going to bed for the night consistently

That is a low dose of Gabapentin @Nammu. I am taking between 900 mg and 1500 mg, but I take it only secondarily for sleep and primarily for the amelioration of EPS. Gabapentin improves sleep architecture and deep sleep in insomniacs. I am glad it allowed you to reduce Ambien to recommended dosage levels. Ambien did nothing at all for me, but I did not try dosages above recommended. Lunesta, Sonata... same thing. This whole class of meds. Did nothing.

Sleep is not easy, is it?

The ambian helps me fall asleep and the gabapentin keeps me asleep. The only reason why I was on such I high dose is because I was inpatient and nothing was working. They were desperate. The night shift doesn’t like it when people are awake! ruins their plans.

I guess I can try increasing Gabapentin to see if I stay asleep better. The FDA approved max is 3600 mg so I have room to grow. And my neurologist says that for his purposes he safely has his neuro patients on as high as 4500 mg.

Gaba does nada for me. I've been on Ambien 12.5mg for decades. It usually works, probably 80% of the time, but my body wakes me up numerous times in the "night." I can't recall the last time I slept more than 2 hours straight through. Meds definitely work differently for different people.

My therapist is BIG on sleep and sleep hygiene. We finally just stopped talking about it because we reached an impasse.

Some people just love getting on their soapboxes. I am glad the therapist at least was able to relent.

10:04 PM going to bed.

First off, had to get up several times to pee, and no wonder since I had a personal training session late during which I drank a liter of water.

In general, I just can't believe my registered dietitian encourages me to drink more water because I already go to the restroom so often. But I do get her point, though: I am not drinking the recommended amount of water on the days when I do not work out.

In the middle of the night, I started listening to Celtic myths. The tales were unusual, unlike anything I had read or heard before. I remember waking up suddenly to a very dramatic point in a story. I now realize that I just woke up then, but the impression I got was that I was awake more than I was asleep. When the alarm rang at 7AM, I was not rested and Oura showed that I had slept less than 6 hours and I need more than 7 hours on Oura to function. So I went back to bed and put on Yoga Nidra which usually puts me to sleep. I then woke up, on my own, at... 9:38AM. I felt wonderful and since then have been productive, but.... almost 12 hours in bed. It is completely abnormal and I do not think it is psychiatric because I clearly am not depressed and hypersomnia is a symptom of depression.

I have made an appointment to discuss all this with the internist next Friday. Will print out Oura data to show her.

Going to bed late. got carried away posting on MSF tbh .

10:53 PM

I am doing an experiment tonight.

I will have very gentle Chopin music playing softly on my computer in the second bedroom as one background.

I will have the white noise machine going for 30 minutes next to my CPAP on my bedside table as another background.

And I will listen to a familiar audiobook, a familiar story, so that I do not get startled in the middle of the night by some super dramatic apexes of Celtic myths (last night) or Poirot stories (has been known to happen).

So I will have three sources of audio, one in the foreground and two in the background, and we will see what happens.

I also ate a lot of Ethiopian meat before bedtime, took Topamax 25 mg and I am hoping not to wake up hungry in the middle of the night.

Good night!

I like the idea of playing Chopin. Sometimes if I'm having trouble sleeping, I'll put music on low and lay down and close my eyes and just try to focus on the music. I find this restful and about 75% of the time, I am able to fall asleep.

I liked waking up in the morning and hearing Chopin playing softly. The white noise, I think it does nothing.

The night was not uneventful. I woke up hungry again and had plain kefir with many rye crackers. I am hoping that Topamax will eventually kick in. And Mounjaro/Ozempic, they clearly have stopped working for me.

Still have to pour distilled water, take off my workout clothes, and put on an audiobook. It will be 10:30PM when I go to bed tonight.

Took my nighttime meds including Topamax and ate right before bedtime.

Did not take a nap today.

Had a tumultuous night. Woke up hungry, ate an apple with peanut butter and rye crackers, drank kefir. Closer to morning. the BiPAP mask start bothering me to no end, with my face itching and I had to take it off. And then all morning and early afternoon I was in bed, not sleeping but not able to get up, either. I probably had low blood pressure but I did not have a monitor nearby so I could not measure it.

