[music junkie]

i'm getting really frustrated with not being able to sleep. this past week i have had a very, very hard time falling asleep & staying asleep. i take sleeping pills, prescribed, & i STILL can't fall asleep! nothing has changed in my habits or diet. what the heck is going on here!

[Amara26]

I have been having the same problem. I see my psychiatrist later today and if I get any insight I will send you a message. What do you take for your insomnia? I take Ambien and Serequel which should put a horse to sleep but they don't seem to work on me. I have been averaging 3-4 hours a night for the past week and it is really getting to me so I completely understand your frustration.

[spacebound]

I am also having this problem I am allowed to ambien a night and at 4 am i was still wide awake. Its effecting me in so many ways I have a appt on thurs hopefully i can get some help then

[pgrundy]

Have you had a medication evaluation with a psychiatrist? It can make all the difference.

Ambien stops working after a few weeks for most people. If you have major depression, your insomnia won't go away until the depression is treated.

Good luck! I hope you doc can help.

[music junkie]

i take clonazepam. i used to just take one (don't remember the exact mg at the moment), & my psychiatrist said if i couldn't fall asleep after 20 minutes, to take another. one used to be fine, & two would be too much. if i knew i could get a lot of sleep, then i would take two. but now i take two all the time, & i am still having troubles. so frustrating.

[Perna]

When I get stuck with one symptom giving me a hard time, I "ignore" it and go work on something else for awhile? If I'm not "dead" yet :-) and don't think the symptom is likely to make things worse than they already are, I put up with how things already are and concentrate elsewhere. Sometimes the elsewhere helps me with the symptom I'm stuck on too or sometimes it gives me more hope/ideas of things to try, etc. I just started yoga classes a few days ago and am anxious to see if/how that might impact my sleeping problems.

I have trouble staying asleep and often get up in the middle of the night. Sometimes eating a bowl of cereal or eating a banana (or both :-) helps me, probably with the nutrition/calcium/magnesium, and I can get back to sleep for another 3-4 hours. I'm idly trying to eat the cereal before bed, try various light OTC vitamins and other helps as well as adjusting when I take my meds, how much I eat/drink (I get up to go to the bathroom at night). Experimenting is fun for me and that takes some of the sting out of not succeeding with some efforts.

Sleeping isn't just "itself" and I have picked a larger issue, blood pressure to work on and study and see if I can effect. I'm losing weight and getting more exercise to see how that impacts things and while I do that I'm trying other ideas and concentrating on how I'm losing weight or getting more exercise :-) Just seeing if exercising right before bed or earlier in the day, how much to exercise, what kinds of exercise, etc. seem to influence my blood pressure and/or sleep makes it more interesting to me and less frustrating.

[music junkie]

good post, perna! your signature quote is good food for thought for me

[Perna]

I modified the signature quote as it is actually, "Every time I eat something not good for me. . ." (I'm working on losing 125 pounds:-)

Another thing I use to help my insomnia is to "accept" it. I work around it (take a nap or go to bed early/late to accommodate what I want/need to do). But not fighting with it, trying to subdue it, which, if you think about it, is just fighting your "self", can help me relax a bit about it and enjoy reading until I'm sleepy or napping until I wake, etc. Try to "enjoy" what is "wrong" with you, see how it is beneficial (maybe there's something you "should" be considering but you're trying to sleep to forget, etc. or your diet is off or there's some other tiny problem you haven't considered that comes to light only because you can't sleep and thus are more open to considering everything.)

[music junkie]

i like your ideas, perna. sometimes i do try to nap when i can't fight it anymore, or just stay up if i can't sleep. but it can cause friction with my gf, because she works, & she wants me to get up when she does, & stay up all day like she does. she'll put up with it for a while, but then she'll just snap one day because she's tired of it.

[Perna]

I sort of understand your girlfriend's point of view; my husband naps (I don't usually) and it is a good chunk out of the center of the day but I also let my husband run his own life :-) and do what's best for him and he does the same for me. I use the time he's napping to go out on my own and get my own life/things done or as quiet time. We're retired so with one another the rest of the time so I don't really want to begrudge him that couple hours of the day. If we have something planned, he will do that instead, doesn't "have" to nap.

