Hi cat eyes... I'm sure you already know that, if this is a recent thing then it could be a sign of a hypomanic episode. Have you just recently started or increased any of your meds? Of course that could affect your sleep habits. Also my pdoc tells me that insomnia is a common thing with the bipolar.... to me that's a very ominous and disheartening statement. Like no matter how good you try to be about sleep habits, it's still gonna be crappy for the rest of your life. Sometimes those kinds of statements just overwhelm me. Could I be losing sleep over that?

I've been having sleep issues too. I know that usually sleep patterns are a warning of what is to come - depression, mania, hypomania, whatever. Right now though, I'm not quite sure what's going on with me. Some nights I fall asleep right away, and other nights I'm up for hours. Others I wake up many times throughout the night. In any of these cases, I have a very, very, very hard time waking up in the morning. I started taking my meds in the morning so that none of them would keep me up at night, and that helped for a little while, but now it's worse than ever. On the nights I can't fall asleep, I take Sonata, but whether I take it or not, I still can't wake up on time. I'm meeting with my pdoc tomorrow so hopefully she'll help me figure out a solution... she's already tried increasing the Lamictal, and she prescribed me the Sonata. I'm on 5 other meds for various things, but I'm pretty sure that by now my body has adjusted to all of it. No matter how I sleep, I am tired all the time. But I don't feel depressed at all. I think I may be stressed because of family issues, but this doesn't seem to be the beginnings of a depression. Besides the constant sleepiness, I'm feeling pretty okay these days.

So, like you cat eyes, my concern is that I'm on too many meds. But I really think your pdoc is the only one who can answer your question... I really really hope that mine gives me a solution that actually helps this time.

On a side note, I think I've made a little bit of progress because I'm not sitting here beating myself up because I overslept, haven't made it into work yet, etc, etc. But I would really really like these sleep problems to go away.

Good luck cat eyes, and thanks for letting me vent too

RK