Generic Name: Belsomra for Insomnia (suvorexant)
"Belsomra legitimately is the only thing that works for me. I've tried every OTC sleeping pill and vast majority of on and off-label medications for sleep. It starts working in 15 minutes for me. Makes me feel like I'm melting into my bed (in a good way). I just feel fuzzy, calm, and relaxed. One caveat is I have to remain completely still or it doesn't work for me. Anytime I move, the effect stops until I stop moving. I've had severe insomnia since elementary school, and I am finally getting consistent sleep for the first time in 17 years. The only side effect is weight loss. I no longer remember any of my dreams (I used to have very vivid dreams). It doesn't need to be pulled from the market, it just didn't work for you. No matter how much benzos or Ambien I took, I could never sleep. If you can pass out on melatonin or Benadryl, then why are you even taking this? People sleep-drive on Ambien. It also can cause vivid nightmares. It's not the med, it's how your body reacts to it. Be realistic, people."
"I was able to get this drug for free through the Merck (the manufacturer) Patient Assistance Program, so definitely look into that before you pay for it. I’m writing this review as someone who has tried literally everything under the sun for sleep for the last 15 years. The first time I took Belsomra, it was like a miracle. It kicked in quickly and felt natural. After about three days, it stopped working due to tolerance. Key points: 1.) Clear all benzos out of your system to make it 10x more effective. 2.) Be prepared for a wild and unpredictable kick-in process. For me, it’s kicked in from 30 minutes to 8 hours. 3.) DO NOT DRIVE THE NEXT DAY. Even if you feel good! Trust me. 4.) You will get nightmares or sleep paralysis at some point, be prepared. 5.) If you can skip it for a few days, it helps with the tolerance. Not at all worth it to pay for it. Worth trying if you can get it for free. Sorry, guys. No miracle cure yet."
"I've found very small doses of Belsomra to work really well for me. I have what they call 'secondary insomnia,' which means I typically wake up in the middle of the night and cannot fall back asleep. So now I buy 10mg Belsomra pills and carefully cut them into 3 pieces - it is not easy, and I have a $30 pill cutter to do this properly. When I wake up in the middle of the night (say at 1 am or 2 am), I take a 3.33mg piece of Belsomra - a tiny dose. I am usually able to sleep pretty well after that. Overall - I've tried every sleeping medicine under the sun and found Belsomra to be a winner. (I have noticed a slight 4-pound weight gain, but that could be coincidental: I am almost 50 years old and I still eat like I am 30.)"
"THIS DRUG KILLS. IT SHOULD BE TAKEN OFF THE MARKET. A few days after beginning taking this medication, my father started acting very strange and aggressive. He told his doctor he was feeling emotional, the doctor had him continue taking the drug. Ten days later, he put a gun to his head and killed himself. I filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) and requested a list of all the adverse effects reported in association with this drug over the past couple years. There were SIXTY cases that ended in death. My suggestion: read through all the reviews here before you start taking this drug. They are messing with a part of the brain that shouldn't be touched, and the company's clinical trials were NOT thorough."
"Oh my god... I'm going to sound like I'm a drug representative or something, but I LOVE BELSOMRA. My doctor gave me samples back in 2016, 20mg pills, that I never took. I went through trazodone, Ambien, Lunesta, Benadryl, doxylamine, Remeron, all these meds for sleep that barely worked and had terrible next day side effects. I finally thought to myself... I should try those Belsomra tablets. I wasn't expecting much, maybe even a bad night because of all the negative reviews, but wow. Just wow. This is the first sleeping medication I've tried that feels like naturally going to bed. I take it and within 30 minutes I begin to feel sleepy, like natural people sleepy where I am ready to go to bed. I wouldn't even describe it as drowsy or sedated... It just feels normal. No next day side effects. My sleep is great. Thank God for modern medicine. Try Belsomra."
"Believe the reviews! Awake most of the night & napped for 20 minutes here & there with the most vivid horrendous nightmares! Teary the next day (not sure if that was from no sleep or side effect from Belsomra)"
"Being a long-term insomniac, I was anxious to try Belsomra. My first attempt with this drug was horrible. Absolutely no help. Subsequently, I have found what I believe is the formula for success with Belsomra. It does not put you to sleep like the Z drugs & Benzos, you must 'wash out' from these hypnotics for it to work. In other words, your brain must have titrated off of the other drugs to the point where they have no influence over your sleep. For me, Belsomra became my drug for sleep. No Benzos or Z drugs in 36 months & Belsomra helps me every night get 7+ hours of sleep. I must admit the sleep is not deep, and I do have vivid dreams every night, but at least I wake up somewhat refreshed. I found adding 25mg of Unisom really helps me fall asleep and stay asleep. If I do awake, I am able to fall back asleep, which I was never able to do with the Z drugs. I hope tolerance does not develop with Belsomra like the hypnotics. After 2+ years, it still works for me."