Tell your girlfriend you'll trade her you being in a better mood versus grouchy when you're awake, for the chance of a nap when you are feeling extra tired :-)

[music junkie]

sounds like a plan. i always nap when she is at work, so i don't feel like i'm depriving us of "together time", but it still rubs her the wrong way. usually if she wants to go do something, i usually just go to avoid arguing about it & still having to go. i really don't know why she would want me to go when i don't want to, & i'm going to be in a bad mood the whole time. but that's another thread

[Perna]

I think I'm like your wife; I love having my husband drive me where I want to go, whether he wants to go or not. He is quite content to ask me if I want to go somewhere and if I answer, "no" goes about his business and goes himself without a problem.

I can get myself to do some things alone, I'm usually fine once I'm out and about but do enjoy his company. Of course, he is rarely in a "bad" mood and is easy to be with and I can't force him to go if he does not want to (and sometimes I won't go if I can't get him to).

Maybe you should practice "surprise" that she would expect you to go along when you don't wish to or that she would be out of sorts if you decide you want to nap. Everything works better for us when we let each other alone/respect each others decisions for ourselves.

I hope you come up with something that helps you with your sleep. Have you done all the blood/urine tests possible with your GP? I know I need thyroid and Vitamin D therapy both and getting those right have helped my mood/sleep some. When I see my doctor again on August 2 I'm going to discuss other vitamins and whether they could help. Do you have asthma or sinus troubles? I have asthma and that apparently can cause all sorts of "other" problems that interfere with sleep. It can be hard tracking down possible culprits. I was even sensitive to the inactive ingredients in my thyroid hormone; most meds have additional binders, taste maskers, etc. and it's quite possible something somewhere and you don't like one another. I'm lactose sensitive and can't tell you the wonderful difference when I started using Lactaid and their milk http://www.lactaid.com/ and it turned out that Synthroid, my initial thyroid med the doctor prescribed had lactose as an additive! No wonder I was getting heartburn! :-) Hard to sleep if one has various other aches, pains, discomforts. Check this out (just for my "natural" thyroid hormone replacement!

http://www.healthboards.com/boards/s...d.php?t=358491

Challenge your regular doctor, not your psychiatrist, to check out your blood work and vitamin levels, etc. and do some sleuthing about your meds and conditions and see if you can't unearth something "new" that might help. I'm back on the "generic" again; with thyroid, since any and all pills are the "same" (a hormone) the pharmacist is allowed to switch to another brand if he wants (usually because he doesn't have enough of or carry "another") unless the doctor writes DNS (do not substitute) on the prescription and my doctor still has trouble with my name, never mind remembering I want a particular maker. Check out your generics and each ingredient and see what it is; some of the ingredients in the generic thyroid pill are toxic! http://www.time.com/time/specials/pa...976901,00.html I can't imagine they're helping my sleep :-)

[music junkie]

i don't like to do things by myself; i have horrible anxiety. i rarely want to go anywhere of my own choosing, except grocery shopping, & she doesn't mind going with me. she is rarely in a bad mood.

i don't mind doing things with her, but we come from very different backgrounds. her family is super social & loves to do things together. i come from a family where we stopped doing family things by the time i was 10. i have slowly, slowly gotten used to doing things with her family, but sometimes, it is still just too much, & i get tired of it. but because she can't say no to her family (or won't), i get stuck going with her too, otherwise it's a big fight.

back on the subject of health & insomnia...i get blood & urine tests done semi-regularly, but i honestly don't know what tests they are doing, or what tests i should ask them to do. my regular doctor is foreign & hardly speaks english, which makes it horrible to speak with her. i get my medical care at the VA, & i have no health insurance, so i have no other choice but to go there. it's virtually impossible to get a new doctor unless the one you have leaves.

i do have asthma; i've had it for almost 10 years now. it's never really affected me outside of exercising. so not really sure what the problem is. insomnia has come & gone over the years, but it's so frustrating when it "comes". i feel like a hypochondriac sometimes; it just feels like there is always something wrong with me that has no real solution