to the weird, near grey market status that Kratom seems to exist in, right?
Today at the store I just happened to notice something very alarming. A box of Kava blend tea was the absolute one and only herbal tea variety on the shelf to include a warning asking you to consult your doctor before use, and stating that minors and pregnant women should not consume this product.
Well, that warning instantaneously lit up the junkie addict center of my brain like a Christmas tree, and I impulse bought two boxes. This might have major negative health consequences? Wow, must be the fucking good stuff. I got home and brewed six of them into a single mug of tea, and yep, this shit is psychoactive all right. Subtle, but definitely not placebo subtle. It quite honestly feels similar to a moderate dose of Gabapentin, and it's making me sleepy.
I sure wish I knew this before I most likely took 15 years off the lifespan of my kidneys by using 200mg of Diphenhydramine every night for years just to have a fighting chance at falling asleep more often than every two days.
You should stop taking it tbh. It's not a clear link for young people but I'm pretty sure there is a link between dph and dementia
I suspect the link isn't related to dph itself but sleep deprivation and the sociability of someone zonked on dph most of the time (easy chemical restraint for older people)
I'm not so sure but I don't feel like going back and reading about this, iirc it has something to do with dph affecting neutransmitters as it's mechanism of action, which over time can damage your brain. But also like, old people have lower neuroplasticity so medications like this affect them more
But then I can't sleep
I have been meaning to cut it out though, just so it's like $10 less I have to spend every 3 months, and one less thing to worry about in the back of my mind. The next time I have no obligations of being awake at any particular hours throughout the day for an extended period of time, I'll try learning to sleep without it again.
I switched to melatonin and it helped a lot. Kava and chamomile could also work.
Also, just out of curiosity, do you have like... bugs in your dreams? I had cockroaches all over my dreams after using benadryl to go to sleep every day. I stopped and I got way better sleep when I got used to just using melatonin, and stopped waking up literally like jumping out of my bed because there were a million cockroaches coming out of the ground in my dreams lol
No, I've ever had bug dreams. I thought that was only a hallucination you have if you overdose on the stuff.
I had them like crazy after a year of doing the stuff. I can't do any amount of dph without getting those dreams. It's awful
oh that's interesting. even if you only take like one 50mg dimenhydrinate pill?
Yep. And it has to be kinda close to bed time. I didn't notice what was happening but I would have these recurring dreams, where I was In a dingey house, with a bunch of old couches and stuff. I would sit down, and a roach would crawl over me, then I would look around and they would just be scuttling about, popping out of the ground. It was so awful. I would wake up jumping out of my bed. I did this for a while, then I stopped using it, and the dreams went away. So I was like oh shit, the benadryl is causing it