They plug you up with wires everywhere, head, face, chest, legs, and shove a cannula up your nose then tell you to sleep…then you get woken up the next morning @ 6 am and have to stay up for 2 hours before finally getting a 20 minute nap…waken up from that too all tired…have to stay up another 2 hours and repeat the process four or five times. I just wanna pass out 
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Well, there’s another dream career crushed.
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Kinda sounds the way I sleep now
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Mine wasn’t that bad. They just woke me up to put me on a cpap so I didn’t have to come back a second night. Didn’t have to wait up for anything.
I don’t have sleep apnea 
The naps and waking up the next day is for a different sleep test, multi-latency or something like that. It’s to test for narcolepsy/hypersomnia.
What’s the significance of a sleep study? Don’t they just kind of confirm what you already know?
“Yeah, your sleep patterns are screwy.”
Unless they tell you what can be done? Or that you might have sleep apnea? Only therapy that seems promising is sleep restriction therapy. It’s just pretty harsh therapy.
Yeah I’m hoping they tell me what I can do about it, I already know my sleep is messed up lol. Honestly I’m hoping I get a hypersomnia diagnosis so I can get stimulants because basically on a regular day I need an energy drink just to feel normal. The doctor told me the stimulants were like an energy drink but no sugar so I’m not going to eventually give myself diabetes with them lol.
The intense sleepiness and exhaustion all the time really seriously impacts my functioning capabilities. I’ve failed courses before because I couldnt stay awake during class or after to study, I don’t have energy to play with my little sisters or visit a lot with my family, I don’t have energy to get properly dressed or clean or anything. It’s a mess. I’ve tried every other method in the book to fix it and nothing works.
Yeah, I’m the same with insomnia. I’ve tried to stay up until I simply can’t stay up anymore (beyond 24hrs) and wait for night to fall asleep, but still I wake up frequently. Which is partially how the sleep restriction program is supposed to work; makes you so tired that waking up becomes less frequent.
People tell me I’m being negative but I carry myself as best I can despite not sleeping well.
Have you watched the video I shared? Sometimes it makes me feel a bit better. Took him til day 22 of the program to get a solid 6 hour sleep. Mainly I think stress around me is what keeps me from sleeping solidly. That and your bedroom is supposed to be strictly for sleep and no other activities that aren’t relaxing.
I am very wary of restricting my sleep because sleep deprivation flares up my psychotic symptoms. The really terrible things that happened during my first episode and the severity of it I believe were because I was averaging probably 3 hours (sometimes less!) of sleep per night.
When I was younger paranoia was what kept me up all night. When I was older PTSD related anxiety kept me up all night because I was scared of terrible things happening to me again. Now that I can reason through paranoia and don’t experience it every night anymore and can do the same with the PTSD anxiety, I realize what keeps me up is hyperawareness of my surroundings, such as not being able to sleep if the temp is wrong, if the lighting is wrong, if my feet are touching the bedboard, any repetitive sounds even if quiet, but also not being able to sleep if it’s totally silent, if I’m too thirsty, if I’m hungry, waking up when anything in the environment changes even if it’s minimal, etc. (and, for the past year, awful urinary retention-I have to wake up multiple times a night to pee like 3 drops). Furthermore even when I manage to fall asleep, my sleep quality is absolute crap and I don’t know why, which is what I’m trying to figure out. I believe the combination of these things leads to my constant extreme exhaustion.
Yeah that’s what I’m struggling with too is poor quality sleep. I can sleep for a good 10hours or more but the quality is bad so I don’t feel refreshed. They say that interrupted sleep is just as bad, if not worse than no sleep.
And yeah I think the fear of psychotic symptoms is a major issue. Still, I think sleep restriction is the only good therapy there is. Medicines can’t really do anything besides assuage anxiety about sleep itself. With sleep restriction you’re getting your body’s natural chemicals which help to reduce anxiety and increase sleepiness. The only factor that I see that can contribute to psychotic symptoms is mostly fear/worry about something. Being able to quiet those thoughts would go a longer way.
I used to take benzos for sleep but then at some point it stopped working. Then I read they interrupt REM sleep which is where most of the restorative sleep is taking place. Stopped taking those years ago, but had to deal with some intense anxiety and fear which made falling asleep even harder.
Yeah I was taking a benzo and trazodone for sleep at one point. Had to keep upping doses on both until I just didn’t feel comfortable doing so anymore and I became tolerant again and there was no point in being on them anymore. It was bad because my brain became dependent on drugs to sleep by that point and I had severe insomnia for 2 solid weeks after quitting.
