Why am I awake now?

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

I slept badly last night, and was exhausted all day. I got nothing done, I was so tired. So I went to bed at 8pm. I woke up about 1/2 hr. ago, and can’t fall back asleep. I’m in the living room, because I was making my husband crazy.

I took 2 Benadryl, 10mg melatonin, and .5mg Klonapin, and I’m still wide awake.

Insomnia sucks.

I REALLY want to sleep and not have another unproductive day tomorrow. However, I am thinking of giving it another 30 minutes, and if I don’t fall asleep, getting some stuff done, so that I won’t feel guilty if I’m a slug tomorrow.

I don’t drink under normal circumstances (but I’m not “sober”). I’m seriously considering whether a shot of DH’s scotch will help. That’s what he takes when he can’t sleep, and it works 100% for him.

2

I’d be VERY careful adding alcohol to the Benadryl or the Klonapin (check label warnings). Piling too many sedating-type chemicals on at the same time can be dangerous.

3

Are you a chronic insomniac, or is this just an occasional thing?

Sleep specialists say that using alcohol for chronic insomnia is counterproductive. It can help you fall asleep, but then you wake up again after a couple of hours.

If you have chronic insomnia, you should see a doctor and maybe get a referral to a sleep specialist.

4

Yep. Agreed. Alcohol and drugs don’t always mix well.
I suffer/ live with insomnia. It’s a frustrating disorder. Nothing seems to work 100%.
What works for one may not work for another.
I’m sorry you’re suffering with it.
Cut out all caffeine is the first thing to do.

5

Might as well play some pinball.

6

Agreed re the caffeine thing-I struggle too with hideous insomnia so I limit my total caffeine a day and strictly limit after 3 or 4 pm. It helped me to look up caffeine content of various beverages too. Coffee is way more per serving than tea, tea is usually more than pop, etc.

The Mayo Clinic has good online articles about sleep if this happens to you often.

Get some sunshine in the morning to reset your sleep clock. Go to bedtime about the same time. Stop screen time, tv, computers, phone about an hour prior. Try to avoid hefty snacks before bed. Exercise is recommended, I’ve never had the self-discipline to do that, alas.

If you can’t fall after trying for 20 minutes, get up and do something calming (not screen based), reading, music, etc., try again once you feel drowsy. Rinse and repeat.

Free advice from my shrink doctor son: emphasized limiting screen in evening, don’t rely on sleep meds. They really are designed for using for short length of time, 1-2 weeks. Behavioral changes much longer lasting and more successful. Above all, he would agree with poster that alcohol is counter productive, you wake up again in hour or two. Especially don’t combine alcohol with anything thing else! Yikes! Therein lies not waking up at all.

He also gives the advice of, for God’s sake don’t stack up multiple meds on top of each other-more isn’t better and likely to have bad results, like grogginess next day, falling, etc. also, those meds are far harder to get off than on. Ask a pharmacist if that would be helpful re reasons to not do that.

May the force be with you. You are not alone in this frustration.

7

Thanks for the thoughts, guys, but for the record, I’ve been under treatment by a doctor (actually, a succession of doctors) for insomnia for about 25 years. I take 3 different prescriptions for it, plus melatonin (on doc’s recommendation) and a little caffeine first thing in the AM (doc’s recommendation again).

I’ve had several sleep studies, and my sleep brainwaves are highly unusual, particularly my REM sleep. I don’t have apnea. I tend to physically startle when I start to enter REM sleep, and this wakes me up, sometimes very awake, sometimes just out over REM, and REM is the restorative phase of sleep, when you make the enzyme that keeps you from feeling sleepy after you have slept well.

Caffeine bonds to the same receptors as the enzyme, which is why it wakes you up. My doctor wants me to be wide awake first thing in the morning, so I’m not having problems with “wakeful sleepiness,” which is a weird thing where I can sometimes get shadows in my peripheral vision. Caffeine makes this go away, until my on “awake” enzyme in flowing. I don’t get any the rest of the day. I drink decaf coffee, and 5-calorie, flavored water. Once in a very long while, I might buy caffeine-free Coke.

I take another medication in the morning that helps me stay focused, and not want to nap, without interfering in my ability to go back to sleep at night. Then I take an anti-seizure medicine, because this seems to counter-act the REM startles, and I take a very small dose of an antipsychotic, which wouldn’t have any effect on me if I were actually psychotic, but it lengthens my “day” cycle, because my body is naturally on a 14-hr day/6-hr night, and the medication gets me to a 16-hr day/8-hr night.

