Biweekly Check-In for Current/Recovering Insomniacs ~ 4/1

[Deleted]

Here is this week's Insomnia check-in thread. We will be doing bi-weekly check-ins since it's a small group.

If you would like to be tagged for weekly check-ins, please let me know. mama2a @sluttybigb00bz @led


1. Are you a current, recovering or recovered insomnia sufferer?


2. Did you always suffer from insomnia or was there a trigger?


3. What are you doing to treat or cope? Is it working?


4. Any major break-through lately that has helped you sleep better?


5. GTKY---What's your favorite late night infomercial?

[Deleted]

1. Are you a current, recovering or recovered insomnia sufferer? Current/recovering


2. Did you always suffer from insomnia or was there a trigger? Yep, always. Since I was a little kid.


3. What are you doing to treat or cope? Is it working? Trying to stick to a strict bedtime, not drinking caffeine after noon, not staying in bed if I can't sleep, etc.


4. Any major break-through lately that has helped you sleep better? Nothing new.


5. GTKY---What's your favorite late night infomercial? I don't watch television.

[mama2a]

Apr 1, 2015 20:16:31 GMT -5 @wallflwr926 said:

edit:  UGH, my post deleted. I'll have to update this at lunch time! Oops...

[Deleted]

1. Are you a current, recovering or recovered insomnia sufferer? Narcoleptic, current insomnia


2. Did you always suffer from insomnia or was there a trigger? Always, from a very young age.


3. What are you doing to treat or cope? Is it working? Medication is the only option right now.


4. Any major break-through lately that has helped you sleep better? Holy Crap, I forgot to pick up my ambien prescription yesterday. I woke up just about every 90 minutes from around midnight until 6:30 am. It sucked.


5. GTKY---What's your favorite late night infomercial? I asked the question and now i'm blanking on an answer.

[mama2a]

Apr 1, 2015 20:16:31 GMT -5 @wallflwr926 said:

1. Are you a current, recovering or recovered insomnia sufferer? Recovering/recovered


2. Did you always suffer from insomnia or was there a trigger?   It started at 4 months PP for a myriad of reasons, the big one being that I was going to bed too early since I was nursing overnight and "needed" 8 hours of sleep.


3. What are you doing to treat or cope? Is it working?   I've been doing CBT-I and getting into mindfulness both during the day and nighttime. I've learned a lot about sleep from CBT-I such as letting go of this idea that I "have" to have 8 hours of sleep. I actually do just as well on 7 hours or even less. I've been going to bed because "it's time to go to bed" for as  long as I can remember when I should really be going to bed when I'm sleepy.

4. Any major break-through lately that has helped you sleep better?  Yep! I think I've finally resolved the nearly year-long issue. My sleep psychologist was talking to me about how when I go to bed my heart starts increasing and pounding and I can't get it to slow because it's become a sleep phobia and seems like an automatic response. I told him that lately I'd been sleeping better because I think positively about my sleep and try to stay optimistic. He then said, "I know what you're issue is! Normal sleepers go to bed not thinking about sleep at all, they're neutral on it. You need to go to bed not caring one way or another if you sleep or not. If you sleep well don't wake up excited about it, just be neutral about it. If you sleep bad then don't care because you know that you can still function the next day".  And that did the trick as I've been sleeping pretty well lately


5. GTKY---What's your favorite late night infomercial?   Haha, I haven't seen an infomercial in a long time. Probably any infomercial that Joel McHale makes fun of

[bluerainfire]

I am new here, but I have had insomnia off and since I was a teenager-


1. Are you a current, recovering or recovered insomnia sufferer? current and recovering


2. Did you always suffer from insomnia or was there a trigger? there are usually triggers..

3. What are you doing to treat or cope? Is it working? sometimes I watch tv, listen to music, try to find a good mental space. I have taken drugs before, but most put to sleep drugs have the reverse effect on me



4. Any major break-through lately that has helped you sleep better? nope, I have actually slept less then I use to in the last couple of weeks, like the insomnia is creeping in.


5. GTKY---What's your favorite late night infomercial? I asked the question and now i'm blanking on an answer.

I like the magic bullet ones, or hair ones...

[Deleted]

@led - i'm you're doing ok. Just want you to know that I was thinking of you. mama2a - I'm so happy to hear that you are making great progress.
@sluttybigboobz - sorry it took so long to respond. How are things going this week?
MH and I have an agreement that if we both complete 1 task each day on bad days then that's good enough. Have you thought anymore about talking to your doctor about meds?

@bluefirerain - I have tried many different sleep aids. Very few ever worked. In fact, I experienced a paradoxical effect with Ativan and wasn't able to sleep for more than two days.

