Sleep Disorders Forum - Interrupted Sleep... Waking to Urinate/eat... Ruining Life.

Need some help badly. About 4 years ago my sleep was badly disrupted by loud noise at the same time early each morning for several months (I was also fairly stressed at the time). This woke me up early, after about 6 hours, and after a while I needed to urinate in order to get back to sleep. The problem is, after things returned to 'normal', I still continued to wake (and still to this day!) during my sleep to urinate. Things never went back to normal. It has gotten worse since then, so that now this usually happens several times each night. The first time is almost always after about 4 hours. I used to be able to sleep perfectly for 8-10 hours straight, and felt great. However, the past 4 years I can probably count on one hand the number of times this happened, and I am feeling worse and worse. It's getting to the point where I'm unable to cope with anything anymore... I can't work, I don't have the energy to do anything.
I should also mention that after a while, the urge to urinate wasn't all that kept me up. Eventually, I felt very hungry as well (as my stomach was empty when I woke) and needed to eat something substantial in order to feel 'full' again and return to sleep. Due to this disruption, it takes me anywhere up to 2 hours to return to sleep (though it varies.. often it's immediate), and so I tend to be in bed about 12 hours a day just to get the minimum amount of sleep to function. My eating habits are all messed up now because of this too. When I wake I'm not very hungry as I have eaten during my sleep. etc etc.

I have seen a doctor and they tested my blood and took a urine sample and didn't notice anything unusual. The doctor suggested this is all due to depression/anxiety. One doctor presribed me valium which really helped, but obviously I only take it when things are very bad, as I don't want to become dependent on it. Another doctor (earlier) gave me endep (tricyclic anti-depressant), which he claimed would reduce my urge to urinate and help my sleep return to normal. It didn't really do this though (at least the dose I was on - 20mg), although it did make it very easy to *return* to sleep after waking (usually minutes instead of hours). Eventually I stopped taking it as it really wasn't the solution I needed, and it had other undesirable effects. The doctor I see now has prescribed me cipramil in combination with valium (when needed). Is this really the right solution for me? I hear it is very easy to become dependent on cipramil (you can't just stop taking it) and the doc says it could be needed for up to 15 months. This is a *long* time to take something which may or may not help me. However at this point I'm willing to try anything.

Thanks all.