Last night my dreams included a large cast of unhappy and stress producing characters. I kept waking up and couldn't quite put it all together, but it was not a peaceful or restful night's sleep. My sleep has been messed up again. If I don't sleep well, I don't function well for the next day or two. I have no idea what triggers my sleeplessness. I stay away from caffeine, especially after noon-time, I do go to bed at about the same time each night and I am up in the morning within an hour of the same time each day. But when I don't fall asleep until three in the morning, there isn't anything good that is going to happen the next day. There is no way I can function with any degree of normalcy once I pull myself out of bed after a sleepless night.
There are lots of us who know about sleepless nights - college studetns, new moms, individuals under stress, menopausal women, folks with depression and certainly those of us with fibromyalgia. For most of my life I have slept like a rock and my sleep problems had to do with my tremendous need for long hours of sleep rather than sleeplessness. For the past ten years, I have had some serious sleep problems and at one point I was chronically sleep deprived and it wreaked havoc with my body. Since I started with my Lady Doc last August, my sleep has been much less of an issue. I do take meds at night - but not sleeping pills that knock me out and into oblivion. I tried those heavy duty sleep meds that are so beautifully advertised on television and I had an experience that was truly frightening. I don't want to get too personal, let it suffice to say that I appeared to be awake and I was up and functioning, but had absolutely no memory of it the next day. I could have driven my car or cooked or taken a walk in the middle of the night without any awareness because those drugs have a hypnotic effect. After that experience I swore I would never take a sleep med like that again. And I haven't. For months and months I have been sleeping well and I have to say it is a real luxury to sleep through the night. I want that back again.
I have learned in living with fibro, that symptoms come and go, with or without treatment. I might go a fairly long while experiencing pain and suddenly it just goes away. I have my good times and I have crashes. Those ups and downs are to be expected. My sleep issues seem to come and go as well. When I don't sleep, my fibro really kicks up and all kinds of symptoms are triggered. It makes it a lot harder to cope when I am not functioning because I didn't sleep well. Lack of sleep can cause memory problems, difficulty concentrating, it can impair decision-making, cause clumsiness, weight gain, impaired glucose tolerance and in the end you just feel lousy after a bad night's sleep. When I haven't slept well I have less patience, I feel less motivated and certainly more tired. When I have one bad night after the next I just give up and spend the day in my jammies and try to get rested up enough that I can start to function again. So here I am facing another night. I am going to get into my most comfy PJs, take my supplements, play my sleep music on my iPod, think good thoughts and then just gently drift off to sleep....please.
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