[Deleted]

Apr 19, 2015 17:23:51 GMT -5 @sluttybigb00bz said:

@wallflwr926 no need to apologize! Things are better. I have a lot on my mind regarding possibly moving right to IVF. Sleep has been sort of on and off - I had to get up at 5:45 am to give my parents' dog an insulin shot Friday morning and I feel like I woke up a million times Thursday night because I was paranoid about oversleeping. I suspect tonight will be tough too because I have to be up early for a monitoring appointment and I always struggle on Sunday nights.

I am feeling better about myself because I've been jogging and also because we are doing projects at the house. I'm still frustrated at work but at least I feel better about home!

I do the same thing. The earlier I have to wake up, the more I can't sleep at night.

[Deleted]

So glad to have found this board!

1. Are you a current, recovering or recovered insomnia sufferer?  Insomnia - current

2. Did you always suffer from insomnia or was there a trigger?  It started a few months after I had my second child over a year ago.  I chalked it up to being a parent to a newborn, but I knew I had a problem when I couldn't sleep even after my DD started sleeping through the night.

3.  What are you doing to treat or cope? Is it working?  I'm doing alternative medicine now, acupuncture herbal medicine, etc... None of the prescription meds I got from my regular doctor worked.  Ambien, Ativan, Trazadone... COUNTLESS. 

4.  Any major break-through lately that has helped you sleep better?  I think acupuncture has helped a lot, though I wouldn't call it "break through."  I want to try CBT and maybe getting my hormone levels checked again.  I've been reading a lot about how lack of progesterone can affect sleep.

5. GTKY---What's your favorite late night infomercial?  I don't watch TV much anymore since the insomnia, so I don't know if they still run it but my favorite used to be airbrushing makeup thing.  Just love how perfectly smooth the skin looks after the model applies it.

[Deleted]

Apr 8, 2015 18:19:29 GMT -5 bluerainfire said:

I am new here, but I have had insomnia off and since I was a teenager-


1. Are you a current, recovering or recovered insomnia sufferer? current and recovering


2. Did you always suffer from insomnia or was there a trigger? there are usually triggers..

3. What are you doing to treat or cope? Is it working? sometimes I watch tv, listen to music, try to find a good mental space. I have taken drugs before, but most put to sleep drugs have the reverse effect on me



4. Any major break-through lately that has helped you sleep better? nope, I have actually slept less then I use to in the last couple of weeks, like the insomnia is creeping in.


5. GTKY---What's your favorite late night infomercial? I asked the question and now i'm blanking on an answer.

I like the magic bullet ones, or hair ones...

I have the same issue.  Melatonin makes me alert and anxious.  It is frustrating when I talk to others about having sleep issues and they are like "have you tried melatonin?"

[mama2a]

Apr 20, 2015 12:17:59 GMT -5 @ummaggie2 said:

So glad to have found this board!

1. Are you a current, recovering or recovered insomnia sufferer?  Insomnia - current

2. Did you always suffer from insomnia or was there a trigger?  It started a few months after I had my second child over a year ago.  I chalked it up to being a parent to a newborn, but I knew I had a problem when I couldn't sleep even after my DD started sleeping through the night.

3.  What are you doing to treat or cope? Is it working?  I'm doing alternative medicine now, acupuncture herbal medicine, etc... None of the prescription meds I got from my regular doctor worked.  Ambien, Ativan, Trazadone... COUNTLESS. 

4.  Any major break-through lately that has helped you sleep better?  I think acupuncture has helped a lot, though I wouldn't call it "break through."  I want to try CBT and maybe getting my hormone levels checked again.  I've been reading a lot about how lack of progesterone can affect sleep.

5. GTKY---What's your favorite late night infomercial?  I don't watch TV much anymore since the insomnia, so I don't know if they still run it but my favorite used to be airbrushing makeup thing.  Just love how perfectly smooth the skin looks after the model applies it.

May I offer some insight? I am in a similar situation to you that my Insomnia started a few months after I gave birth. I'm largely recovered now (it took 11 months!). I spent so much time trying to point to external factors for why I wasn't sleeping including hormonal ones. I was convinced for awhile it was hormones. Ultimately what I learned is that the more I fixated on this and finding a "cure" the worse I made my sleep and the longer it took to recover The reason I wasn't sleeping was because my heart was pounding and beating too fast. It took me awhile to truly believe that this was it, but once I stopped caring about whether I slept at night (like truly stopped caring) I started sleeping better every night.

[Deleted]

mama2a - yes that is a great insight. How were you able to truly let go of needing to fall asleep/sleep? I'm the primary caretaker for both of my kids and I seem to keep thinking about how awful it is going to be the next day if I don't get some sleep. For reference, I once went 4 nights without ANY sleep (I'm talking 0, not even 10 minutes) and it was probably one of the worst periods of my life. That seems to be the trigger point. I hear you about the heart pounding - though it pretty much went away after I started taking magnesium per my acupuncturist's recommendation. I think you're right though, fear of not falling asleep is what's causing a biggest issue right now.

