I have an eighteen month old, a nine year old, a writing career and a full time job. I thought I was tired because youngest lets me get a full night’s sleep only a few days a week. But now I realize that I am very lucky in the sleep department. Nothing makes you more tired than early pregnancy and/or a newborn.
I’m so tired that my vision, from the passing bars, has grown so weary that it can take in nothing more—it seems there are a thousand bars, and beyond the bars, no world.
It’s something that’s used to treat narcolepsy (which I don’t have), excessive daytime sleepiness (which I do) and sleep timing issues such as with shift work.
The ones best known in the US are Provigil (Modafinil) and Nuvigil (Armodafinil); they are not such strong stimulants as the amphetamines, have less risk of dependence, etc. Nuvigil was the one that scared me by making me feel “good” for the first time in several decades.
Amphetamines are also used - in fact I have a very small quantity of Ritalin (methyphenidate) to be used if I need to drive somewhere when I’m having my mid-afternoon “crash”.
However: I don’t think that doctors in general will rush to prescribe this stuff without attempting to address “upstream” issues first. Those would include sleep apnea and other treatable sleep disorders, verifying that you don’t have issues such as low thyroid or anemia which can contribute to fatigue, working with you to make sure your sleep schedule is as good as possible, etc. Nor should they - unusual daytime fatigue can be a sign of something that needs to be treated and of course medication can have side effects.
I wasn’t prescribed the Nuvigil or Provigil until after I’d had my Restless Legs Syndrome and sleep apnea confirmed and treated appropriately, had various blood levels checked for anemia etc., and still felt lousy. An additional sleep study confirmed that even when I had 8+ hours of sleep, I fell asleep far too easily given the chance.
Still, if you have a doctor who knows you, s/he might well be willing to let you try one of these medications without sleep studies.
The wedding is Sunday and we have to have everything out of the living room and dining room by Monday so we can have the floors refinished. I am so tired.
Moderately. I went to sleep at around 11:20. I woke up sometime after 3 completely at random (I tend to do that). I was JUST about to fall back asleep when muffled SOMETHING comes up from the apartment underneath me. Music, TV, I dunno. It annoyed me, and it caused a feedback loop of stressing out about getting back to sleep that I ended up tossing and turning for the next 3 hours… and then I had to get up for work.
Damn neighbors. It was their dog yapping before. Now I just randomly wake up and can’t get back to sleep.
Update since I posted this two months ago: it’s only gotten worse. I don’t know how I’m alive. Or how I will ever graduate.
man, I am tarred but not as much as y’all. y’all are TARRED. zzzzzzzzz.
I’m so happy to hear that, only because I’m so glad I’m not the only one! My also almost-1-year-old has slept a few longer stretches (6 hours at most), but mostly he wakes up every 4 hours on the dot. On the rare occasion that he decides to sleep 6 hours in a row, I still wake up at the 4-hour mark anyway. He’s on formula, and he’s eating solids reasonably well - I think he just has a very fast metabolism and a complete inability to sleep on an empty stomach. And possibly at this point, completely disrupted sleep rhythms so that waking every 4 hours feels normal to him. Crying it out hasn’t worked to wean him off the two feedings, even though it worked like a charm to undo some other sleep associations at 4 months and 9 months.
So anyway, yeah, I’m tired too.
I feel your pain! Celtling was the same way - four hours only until she was about 13 months, then it stretched out to six hours.
This didn’t work for us, but it’s definitely worth a try: Start watering down the midnight bottle just a little at a time. A smidge less formula each night until about ten-12 days later it’s just water. Most hungry wakers will adjust before you get there and stop waking.
Like I said, didn’t work for Celtling, but I’ve heard it did for others. . .
Got up with the infant at 5:30 this morning. Dead on my feet today. Haven’t been able to focus my eyes for most of the morning.
Years ago I thought I was going crazy because I couldn’t shut my mind off. I couldn’t complete one thought before I was thinking about something else and not finishing that thought and on and on. Mentally fatigued doesn’t describe it.
My Dr said my synapses were firing non-stop, he started me on some medication and after a month or so all was fine. Seems I still have to stay on the meds though.