"I was prescribed this drug with confidence it would help me sleep. I have had insomnia for over 40 years and was only ever able to sleep consistently using Trazodone for seven years at a high dose, until it eventually quit working. Belsomra caused all my muscles to become very hard, tense, and tight. I dropped off to sleep and became awake suddenly without that gradual dozing off or gradual awakening that is the normal part of sleeping. When asleep, I could barely move my body and I was only slightly in a state of light sleep as I heard things happening in the house that I did not used to hear and was not really resting. It increased my pain levels. Also, I was in a state of being unable to wake up out of the bad dreams I had, as I was sort of paralyzed. I was encouraged to keep trying this medication until my body could adjust to it. I tried it for 45 days and things only got worse and worse. I had horrible dreams and daytime anxiety which is unusual for me."
"I have tried it all. Haven't slept through one single night in over 15 years...being the wife of a cop who works all whacked hours of the day and night is part of the reason. Dr. told me about Belsomra and I figured, 'What can it hurt?' - 'What's worse than another night of disturbed sleep?' Well, I have experienced THE BEST sleep of my life on this medicine. I take it 1-2 hours before bedtime, fall asleep easily, STAY asleep ALL NIGHT without waking at all. I'm one amazed skeptic. I wake up refreshed without feeling like I need any extra sleep and without feeling groggy. I'm actually ready to BE AWAKE. The husband reports that I do NOT move all night! And those awesome, vivid dreams are an added bonus."
"I don't normally write reviews, but there is so much negative feedback being given about Belsomra right now that I feel obligated to give a dissenting opinion. I suffered for nearly 10 years with chronic insomnia that severely impacted my ability to function. Benzodiazepine didn't help because I needed to take them every night, and I built a tolerance to them very quickly. It may be too early to say for sure, but I've been taking a 20mg dose of Belsomra for the past two months, with no apparent tolerance issues. It has helped me to have a normal life again where every other sleep medication I tried had failed."
"I have tried EVERYTHING. 20 mg of Ambien worked but then the law changed to 5 mg for women. Nothing else worked so they put me on Seroquel and I gained 113 pounds. Then Belsomra came along. What a miracle. I take it 5 minutes before bed, and I don't even remember falling asleep. I used to have nightmares with Trazodone. I would eat and drive on Ambien and wouldn't remember anything. No nightmares, eating, or driving on Belsomra. I don't feel tired the next day. I've also lost 65 pounds of the 113 I gained."
"I'm sorry for all that have had bad experiences with Belsomra. I've been taking 15mg for a week. It doesn't work like Ambien. It works differently. You won't feel drowsy. I have to stop what I am doing and lay down. It takes only a few minutes to fall asleep. You MUST take this drug on an empty stomach! It won't work otherwise. I take it two hours after a meal. I've not had any terrible nightmares. Remember for it to work well, you have to give it enough time, take it on an empty stomach, and it doesn't work the same way as Ambien or a benzo. I gave the drug an '8' because it works well, but not quite as well as Ambien, which I was used to taking 20mg! I switched docs and most won't do 20mg, since 5mg is recommended for women, and the 10mg they were giving me just wasn't effective due to the tolerance I built up. I think this medication is good. I'm going to keep using it to see if the effects stay the same or if my tolerance builds to this also. I will report back in a month or so."
"I have chronic insomnia. I see a sleep specialist and have tried many, many different medications. Belsomra would put me to sleep, but I experienced some of the worst side effects. It gave me vivid nightmares that I would sometimes act out in my sleep and scream in my sleep. I had sleep hallucinations and sleep paralysis. If you have never experienced sleep paralysis, I hope you never have to. It is such an awful, scary thing. I do not recommend this medication."
"I was so anxious to take this after so many negative reviews. I’m lucky I don’t have much trouble falling asleep, but I wake up early hours and some nights will take hours to get back to sleep. I had the 20 mg, and it was excellent, although I did wake up a couple times, I went straight back to sleep. I didn’t even wake up groggy and still smashed out a workout. So don’t be scared of the negative reviews like I was."
"This medication has helped me tremendously. I have a past history of PTSD, and even after trying all the usual sleep meds, nothing has helped me sleep more than 4-5 hours. I'm usually wary of new meds, but I took a chance. Glad I did, being able to sleep is helping my body so much. I think why Belsomra has worked for me has to do with how it works and why I don't sleep. Belsomra works by turning down the awake part of the brain. Because of PTSD, my brain is always in overdrive and won't turn off. Once it helps turning off the awake part, the sleep part can then do its thing. In short, it's the awake part of my brain that's broken, not the sleep part. That's why this works for me."
"My doctor gave me a trial pack of Belsomra 15 mg about 2 months ago. It worked wonderfully. I am now in my second 30 pack of Belsomra 15 mg. It has given me my life back. Now, I sleep like a regular person and wake up feeling refreshed. I track my sleep using the Microsoft Band and have found that I get enough 'restful' (I'm assuming this means REM) sleep every night. I want to note that Merck did not want to offer the very low doses of Belsomra as the medication does not work well if you take under 10 mg. My current dosage of 15 mg works great and I don't wake up groggy. I consider Belsomra a true revolution in sleep medicines. By the way, Merck subsidizes the cost of Belsomra for the first year. Look for the coupon."