Plus, I have Klonopin and Ambien (zolpidem) as PRNs, for nights when the other meds just don’t work (which seems to be the case tonight). Or for nights when I travel to another time zone, or need to get to sleep extra early, because I’m doing something like working at the polls. I have both, because my doctor wants me to alternate which one I take, and only gives me a small amount of each, to avoid dependence. I actually have a couple of months backlogged, but I have weeks where I’ve used a month’s worth in one week, so I fill the prescriptions every month.

FTR, also, I don’t drink at all, but that has more to do with 1) both my parents dying of cancer; and 2) I don’t like to. I was just joking about the Scotch.

8

Awake again. It’s 6:10, and I’m getting ready to throw in the towel, and say I’m up. According to my fitbit, I had 2.5 hours of sleep. I’m pretty sure it undertracks, though, and it’s closer to 4.5. I have to make it to 8:30pm tonight, though, and I have to drive late. Driving tired is not a good thing. I took 10mg melatonin and .5mg clonazepam at 3am, when I had been awake for an hour, and it did no good. I don’t have to do anything until 9am, but it would be good to walk the dog now, while it isn’t hot. I’m really torn between getting up, and trying to force more sleep.

In sum, my choices are to take 5mg zolpidem, and try to sleep until 9am, or just get up and walk the dog.

I was expecting to sleep today, because yesterday, I was very tired, and slept a lot.

A weird thing I have, is episodes about every 18 months of hypersomnia, that last about 5 days. I will go to bed at 8pm, and sleep until 2pm the next day. I had a day like that yesterday. I could not wake up.

So I thought I had a spell of hypersomnia coming up. But nope. Back to my regular insomnia today. I may have had just a mild virus or something yesterday.

I swear, I’d give up a leg to be able to sleep normally.

9

Taking Ambien when you have to be awake and safely functioning in anything less than 8-10 hours in a bad idea. That can be worse than very little sleep. Get the details from your pharmacist-you could end up sleep-driving or falling.

Insomnia is very insidious and infuriating-I too deal with it far too often.

Your idea of just getting up and doing some thing is what I do (mostly that means cranking up the laptop and reading SDMB :wink:). Then I’m careful to not drive or use power tools without asking for help until I’ve gotten enough sleep. Granted this is doable for me because I’m retired.

In most ways I’ve given up on medications except for melatonin. I am also ridiculously careful to limit caffeine to 1-2 cups of coffee in the morning and then no caffeine, even pop or tea, after 4-5pm. I’ve found it useful for me to have a predictable sleeping environment-a sound machine to mask and even out city noises, light blocking blinds, etc., anything making it easier to fall asleep and not get woken up.

I’ll be thinking of you at 3am tonight when I’m grousing and still trying to fall asleep. Maybe we will be get lucky.

10

I have taken 5mg Ambien/zolpidem (half a standard tablet), and not fallen asleep at all. For that matter, I have taken a regular 10mg tablet, and not fallen asleep, albeit rarely, but I’ve sometimes gotten well less than 8 hours on 10mg. The insomnia is strong with this one.

My doctor knows that I take 5mg sometimes when I want to get a few hours of sleep. She says that I shouldn’t drive or sign anything for at least 5 hours after taking it, but if I wake up naturally, and get up, and just do things around the house, that’s perfectly fine.

I’ve been using zolpidem since before it was available in generic (I had good insurance). I have always used it as a PRN, which means I have taken it anywhere from 2 to 12 times in any given month (but doubtfully more, since doctors usually won’t write for more than 10 pills a month), I’d estimate, so I know how I react to it.

Since I use it a lot after having already attempted to fall asleep and failed, it’s not uncommon that I sleep less than 8 hours on it, but I also frequently take only 5mg. I reserve taking 10mg for times when I go to bed early to get up early (like when I’m working at the polls, and have to show up at 5am), or when I’m trying to adjust to another time zone, and need to back up. In those cases I do get at least the opportunity to sleep 8 hours, and actually, more like 9, although it rarely works that way.

11

Thanks for writing back. I enjoy the conversation.

The Ambien suggestions came from the nurse side of me, but it sounds like you’re handling that well. Glad you consult with your doctor. Mine was the same way with me about prescribing it. I finally got to an age where my brain chemistry lead to very bizarre, unnerving nightmares, which made the end sleep quality worse, so I just stopped trying to use it. All the other sleep meds just stopped working-I tried every one out there. I could just smack every person who told me “I just take one Benadryl-works every time”.

I was trying to sound supportive as a fellow insomniac. Hope it came across that way.

Sleeplessness is so maniacal, especially when it happens often. People who don’t experience it have no idea. My sleep quality got even worse (and it was pretty bad to big with) after I had several traumatic brain injuries, which finished off my brain’s sleep center. My neurologist said “yep, it’ll do that. Nothing to be done”. Swell.

I had to laugh because I was online orderIng more melatonin from Target when your message came through🙂no way I am facing the dark without that!

Winging good wishes your way.