Now I am catching up on work, wfh. Next week I will need to go to the office. I am dreading it.

10:47PM

alas, my eczema is back after a long period of remission. applied mometasone to my neck

Identified one of thr challenges to getting uninterrupted sleep by counting how many times I had to get up to pee. 7 times. Unbelievable. 7 times between going to bed at almost 11pm and getting up at 9am.

Took off the CPAP mask at night because it was bothering me. I think eczema is to blame.

Spent some time during the night laying awake

Did not wake up hungry.. Maybe this is because I took 50 mg Topamax at bedtime. I will repeat it tonight.

There is a version of SleepyHead that's compiled for Mac. You can find it here.

Thank you, I hope I can help!

Went to bed at 10PM sharp last night.

I'm glad you're meeting your goal of a regular bedtime!

This morning, I took my first dose of amphetamine prescribed yesterday by my psychiatrist to help me deal with excessive sleep requirement. So, basically the indication is akin to narcolepsy as a I do not suffer from ADHD.

I took at at 10AM. Later, at about 4PM, I still took a nap but it was a short nap. My amphetamine pill is short-acting and by 4PM was probably out of my system. Also, I took the smallest dose. Now I am going to bed for the night. It is 10:25PM. Tomorrow I will take amphetamine at 7AM when my first alarm rings. Usually, that alarm rings and I turn it off and set another, later alarm. Tomorrow I hope to actually get up with the help of the amphetamine. We will see if that hope materializes.

Clobetasol is working to control eczema. I no longer itch and scratch at night. I will be on it for 6 weeks. It is the strongest anti-eczema topical.

Good night!

I am recording my first experiences taking prescription amphetamine.

I was prescribed Dextroamphetamine Sulfate TABLET 5 MG

This medication is prescribed for ADHD and narcolepsy. I do not have ADHD. My indication is to help counteract excessive daytime sleepiness. So it was basically the psychiatrist giving me the dx of narcolepsy although I had not been properly tested for it and in March 2023 one sleep medicine doctor told me that he could not test me for it unless I went free of all psych meds for three weeks which is impossible. I am thinking of going to talk to my neurologist about all of this; narcolepsy is, after all, a neurological disorder. In me, it started immediately after I contracted COVID in August 2022. I wonder if this might be Long COVID but of course no one knows about about Long Covid to advise me.

So last night I went to bed at 10:30 PM. Before I went to bed, my blood pressure was high, a known side effect of amphetamine. It was 128/89. Earlier yesterday, it had been even higher, 132/88. My baseline is normal to low so for me these numbers are very high. I hoped last night that overnight the blood pressure would go back to baseline.

I felt asleep around midnight and slept for a stretch until 3:11 AM without waking up to pee. For me, it is a long stretch to sleep uninterrupted.

Then I woke up with severe hunger pangs. I got up, drank kefir and ate farmers' cheese with dried fruit. Luckily that quickly quelled the hunger pangs and I was able to go back to sleep.

I then woke up at 6:34 AM from a very vivid and insightful dream which was almost like being awake. I did not need to be up to early and I was astonished that I woke up and seemed well slept. I wanted to sleep more, though, and turned off my 7AM alarm and instead set an alarm for 8AM and put on Yoga Nidra on YouTube. I was able to fall asleep. When the alarm went off at 8AM, I did not feel rested, but I made myself get out of bed. It took me some time, though.

I measured my blood pressure. It was normal, 103/73. I was glad.

I then took another dose of amphetamine. It slowly started working. Initially, I felt like going back to sleep, but the need was not overwhelming and was able to pull through. But 30 minutes later, I no longer felt sleepy. I looked forward to going into the office. I applied clobetasol, sunscreen, and even brow and lash mascara which I do not do often.