An uncaring doctor I went to (yeah he was uncaring judging from the health of his patients and his own) gave me trazodone without really any diagnosis of anything or even looking at anything. All that drug did was give me a stuffy nose and forced me to breath through my mouth to sleep. It just made it impossible to sleep! Then all throughout the day I had to go around feeling the effects of sleep deprivation and the utter exhaustion from that pill that didn’t wear off for a long time. Feels even worse when you don’t feel sleepy but feel exhaustion and mental fatigue.
Benzos I used to feel like was candy until they stopped working. My uncles high dosage of xanax was the only thing that allowed me to really feel the effects. [drool].
Ever been given ambien? Used to work for me too, but then I just wound up waking up after 2hrs and felt really weird.
Still I feel like it’s everyone around me who is adding to my inability to stay asleep. They don’t sleep until its like 1-2 a.m. sometimes or people come in at around 4 am and are crying/moaning about something that makes me feel sad or scared for them.
Sleep used to be the one thing that I could do without thinking. It used to piss my brother off when I would fall asleep instead of staying up to play some video game with him. Eventually I caved and started following his erratic patterns of sleep. Then other stuff happened! …
Still Sleep Restriction! I think with a good medicine to counter any possible psychotic symptoms could help. That’s the main issue for me.
Trazodone didn’t even work alone for me, it only worked when combined w Ativan, made it so I could be on a lower dose of Ativan and still get sleepy basically. It made me sweat HORRIBLY whenever I sleep, I mean pajamas drenched, having to constantly wash my sheets sweat. It also made it so I would literally faint if woken up too early. I’d passed out or come close a few times on it and scared the heck out of my family. Just not good.
Never had ambien (prescribers are REALLY hesitant to give it out nowadays due to its addictive qualities) but I’ve tried a wide number of sleep aids. Usually I gain tolerance to them after the first use.
It’s funny that they say that when benzo’s like Ativan are just as addictive (maybe more?). Honestly, I feel like the better benzos are the ones with longer half-life, like diazepam. Simply because it lasts longer. The thing with Ativan is that it’s potency is meant to counter severe panic attacks. That potency and its short half-life means its not meant to be taken daily. Yet it was stupidly prescribed by her doctor (who is not a PDoc) and she used to take them every day.
But there is the thing with panic attacks. It’s exacerbated by and brought on by stress. My mother used to have severe anxiety but the funny thing? She would feel better when she would talk about what was bothering her! What was bothering her? Our older brother was stressing her out because of him pawning off his problems with his kids on her and others so he can enjoy weed. It’s complicated but at the heart of it all, all she wanted was to talk about it. When she talked about it, suddenly her “headaches” and other stuff just went away.
My doc says benzos that act faster tend to be more addictive.
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They really are. And ativan acts quickly.
I was actually dreading not having any more at one point. I was taking them for at least 5-6 weeks on and off.
The thing is with drugs like Ativan (and some “natural” drugs too) is that they act on the GABA receptors. At some point that receptor says, “Hey, I’ve got this new thing working so I might as well stop working!”. Something like that. Those receptors, once they become accustomed to the new drug, stop producing your bodies natural ability to fight anxiety. It takes time to recover from that once they do that.
I forget all the technical/chemical stuff surrounding all of it, but it is something like that.
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What my doc also said was clonazepam, although having a long half life, is very addictive because you get an effect off it quickly after taking the tablet.
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Yeah I was prescribed it on a daily basis but that was when the PTSD anxiety and flashbacks were keeping me up most nights. It really helped hugely with that and showed me I really was safe and the anxiety was just my brain chemicals. So I don’t regret being on it.
But really this is in part of what can make insomnia worse and it is one of the keys in Sleep Restriction Therapy. I wish the knowledge of this therapy were more widespread because it really hits a lot of the issues underlying insomnia.
Her website has more info on insomnia in general. Now, it doesn’t say what can be done with regards to suffering with MI, but I still think this therapy can be effective if more doctors knew about it and would implement it. Lois herself is quite nice and I was amazed to get a quick response from her when I emailed. So she could even answer you and what could be done when suffering with MI as well.
I know I feel much better overall when a night of solid sleep comes around.
I think prazosin is right for you @Anna
I take it and it put a stop to waking up repeatedly on top of insomnia. It is for PTSD, I have trauma too.