[mama2a]

Apr 22, 2015 10:41:45 GMT -5 @ummaggie2 said:

mama2a - yes that is a great insight. How were you able to truly let go of needing to fall asleep/sleep? I'm the primary caretaker for both of my kids and I seem to keep thinking about how awful it is going to be the next day if I don't get some sleep. For reference, I once went 4 nights without ANY sleep (I'm talking 0, not even 10 minutes) and it was probably one of the worst periods of my life. That seems to be the trigger point. I hear you about the heart pounding - though it pretty much went away after I started taking magnesium per my acupuncturist's recommendation. I think you're right though, fear of not falling asleep is what's causing a biggest issue right now.

It took a long time for me to "accept" that I was going to be OK with the idea and not care if I don't get sleep. I came to realize that it didn't actually suck as much as I thought after a bad night of sleep. What did suck was how I reacted to NOT sleeping and I finally realized that I wasn't doing myself any favors dwelling on how much it sucked and instead was making it worse. I never really felt all that tired during the day which lead me to believe I was probably sleeping more than I thought. One thing to keep in mind that your body physically can't go that many days without sleep. What was probably happening for you was you were going in and out of stage 1 sleep and didn't even realize it (Google "Sleep State Misperception").

If you think about it--normal sleepers go to bed without even thinking about falling asleep--they just do it. That's the goal is to just stop caring. That meant for me stop "celebrating" the nights where I slept well, too, because it meant if I had a bad night soon after then I was going to be upset about it. Just be indifferent.

"The Effortless Sleep Method" book also helped me as well. The premise of the book is to stop obsessing about your insomnia because you're basically feeding the phobia and the "Insomnia monster", and teaching your body that it's broken (hint: it's not). The only part of the book I didn't agree with is that I needed to stop having "positive sleep thoughts" because as I describe above that wasn't helping me.

[Deleted]

mama2a - thank you so much for your response! You're so right about not obsessing over sleep. I do feel extremely tired the next day if I don't sleep, like I will go completely blank and start dry heaving. And my 4 year old pretty much drains me even when I'm well rested. One thing I really need to work on w/ either therapy or CBT is getting over that super negative insomnia phase. I slept for a total of 2 hours after not sleeping for 4 nights. And then no sleep for 2 nights, 4 hours after that etc. It was a really really bad month and nearly drove me insane. ***TRIGGER WARNING*** even thought I would be better off dead - I had no energy to move, just completely drained of life and joy. My family had to rearrange their lives to take care of my kids which def would not have worked long term. So I feel like I cannot get over that fear of what would happen if I don't get any sleep. It was really bad.

[mama2a]

Apr 23, 2015 11:45:31 GMT -5 @ummaggie2 said:

mama2a - thank you so much for your response! You're so right about not obsessing over sleep. I do feel extremely tired the next day if I don't sleep, like I will go completely blank and start dry heaving. And my 4 year old pretty much drains me even when I'm well rested. One thing I really need to work on w/ either therapy or CBT is getting over that super negative insomnia phase. I slept for a total of 2 hours after not sleeping for 4 nights. And then no sleep for 2 nights, 4 hours after that etc. It was a really really bad month and nearly drove me insane. ***TRIGGER WARNING*** even thought I would be better off dead - I had no energy to move, just completely drained of life and joy. My family had to rearrange their lives to take care of my kids which def would not have worked long term. So I feel like I cannot get over that fear of what would happen if I don't get any sleep. It was really bad.

Aww I'm sorry that you're struggling so much. I highly recommend reading "The Effortless Sleep Method" because it talks about the very feelings that you have described. Also, when you said "rearrange their lives to take care of my kids" is a piece the author talks about in the book in that we should not rearrange our lives around our sleep problems because we're just feeding the belief that we can't sleep. I know it's very hard to not obsess over it, but for me I had to stop obsessing. I was obsessing because I obviously felt like I was doing major harm to my body and it seemed only natural that I would think about it all the time as a way to help me "solve" my problems, but ultimately, it wasn't helping me one bit. I had to be indifferent regardless of the many reasons I thought it sucked so bad.

Also, keep in mind that much of what you read online or in the news about "the dangers of inadequate sleep" are largely invalid. Many of those studies are funded by Big Pharma in an effort to bolster sales of sleep medications because it teaches those with sleep problems to fear their lack of sleep and hence want to take medications.

[Deleted]

mama2a - just wanted to clarify that I'm much better now. I was just describing how awful it was at my worst. And yes, I stopped googling lol. I am glad to have a place like this to vent my sleeping frustration.