Right now I’m having a bit of a dual problem, one problem caused by the other.
Due to Stress (problem #1) and an inflamed disk pinching nerves and arteries to my left leg and bringing a whopping lot of pain (problem #2), I am only able to sleep a couple of hours at a time. So I’m trying hard to grab sleep when I can.
Tonight I went to bed at 8pm an woke up drenched in sweat at 1am. Now it’s 3:20am and I’m up playing on my computer. The pain meds have kicked in ok now, but I know I’ll only get another 3 hours (more or less) of sleep maximum when I do get back to sleep, so I’m delaying until about 4am before I make another attempt.
Last week, since I wasn’t getting more than about 1.5 hours of sleep at a crack, I was taking naps every time I could manage to do so.
In the mean time, I’m up on my computer, bouncing back and forth between reading and posting here, reading stupid internet articles, and playing an old computer game.
Another thing I find useful when I know I cannot sleep but need the rest:
Lie down in bed just like I was going to sleep, but don’t expect it. Just expect to lie there resting and don’t worry about whether or not I CAN sleep. Enjoy the quiet warm comfort and the rest and let my mind wander without holding my thoughts.
I stay in bed, try not to let the OCD monkey mind repetitive thoughts take over, and eventually fall back asleep for an hour or so.
On a related note, I’ve been taking Ambien for six months (with a break last Aug-Oct due to changing jobs) but my insurance company is making me jump through all kinds of hoops to get refills (such as demanding I get a doc’s consultation every 3 months and then threatening not to cover the visits). Is this what all Ambien users have to go through, or is the insurance co. just being jerks? I’m thinking of switching to Trazodone in the hope that I can get a 12 month scrip. Can any physician prescribe that, anyone know?
Sorry about the hijack but this is really starting to get annoying. Ambien doesn’t make me do anything weird. I just sleep…and only for about 5 hours at that.
Trazodone is just an old anti-depressant that isn’t used as much anymore because of the side-effect of drowsiness. It isn’t a controlled drug so any doctor or nurse practitioner could write it for you.
Ambien is a drug that a lot of insurance companies and doctors find controversial. My doctor flatly refuses to prescribe it to anyone under 65 simply because she finds there are so many other options than a drug that can cause such problems for people and is habit forming.
I’ve been an insomniac off and on since I was in high school. I use trazodone when I need it and it works for me. You might give it a try. Added bonus: SO much cheaper!
I was on Traz for a number of years, ending about 7.5 years ago. Not a miracle drug, but definitely helped a lot. In fact, been thinking about asking the doc for some lately to help me sleep.
Yeah, it’s a lot cheaper, and as it isn’t so tightly controlled, there’s really no “what the hell are you thinking? I’m not sure I’ll give you more!” questions if you tend to use more than one per night on a semi-regular basis.
I’m one of those people who’re out within ten minutes of going to bed and am up within 30 seconds of my alarm going off, so excuse my ignorance, but are insomniacs usually tired the next day? I mean, if I don’t get any sleep one night by the next time I’m ready to pass out as soon as I can.
Two words: Netflix Streaming. I find being tired the next day is not nearly as torturous as trying to go to bed when you can’t. So screw it. Stay up until you fall over and deal with the consequences later.
About one night a fortnight now, I’ll goto bed around 10 and wake up at 2:30 and effectively be up for the duration. Luckily, I have a 45 minute train ride and I don’t seem to have a problem with falling asleep then. If my brain doesn’t let me sleep a few nights in a row like that, I’ll start taking 1/2 or 1 Excedrin PM.
I’m generalizing here, but I don’t believe insomnia is usually affected by being tired. I mean, the whole point of insomnia is that people have trouble sleeping. If insomniacs could just tire themselves out and fall asleep normally, it wouldn’t be a medical problem. I think chronic insomnia is mostly a mental problem.
For myself, there’s a point after two or three days without sleep where my brain is sort of in the zone, just flying along like Charlie Sheen at a Vatican Warlock convention. I know intellectually that my body is tired but my brain is just humming and jittery. I could honestly stay up and play computer games until I died, if I let myself. But at that point I usually take two ambien and force myself to lie down.
