[Amazonmom]

I've been having a crappy time sleeping lately. Like over the last four weeks I have an average of 4-5 hours a night. Pnurse has latched onto this and asks me about sleep a lot. I feel like a zombie with sleep deprivation.

I guess she is worried about me going into hypomania. But I really don't know what I can do about my sleep. It's not like I can ignore my little baby...I sleep in her room. I have been told by a lot of people to sleep in my room again , it has blackout shades.

Gah. I don't know what to do about sleep. I used to sleep for 10 hours at a stretch, before this stupid BIPOLAR crap entered my life.

What do you fellow bipolars do to get good sleep?

[bipolo]

At this point I have to take a benadryl to help me sleep. I still can hear the dog moving around so Im not completely gonzo. Now I have some ambien. Im in hypomania at this point. Love it! Getting things done I haven't in a long time. Good luck

[BNLsMOM]

I use Ativan but I think it has stopped working. I wake up a million times a night and then can't get up in the morning, which was one of my original problems. I wish I had more to offer, but all I have to give is support.

[thinker22]

Various things I've been given or told to use for sleep: Benadryl (but its effectiveness wears off over time so you can't take it every night). Lorazepam (good for racing heart and PTSD before bed, but can become habit forming, aka addictive over a long period of time). Trazodone (made me prone to fainting and unstable, but before that it seemed to help zonk me out. Just don't try walking around 30 minutes after taking it). And now Seroquel (which lessens intrusive voices and images, but at higher doses makes me a zombie the next day who'd rather not get out of bed. 25mg is all I want any more).

You probably already know this, but long term use of Advil or Tylenol PM is bad for your liver and I took them too for a short period of time, to fill in the gap nights I couldn't take Benadryl.

Hope this helps.

[VickiesPath]

It's been 15 years ago, but I was told not to sleep in the same room with my child also and also, don't use one of those monitors unless you're too far away to not hear a real cry. The small noises a baby makes, the normal ones, are enough to disturb your sleep if you sleep in the same room or if you use a monitor. If your baby really needs you, you will hear the cry even if you are in your room. This is assuming you are not taking a sleep aid.

Now.....the OTC sleep aids eventually do not work and eventuall will have the opposite effect if you use them consistently. So you don't want to take them every night. This includes Benadryl, Tylenol PM, Advil PM, etc. They all have the same ingredient, an antihistamine. If your sleep is suffering, you are either entering hypomania or depression. Only you and your nurse can decide this. Since you have a little one, you might want to make adjustments in your regular meds and not take a rx sleep med like Ambien or the like. I take Ambien and last year had to care for my mother who had terminal cancer and I didn't hear her calling me once and she got up and had a fall. I felt terrible. So, I quit taking it while caring for her. Is there anyone that could relieve you a couple nights a week? If so, you could take a rx sleep aid and catch up. I feel for you. Lack of sleep sucks. I hope you get it straighted out.

[Trying & Caring]

I have major problems w/insomnia & hypo mania (which would be great if it would just stay that way as I feel great during hypo mania, but after mos. of hypo mania I then crash into awful depressions that make me do rash, destructive behaviors). My provider has said if I go 3 nights without sleeping 6 hrs. I need to call her & get back on sedating meds.

I was on Trazodone & Klonopin (as well as other bp meds; also increasing my Abilify from 20 to 25 mg for a week would usually knock out the beginning of a hypo manic episode).

However, the sedating meds would put me to sleep, but not necessarily make me stay asleep. I had EMDR therapy treatment for PTSD & that actually helped immensely w/the insomnia. I ended up being really tired & catching up on my sleep after the EMDR (3 treatments--1 1/2 hr. each). I actually got scared of being so tired & sleeping so much! I wondered if I would ever wake up. I did get into a normal sleeping time schedule & no longer take Trazodone; Klonopin maybe a couple nights a week if I need it.

But it was scary in that when I was taking the Trazodone & Klonopin & other bp meds I would maybe answer the phone & talk to my grown kids & HAVE NO MEMORY OF IT THE NEXT DAY. It scared them to death so I just didn't answer the phone after taking my night-time meds & made sure I was just going straight to bed. Couldn't read.

I also had that night-time binge eating that some people have on Ambien. Where I would wake up in the morning & find "evidence" that I had eaten (a lot--& already have gained weight on bp meds so don't need this) during the night, but not recollection of it.

It is just plain scary what an individual can experience on different meds, but I do firmly believe they were necessary for me when I got in a bad state--paranoid, very depressed & non-functioning. I am still endeavoring to getting off some & decreasing dosages of others w/my meds provider's cooperation as they haven't been tested in the elderly & I'm getting there age-wise, unfortunately, or maybe fortunately! My mother died at 45 as a result of not being able to be successfully treated for bp. Did herself in. So we have so much better options available today.

[Trying & Caring]

I actually put a trigger on my last post but it didn't seem to show up. I guess it doesn't show up unless you started the thread. It just shows up next to my actual post. My mistake.