Sleep

[sammason]

Do you sleep well? We often hear how important it is to sleep enough but not too much. Not always easy to make that happen, is it?

My too-frequent sleep trouble is partly due to chronic disability. It's partly due to age. Sleep trouble gives me a good reason to work as a freelancer, not bound by anybody's rules.

Comments

[dark_phoenix54]

I sleep like a dead thing. I fall asleep almost as soon as I hit the pillow. Partly this is due to the gabapentin I take, but I've never had trouble sleeping. Sometimes pain wakes me up and I have to take a pain killer to get back to sleep, especially in the wee hours when the gabapentin is wearing off.

Age related, I think, is that I used to be a total owl. These days I get sleepy early. Still don't want to get up in the morning, though!

[sammason]

I looked up gabapentin, which I hadn't heard of. Hope it works for you.

Falling asleep, for me, is quite easy. Staying asleep isn't easy.

[dark_phoenix54]

It was originally given to me for my migraines, and didn't do shit for them. But it *did* help considerably with the fibro pain. Through the years I've had to increase the dose, but I still have some ways to go before I hit maximum dosage. I don't take a high enough dosage to kill all the pain (because of the sleepiness it causes) but it helps immensely. Flares are still miserable, though.

[vicki_t_veg]

I had to stop taking Gabapentin, I couldn't keep my eyes open

[weebleswobble]

i have a sleep disorder where i dont stay in REM sleep. every time i go into REM, for some strange reason i get kicked right back out and wake up. over the entire night of sleep study i only got 4 minutes of REM sleep. so i have to be sedated to get any decent amount of sleep. otherwise i wake up every hour or every half hour, all damn night long. it is THE most frustrating thing to keep waking up when you are absolutely exhausted. i used to take trazadone, which worked wonderful. but as my mental health changed, i was moved to seroquel, which is extremely sedating. i still have occasional bad nights, but i am able to sleep thru most nights now. if i dont get enough sleep, or GOOD sleep, i fall apart. i just cant function when i'm sleep deprived.

[vicki_t_veg]

my sleep is a complete nightmare and I can never work out how much is too much or too little for me. I'm a natural night owl and don't sleep til after 2am and I turn nocturnal in the summer so that doesn't help with any sort of pattern, and can get only two or three hours if I have to be awake for something during the day. All my health stuff can cause some major fatigue and I tend to sleep to 'escape' all my body 'crap' too which probably doesn't help.

[nightshade1972]

I have to take 200 mg Trazodone and 5 mg melatonin about an hour and a half before bedtime. I still frequently wake up in the middle of the night with my arms numb and/or my heart racing. Sometimes I can get back to sleep, usually I can't.