I’m on a lot of medicine these days and it’s more unusual for me to have scary insomnia episodes. But even now, being tired is totally irrelevant.
I’ve gotten about 7 hours of sleep since Saturday so I’m not really rational right now. I think that what you posted was really mean. We do try to sleep. We do things like exercise and eat foods that will make us sleepy. We WANT to sleep. We HATE feeling like crap in the morning.
I’m quite sure that its physical in my case, but why would you dismiss this out of hand? What I’m getting from your post is “just man up and go to bed”. That is like telling a seriously depressed person to just get over it and start smiling.
The OP asked for suggestions as how to deal with it. Don’t you think that means that she’s tired and wants help?
I’m going to drink more warm buttermilk, read a text book while smoking pot. I’m too crabby for the internets now.
Surrounded…I hope you get some sleep. Cats help when they are purring…not so good when they are romping over the bed, so shut the door.
flatlined, what we have here is a failure to communicate.
I’ve suffered from insomnia ever since I was a child. I’m in the middle of a ten day bout brought on by perfect shit storm of illness and medication. I’m also, and probably not irrelevantly, suffering from serious depression.
I was specifically replying to Rand MacNally who asked if insomniacs ever get tired. I was trying to say what you said - that we do get tired, and we do feel like crap, but we can’t sleep anyway.
I think we agree, flatlined.
I don’t have any tips for beating it. Massive quantities of prescription drugs is the only thing that can put me to sleep if I’m on tear. And not always even then.
Thank you for the answers on Trazodone. I’m definitely asking for it when the Ambien runs out.
And yeah, that feeling of being so exhausted, just DEAD tired after going full out for several days and still not being able to sleep is almost enough to push me over the edge. Boy Howdy, I do hate my ridiculous broken brain sometimes.
Back when I had good medical insurance, I took Welbutrin XL as an antidepressant and Trazodone as a sleep aid; the two seemed to work well together.
Now that I have no medical insurance, I’m taking Buproprion and Elavil, along with Trazodone. I haven’t had a good nights sleep in months. Luckily, I’m retired now so I can take a nap when I really need sleep. I’ve probably just managed to screw up my sleep routine.
You are so right, Merneith. I’m very sorry. I do get irrational when I don’t get enough sleep and I didn’t properly understand what I was responding to. :smack:
Thank you so much for being so kind about it.
I also have some other things going in my life right now. My stress and lack of sleep is no excuse. I’m really sorry. Offers to shake hands, hug and make up.
I’m sorry and hope that you will forgive me for being such a bitch.
Last night I left the hospital about 11. After driving for almost an hour, I was so tired that I pulled into a truck stop about 5 miles from my home and walked around for a while. When I got home, I changed my sheets (clean sheets always seem to help), cleaned the litterboxes, took a shower, made sure that my blinds and curtains would not leak light (I’m in the middle of nowhere, but sometimes people drive by and their headlights will wake me) and slipped into bed, with purring cats cuddled next to me.
No joy. My ceiling fan was ticking. I need air to move, so I got up, found a fan…thinking that I’m better with whirrrrr than tick…tick…tick. That meant that the air was blowing at me instead of down on me. That didn’t work, so I put in foam earplugs and then couldn’t sleep because I wouldn’t be able to hear the ax murderer breaking down my door.
I gave up there and went to sleep in the guest room with non ticking ceiling fan. Of course, that didn’t work because it wasn’t MY comfy bed and idiot cat was outraged because I was sleeping in his day bed. About 2 am, I gave up, tried to go online because I had read your response and felt badly that I hadn’t apologized (I was able to read, but not reply due to being on laptop and at starbucks) and found that my server was down.
So, I got dressed, got in my car and drove back to the last place I thought I was going to sleep. A truck stop. Just the place for an insomniac to try to sleep. Bright lights, noisy trucks, noisy people slamming doors and yelling at each other, lot lizards knocking on windows with all that sort of other noise. I locked my doors, wrapped up in a blanket and promptly went to sleep for FOUR hours.