At work, initially I felt that it was nothing short of a miracle, how alert and perky I felt and now not at all sleepy or tired. But in the late afternoon and evening I started feeling wired in the heart area and still do, even though the short-acting medication is by now out of my system. I do not like this feeling and I do not know how I will be able to put in hours of focused work while having this feeling.

My blood pressure now at 7PM is 132/82, pulse 78. I hope it goes back to normal overnight again.

I hope that I will be able to fall asleep tonight. I have a meeting at 9PM with a colleague who is in India and I plan to go to bed at 10PM sharp. I also hope that I won't wake up before 7AM.

My Oura ring showed for last night a total of 5 hours 50 minutes of net sleep and a low sleep score but I was able to have a productive day. Before amphetamine, there was no way I could be functioning without a least 7 hours of net sleep and usually more. But I do not know if this will last. Time will tell.

My friend who liked prescription amphetamine when he took it in the past but ultimately did not need it because Modafanil, a milder stimulant, worked just fine for him, hopes it will work for me but reminds me that often medications start working for me but then stop. True. Even Modafanil worked wonders for two days in October 2022 and then stopped. Now I can take Modafanil in the morning and go back to sleep right away. It does nothing at all to promote wakefulness. It is like a sugar pill.

The leaflet accompanying Dextroamphetamine warns of new or worse bipolar illness and mania. I will be watchful.

For now, I just hope to survive next week. I am organizing and event at work and will need to be in the office early in the morning. With this medication, this finally seems possible.

ETA: while amphetamine is working, one does not feel hunger and forgets to eat, but then hunger comes back with a vengeance.

The hunger this evening was relentless. I ate marinated herring, small potatoes with butter, farmers' cheese with whey protein powder and dried fruit and labne, and still could not overcome the feeling of hunger pangs with all the chewing. Then I finally gave up trying to quell the pangs with solid food and started drinking kefir. It is often easier with liquids, fills me up faster and less painfully. It worked.

I am very tired now. I hope it means I will be able to fall asleep and that I am not developing bipolar mania and insomnia as a side effect of taking amphetamine.

I have messaged to the sleep medicine doctor to let her know that the psychiatrist has started me on amphetamine for narcolepsy, to help with excessive daytime sleepiness. I am not sure she will write back. Usually she does not. I am only scheduled to see her in July.

Also wrote to the endocrinologist about the hunger pangs, making sure to let her know I do not have abnormal thirst. Asked her if she would like to order any tests.

I think I am out of ideas now.

going to bed. Very tired and sleepy and no wonder, up non-stop since 8AM.

good night at 10PM sharp

I fell asleep almost instantly last night: I know because I was listening to a familiar story and I remember that it barely started.

I then woke up at 2:25 AM to go to the bathroom and, alas, to eat. I had crackers, kefir, some nuts, some dried fruit. Went back to bed, put on the Nutcracker story audiobook by E.T.A. Hoffman and listened to it for a long time. Could not fall asleep. Considered getting up and taking extra Seroquel but decided to wait a little bit and did fall asleep.

Then woke up at 6:08 AM. Took Levoxyl which requires waiting for 30 minutes before eating. Wanted to go back to sleep. Put on Yoga Nidra. Could not go back to sleep because I was hungry. Still waited 30 minutes. Realized that yesterday night I had forgotten to take Seroquel!

Now I have had breakfast and will try to sleep listening to yoga nidra for an hour before my first meeting.

Unfortunately I forgot to charge my Oura ring yesterday so I do not know how much net sleep I got. That is a shame as it would be interesting to learn the number, off Seroquel.

this morning, amphetamine took more than 2 hours to work. I was on video off during my 9-10AM meeting and I actually fell asleep. I woke up when I was startled at the end of the meeting when a different person started talking in an unexpected voice. And then after the meeting I stayed in bed, unable to get up. Only now, at 11AM, am I slowly ramping up.

I am starting to think that I need a short term disability leave to figure out these meds. It is very stressful to work against a deadline while never being guaranteed a reasonable wake-up routine.

My psychiatrist suggests I double the dose of Dextroamphetamine Sulfate tomorrow. Right now I am at the lowest dose.