"I've tried everything from Ambien to low doses of antidepressants to OTC medications, and none have worked as well as Belsomra. The sleepiness is overwhelming, but it feels completely natural (think of the kind of sleepiness you'd feel as a child after a long day of playing). It's not a hypnotic like Ambien, so it doesn't get you high. It just makes you really sleepy. My doctor told me to take it 15 minutes before bedtime. I thought it wasn't working at first because I was expecting a quick reaction. Turns out it takes about 1-2 hours to start feeling the effects. I now take it 1-2 hours before bedtime and sleep like a baby. I've heard you can experience sleep paralysis on this drug. I haven't experienced anything negative yet."
"10 years suffering with insomnia, tried over-the-counter sleep aids, then Ambien and Lunesta and still couldn't get the sleep I needed. Dr. prescribed a new medicine Belsomra, started on 10 mg for a week and pushed up to 15, then 20 mg. It works, hands down. Such a relief. I'm not staring at the ceiling for hours between 2-4 a.m. every night, I am actually sleeping. Mild grogginess the first few days but seems to have disappeared."
"Reading the reviews makes me feel less alone. I got to try this for free through my doctor, it worked amazingly the first few nights (it slowly lulled me to sleep about 12-23 minutes after, and I slept the entire night through, which NEVER happens). It stopped working after a month, and I was super bummed because this was the only thing I had left to try. :( Smaller doses work every once in a while. When I take it now, I stay up all night, and then I’m weepy the next day. If you can try it for free, that’s good, but I really wouldn’t recommend this out of pocket. It’s not worth it, and it’s wrong that this is marketed as a cure-all to insomnia."
"I was prescribed Belsomra for insomnia, and it does not work for me. I took a 20 mg tablet on an empty stomach, and it's now 3 hours later, and I'm still wide awake. I was taking Ambien, but my Dr. no longer will prescribe it. Ambien would put me to sleep right away. Why do Drs change your medicine when what you are taking, which was Ambien, worked perfectly fine? It's so frustrating."
"5'8", 130 lbs male, 20 mg works very well for me. DO NOT expect this drug to work the first night you try it! This is especially true if you just quit a hypnotic like Zolpidem and just started taking it. The initial 'paradoxical effect' and unusual dreams subsided after a few days, once my brain 'adjusted' to it. (I had a similar effect when I first began using Zolpidem, which just made me feel drugged but kept me awake.) Also, this drug is specifically made for a neurological hyperarousal condition - that is, for people who are predisposed towards insomnia in either their brain structure or neurochemical composition. If your insomnia is due to a sedentary lifestyle, poor diet, bad sleep hygiene, late-shift work, etc., it won't work as designed."
"I understand that this medication is no superstrong and addictive substance that "knocks" you out. But really? Is that how you want to live, to live a stressed out life that makes you dependent of strong drugs that put you into a coma? I think that Belsomra is a "on point" effective drug, that pinpoint the origin of failure and helps your brain to relax naturally. But it will not work for you all drug addicts out there, you have to work for it. Life change, rehab from sleeping pills and other substances, sorting out underlying problems like depression, snoring, anxiety and so on. I wish you all good luck and hope you give it a 100% fair chance to work. For me it took about 4 weeks to start working on 10 mg, because of my underlying depression, anxiety and snoring. Been on SSRI:s for 12 years and my brain probably change the whole structure of my serotonin receptor system due to long time medication???"
"I've gone the rounds with sleeping pills since I suffer from a CNS disorder. Belsomra is different from the others I've tried in that, at least for me, it isn't incapacitating, meaning I get no 'high' from it. At 20mg, the largest dose, it doesn't feel anything like Ambien did, where I was seeing things that weren't there. In a way, this was a little disappointing, as I like that tired/druggy feeling to ease me to sleep, but what Belsomra actually did was send me off to sleep without me knowing about it, which is how I remember falling asleep as a kid. One minute you're laying there thinking, then the next you wake up, and the clock has passed several hours. That's good enough for me."
"After seeing the bad reviews here, I almost decided to not try Belsomra. Also made it seem important to write this review about my experience. I've been a chronic insomniac for as long as I can remember, with trouble both falling and staying asleep - I can wake up at a pin drop. Belsomra helps me feel like a 'normal' person - one who gets sleepy - like my husband. Still may take a while to fall asleep, but I don't care. Sleep 7 to 8 hours. I wake up like a 'normal' person, ready to face the day, instead of my usual finally falling asleep after 4 a.m. and being unable to get out of bed until noon (which has been way too easy to do as an entrepreneur during the pandemic). Some vivid dreams and a couple of horrible nightmares, but that isn't unusual with changes. Some residual tiredness the next day for the first week or so, but that seems to have gotten better."
"Belsomra is the miracle I have been waiting for my whole life. It is the only sleep med that has ever worked for me, and it works great. Worked the first night. Used it 3 nights, I was amazed and thrilled. After 3 nights, I started sleeping normally again! I will use it only when needed, I have not needed it, but it's there if I want it. It is a godsend for me. I was able to get the coupon from the company and pay $30 a month, but even if I had to pay full price, I would do so. No side effects at all. I am thrilled with this med. Thank you, Merck!"
