Graham's doctor initially gave him Ambien, a nonbenzodiazepine sleeping pill, which he took every night for about two years. But renewing his supply each month was difficult, especially after he changed jobs and insurance companies. "It was a high co-pay, like $50 a month, and my doctor had to periodically jump through hoops to convince my insurance company that I should have a new prescription," he says.<\/p>\n

So he switched to trazodone, a generic antidepressant often prescribed for sleep problems. Graham can get up to 60 pills for a $10 co-pay.<\/p>\n

Trazodone hasn't been working as well for Graham; he has trouble waking up in the mornings and feels groggy for several hours. But he says he needs medication to sleep most nights, and it is the best he can afford while dealing with cancer expenses.<\/p>\n

[ pagebreak ]<\/p>\n

sean-graham-daughter<\/span> ."<\/p>\n

When he's too anxious to sleep, Graham takes a low dose of Xanax, which seems to relax him enough to doze off. He also compromised with his doctor, taking trazodone most nights but keeping a 15-day prescription of Ambien on hand for nights before early morning work meetings.<\/p>\n

Graham's general practitioner is the doctor who treats his insomnia, but every time he starts on a new drug, he informs his oncologist.<\/p>\n

"The key is to have open lines of communication between doctors," says James Wyatt, PhD, director of the Sleep Disorders Center at Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. "Insomnia is still treated separately, but it's important to look at it as part of the big picture."<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Most nights, Sean takes trazodone, Ambien, or Xanax to relieve stress and help him sleep.(SEAN GRAHAM)Insomnia is often triggered by an underlying health problem, and together the conditions can create a vicious cycle. It's difficult for your immune system to recover if you're not sleeping, but it's nearly impossible to sleep when you're plagued by […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":730,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34,93],"tags":[37,94],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/730"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/1millionbestdownloads.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}