Sleep disorder bullshit
I'm so damn fed up with my sleeping disorder dictating my life. I'm angry that I would have gotten a job with a great company months ago, except that not being able to work mornings screwed it up. I'm resentful that I'm already dreading the week-long Scout Jamborees, since I know there's no way I can get up at 7 AM for more than one or two days at a time (and even a day or two of that leaves me wrecked).
What I have (lifelong, severe Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome/Disorder) is impossible to cure, and difficult to treat. I can't do sleep medication because it makes me hallucinate, and can't do melatonin because of the vivid nightmares. Exhaustion doesn't reset the circadian rhythm for people with DSPS the way it does for normal people; a couple years ago I literally had a six-week stretch where I was on my own with the kids and, despite week after week of four hours of sleep a night (finally culminating in a week-long migraine due to the sleep deprivation), my internal rhythm just Does. Not. Reset.
Chronotherapy (moving the bedtime forward by, say, an hour or two every day or two, until you've moved your schedule forward/around to the desired time) runs a very real risk of converting DSPS into an even worse disorder called non-24 (where your body thinks the day is 25+ hours long, so your sleep/wake cycle changes significantly every single day). I'm not going to mess with chronotherapy.
So there's two last things that sometimes work for DSPS. One is "blue-wave blocking". Basically, the science is that blue wavelengths of light disrupt the melatonin production in your brain; other wavelengths don't. So as long as you wear special blue-wavelength-blocking sunglasses from 4 PM onward until when you go to bed (both outside and inside), melatonin shouldn't be disrupted by evening light.
(That's another aspect of DSPS: sufferers are far more sensitive to evening light than the average person, and far *less* sensitive to morning light.)
So as of today, I have a new pair of sunglasses. They're expensive and orange-lensed and unstylish. They make everything look yellow and make me look like an utter doofus. But if it helps, I'm willing to look like a doof. I'll know in a couple weeks if it's going to have any effect.
The second treatment, which has a decent success rate and is often used in conjunction with evening-blue-light-blocking, is phototherapy - lightbox exposure.
The protocol for DSPS is onerous, involving anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours of lightbox exposure, usually starting around 8 AM. Lightboxes have their own risks, such as inducing manic states in susceptible individuals, causing headaches or migraines, and eye damage. It's not an easy treatment, or one without risks.
But I'm so fucking sick of living this way, of feeling exhausted all the time, of not being able to do the things I want to do.
Next week I have an appointment to go discuss it with Dr Awesome (aka my amazing GP). After that, I'll likely be renting a lightbox and starting treatment.
I'm scared of side effects, or of fucking things up worse than they already are. I'm scared it won't work, and then I'll lose the only remaining hope that I won't always be struggling with this.
But I'm even more scared of this shit continuing as it has been. I have to try. :(
What I have (lifelong, severe Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome/Disorder) is impossible to cure, and difficult to treat. I can't do sleep medication because it makes me hallucinate, and can't do melatonin because of the vivid nightmares. Exhaustion doesn't reset the circadian rhythm for people with DSPS the way it does for normal people; a couple years ago I literally had a six-week stretch where I was on my own with the kids and, despite week after week of four hours of sleep a night (finally culminating in a week-long migraine due to the sleep deprivation), my internal rhythm just Does. Not. Reset.
Chronotherapy (moving the bedtime forward by, say, an hour or two every day or two, until you've moved your schedule forward/around to the desired time) runs a very real risk of converting DSPS into an even worse disorder called non-24 (where your body thinks the day is 25+ hours long, so your sleep/wake cycle changes significantly every single day). I'm not going to mess with chronotherapy.
So there's two last things that sometimes work for DSPS. One is "blue-wave blocking". Basically, the science is that blue wavelengths of light disrupt the melatonin production in your brain; other wavelengths don't. So as long as you wear special blue-wavelength-blocking sunglasses from 4 PM onward until when you go to bed (both outside and inside), melatonin shouldn't be disrupted by evening light.
(That's another aspect of DSPS: sufferers are far more sensitive to evening light than the average person, and far *less* sensitive to morning light.)
So as of today, I have a new pair of sunglasses. They're expensive and orange-lensed and unstylish. They make everything look yellow and make me look like an utter doofus. But if it helps, I'm willing to look like a doof. I'll know in a couple weeks if it's going to have any effect.
The second treatment, which has a decent success rate and is often used in conjunction with evening-blue-light-blocking, is phototherapy - lightbox exposure.
The protocol for DSPS is onerous, involving anywhere from 30 minutes to 2 hours of lightbox exposure, usually starting around 8 AM. Lightboxes have their own risks, such as inducing manic states in susceptible individuals, causing headaches or migraines, and eye damage. It's not an easy treatment, or one without risks.
But I'm so fucking sick of living this way, of feeling exhausted all the time, of not being able to do the things I want to do.
Next week I have an appointment to go discuss it with Dr Awesome (aka my amazing GP). After that, I'll likely be renting a lightbox and starting treatment.
I'm scared of side effects, or of fucking things up worse than they already are. I'm scared it won't work, and then I'll lose the only remaining hope that I won't always be struggling with this.
But I'm even more scared of this shit continuing as it has been. I have to try. :(