Insomnia Is Usually A Symptom Of Something Else

Not on request, and it is worth knowing that before you book. For insomnia that has been going on for months, clinical guidelines put a structured behavioural treatment ahead of medication, so that is where a good consultation starts. Medication has a place in some cases, and where it is clinically appropriate your doctor will prescribe it as a short and specific part of a plan rather than as the plan itself. What you will not be given is a prescription simply because you asked, because that quiets one night and leaves everything that broke your sleep exactly where it was.

Because it treats the night rather than the reason. For long-term insomnia, major clinical guidelines put cognitive behavioural therapy for insomnia ahead of medication, and that is where a good consultation starts. A service that hands a prescription over to everyone who asks is doing the easy thing rather than the useful one. Your doctor will tell you honestly where medication fits in your own case, including when it does.

It is a structured programme that changes what surrounds your sleep: when you go to bed and get up, what you do when you are lying awake, and the loop of frustration and clock-watching that keeps the body alert at exactly the wrong moment. It is not a chat about how you feel, and it is not a list of tips. It is what major clinical guidelines put first for long-term insomnia, ahead of medication. Carisma Medical does not run a cognitive behavioural therapy programme, so what the consultation gives you is a doctor explaining what it involves and what it would ask of you, alongside the specific things that are keeping you awake.

That is not a personal failure. Advice about screens, caffeine and a dark room is general advice, and general advice is a different thing from a structured treatment for insomnia that has been going on for months. If you have already done all of it and you are still awake at 3am, the useful next step is a doctor looking properly at what is driving the nights rather than another article listing the same things back at you.

What your nights look like, how long it has been going on, and what the days cost you. Then the things that sit behind poor sleep: stress, shift work and irregular hours, alcohol, caffeine, pain, low mood, anxiety, and anything you already take for another condition, because some treatments affect sleep. They will also ask whether you snore and whether you wake unrefreshed, because that points somewhere specific. Sleep is usually a symptom before it is the whole diagnosis, and finding what is driving it is most of the work.

Yes, and it is one of the most important things to mention. Snoring, waking unrefreshed and being tired all day is the pattern that points at sleep apnoea, which is a genuine medical condition rather than a habit, and untreated it carries real consequences for your heart and your blood pressure. It also cannot be confirmed on a video call, because it needs a sleep study to measure what your breathing is doing while you are asleep. Your doctor will tell you plainly when that is what your symptoms point at, rather than treating around it, and treating around it is the thing that does the harm here.

You leave with a plan in writing, an explanation of why each part of it is there, and a doctor who has told you what to expect and when. If the doctor prescribes, your private digital prescription is emailed to you as soon as the doctor issues it, usually straight after the call. Collect at any pharmacy in Malta or Gozo. You pay the pharmacy directly, at its own price. We never sell or ship medicine. It is not a switch being flicked, because insomnia care works on what surrounds your sleep before it works on the sleep itself. Nobody can promise you a specific night, and this page is not going to pretend otherwise.

That is up to you, month by month. The online pre-assessment is free. You pay €59 when you book, and that is what covers your 20-minute intake consultation with the doctor. The €29 a month starts only after you have been seen. Here is what the monthly part covers. When your prescription runs out, ask for a renewal. Your doctor reviews it and, if it is still right for you, the new prescription is emailed to you. WhatsApp support when something changes. Month to month. Stay as long as it is helping, and cancel the moment it is not. A consultation is always €59. If you want another one in a later month, that month is €59 instead of €29. If the doctor prescribes, the medicine is a separate purchase. Collect at any pharmacy in Malta or Gozo. You pay the pharmacy directly, at its own price. We never sell or ship medicine.

Nothing is sent to your GP, your employer or your insurer unless you ask us to send it. Your consultation is a private medical record held by Carisma Medical inside the EU, and there is no reception, no counter and nobody in a waiting room. If you would like a summary sent to your own doctor, we will do that, and only then.

If you are acutely unwell now, this is not the route. Carisma Medical is not for emergencies, and if you are unwell now, call 112. If you are having thoughts of harming yourself, please do not wait for an appointment: be with someone today, and call 112 if you are in danger now. We also cannot treat anyone under 18, we work with patients in Malta and Gozo, and if sleep loss has reached the point where driving or working feels unsafe, that needs attention today rather than at your booked time.