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Going on three hours of very poor sleep a night.

Metalhead

Metalhead

Video game and movie addict. All for gay pride.
V.I.P Member
I find myself struggling to stay awake at my desk at my PT job, yet when I get home I am unable to fall asleep until it is 3 or 4am the next morning. Then I get three hours of very poor sleep due to my sleep apnea, then I have to get out of bed at 7 to get ready to go to my PT job five days a week when I just want to keep sleeping.

I can’t keep going on like this. This is absolutely miserable. I have large black circles under my eyes. I look like a strung out junkie even though I currently am not one. It is detrimental to my job performance. The earliest I could get in to see a doctor is the 27th of this month. I hate the waiting and trying to live with this in the meanwhile. All those countless hours of laying in bed wide awake trying to sleep every night.
 
Hello friend--
What I did last night was take 10mg of melatonin and pass out for seven hours. I woke up like a demigod this morning. Not sure if it works for you with sleep apnea but it works pretty well for me snoozing on the floor on the carpet. Sleep is some vital stuff, and I deprive myself of it semi-deliberately when I'm at a low mental state because I am "afraid" to fall asleep.

Hopefully even Benadryl would work for you -- I know that's not how you're supposed to take Benadryl but it sometimes ends up as a necessity or emergency.
 
I'm curious, has this always been like a long-running problem for you? Or is it something new?

Honestly I wish I had some super helpful piece of advice to give that would solve it, but I dont.

You'll get there though. You will. You already overcame other incredibly difficult challenges thus far. You can make it through this.

For what it's worth, I sympathize... been through something similar myself. 30 days of "paradoxical insomnia" due to a medication gone horribly wrong. What an atrocious experience.

If I can get through that though, you can get through this.
 
Gerontius said:
Hello friend--
What I did last night was take 10mg of melatonin and pass out for seven hours. I woke up like a demigod this morning. Not sure if it works for you with sleep apnea but it works pretty well for me snoozing on the floor on the carpet. Sleep is some vital stuff, and I deprive myself of it semi-deliberately when I'm at a low mental state because I am "afraid" to fall asleep.

Hopefully even Benadryl would work for you -- I know that's not how you're supposed to take Benadryl but it sometimes ends up as a necessity or emergency.
Click to expand...
Melatonin is not advised with the medications I take, otherwise I would give it a try. NyQuil worked for me for a while, but now that does nothing to knock me out anymore.
Misery said:
I'm curious, has this always been like a long-running problem for you? Or is it something new?

Honestly I wish I had some super helpful piece of advice to give that would solve it, but I dont.

You'll get there though. You will. You already overcame other incredibly difficult challenges thus far. You can make it through this.

For what it's worth, I sympathize... been through something similar myself. 30 days of "paradoxical insomnia" due to a medication gone horribly wrong. What an atrocious experience.

If I can get through that though, you can get through this.
Click to expand...
This is a relatively recent development, as in the last couple of months.
 
Don't drink caffeine after midday. See if it helps.

Try having 1 hour before bed without looking at any screens. A dedicated hour to wind down before bed.

Ed
 
In a really messed up paradox, anxiety about not being able to sleep in itself makes it harder to fall asleep.

Are you doing all of the ordinary things?

- Don’t spend time in bed except for sleeping.

- If you can’t sleep get up and do something for one hour and then try again.

- Drink calming chamomile or valerian tea in the evening.

- Get some physical exercise in the afternoon.

- Do deep breathing exercises to calm the autonomic nervous system, even if it doesn’t feel like it’s doing anything, it does help with anxiety.

- Limit the amount of blue light in the evening.

Also, where are you at on getting fitted for a device to help with sleep apnea?
 
If I can't sleep, but must, I just try to meditate instead. I just try to focus on my breathing. Sometimes, I notice that the intruding thoughts are not making sense - I'm actually dreaming. Other times, I think I've been awake the whole time, but the clock has advanced. When stressed, we can sleep with one hemisphere at a time. Even if no sleep happens, the meditation is better than nothing, and can be excellent.
 
A teaspoon of Nutmeg in warm milk and honey does a good job too. Your body gets used to that one very quickly though so it only works a few times, or if you only use it occasionally.
 
Outdated said:
A teaspoon of Nutmeg in warm milk and honey does a good job too. Your body gets used to that one very quickly though so it only works a few times, or if you only use it occasionally.
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Nutmeg has been used to get high before so this is actually kind of interesting using it in a homemade sleeping mixture.

(I wasn't the one getting high off it...)
 
Gerontius said:
Nutmeg has been used to get high before so this is actually kind of interesting using it in a homemade sleeping mixture.
Click to expand...
My mother's family were country people that relied on a lot of these old remedies. Then when she went through menopause she refused HRT and instead turned the back yard in to a herbalist's pharmacopia.

Quite a lot of what we know as herbs and spices are quite serious drugs, and not many will get you high.
 
Another round of daylight savings time can't have helped you.

Though in my own case it's almost as it it has "righted" what went wrong six months ago. Baffling to me, other than to repeat that I wish daylight savings was legally abolished. I must just have one weird metabolism. I can't wrap my head around this. I feel better rather than worse, having lost an hour. Go figure.
 
Work hard during the day. Lots of chores. Exercise a lot. Get all fatigued. Crash out. Repeat the next day.
 
Pumping myself full of caffeine in the morning makes me more productive during my work shift, but a fix like that is definitely not sustainable in the long term picture.

I am talking with my psychiatrist on Friday, then my family doctor on the 27th, one of them will refer me to a sleep study, and a solution will form itself from there. This just sucks at the present moment.
 
Hey Metalhead, I hope it goes well, because we're all on your team and watching you build a really impressive path here of self improvement.
 
Just sipped through two cups of hot chamomile tea, no sugar or cream. Hopefully that will help get me knocked out tonight.

I know this is only temporary.
 
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