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Cheers! I've not tried Mirtazapine yet. I know it's in the same family as amitriptyline (both are tricyclic antidepressants) so should have the same sleep effects... ...Do you/did you get any side effects with it?
I took it for a while, prescribed for depression, but it's one of the few things to help relieve my insomnia. I would say that it didn't help me to get to sleep very much, but I had much better sleep quality once asleep - fewer wakings up and feeling more refreshed afterwards.
I did get one of the other common side-effects - incredibly vivid, almost lucid, dreams which were very memorable after waking. By the standard of what I can usually remember of dreaming, the dreams were also incredibly surreal, though never frightening (even the ones that seem like they should have been frightening when I look back on them.)
Mirtazapine is considered an "atypical" anti-depressant; although related to the tri-cyclic anti-depressants, it is actually a tetra-cyclic, and acts via a slightly different pathway than amitriptyline etc. This is why I ended up taking it, as my depression wasn't affected by tri-cyclics or SSRIs - the benefit to my sleep was an unexpected surprise. Interestingly, the Wikipedia page for Mirtazapine says that is has been "explored" for "...secondary symptoms of autistic spectrum conditions and other pervasive developmental disorders".
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