Hi Miss Amanda,

Just thought I would jump in as sleep clinic was one of the many things I have done to resolve my sleep issues.

At 31 I started to have problems that no-one could identify. I had been off psych meds for a year and was working full-time and studying at Uni. I had a lot going on, but felt mentally well. Then it all started going downhill. 2 years into my mounting health issues, I had a hallucination on the bus on the way to work. I worked in a hospital. When I got to work, terrified and terribly shaken, I ran in to my dept. and said to my boss(who knew my history), "I have just had a hallucination and need to go to psych triage" he took me down there as he was worried for me too.

Psych triage, after many hours talking to my nurses and psychiatrists, decided it was not a mental health issue, but was due to such chronic lack of sleep that I was having neurological symptoms. Psych was suspicious that it might be narcolepsy. I would fall asleep standing up, mid-conversation, at work......and I would vomit from fatigue......it was TERRIBLE.

So I went to sleep clinic and they hooked me up and found that it was not narcolepsy and I was reaching all four stages of sleep, but for really short periods of time. My sleep doctor wanted to put me on dexamphetamines but wanted to make absolutely sure that it was not a mental health issue before putting me on uppers(as you can imagine, the interaction in brain chemicals were haywire). He said that some people just cannot sleep properly and have this inability to stay awake during the day even if they feel like they had a long nights sleep.

So it went on and on, with still no answers. I had a thyroid goiter, but blood was normal. I had all these debilitating symptoms but endocrinologist could find nothing. My shrinks were stumped.....they believed that it was not a mental health issue, but a physical one. Finally a new doctor dx me with perimenopause and PMDD along with support of the dx from my gynea. Peri was causing ALL OF IT!!!!! This took 5 years of my life. I had to leave my job, defer my degree, was misdx with Bipolar Disorder and had been medicated for it, I had a psych admission at the end of 2007 and was dx bipolar there. My shrinks then retracted it after much time and observation.

Sorry to go on babe......this is a very long reply, but I have a very intimate and long history with sleep problems. Get sleep studies done for sure, but make sure that you do not have anything else going on first physically. I only wish I had known of my hormone problem earlier so I could have avoided pointless tests and examinations. In saying that, sleep studies are excellent and certainly do help rule out a sleep problem as such.

Take good care babe.......and get some help......sleep is definitely one of the fundamentals of good mental health.

Hugs

Michah