Help me sleep

[Mrspjsmom]

For the past few weeks my sleep schedule has been turned around. Now day is night, night is day and I am so exhausted I can't think. When I sleep I am frequently having nightmares and wake up crying and having a panic attack. If I sleep past 4:30am it is a rare occurrence. This has made my days difficult. I am exhausted and can't seem to do anything. By 2 or 3 in the afternoon I can barely stay awake. I have tried every coping mechanism I know to sleep better and sleep at night but nothing seems to work. My doctor is considering changing my meds to help me sleep and help with the nightmares but I want to wait. I really don't want to solve this with medication if I can find another solution. Any suggestions?

[Gjkas]

I know that you don't want to have to take medication to help you sleep.

But sometimes we have no choice.

There no magic cures for it, but my GP put me on Low dose Zopiclone..

I don't have Nightmare anymore and they don't give me that Hangover that a lot of other sleeping tablets do..

We are not all the same and our bodies work different to certain medications..

But if all else fails,give these a try. Thats if your G.P will give them to you of course..

Youve got nothing to lose by trying them.

If they don't work for you, then just stop taking them. Sometimes my Fibromyalgia pain is so bad that no matter what I take i can't sleep. But otherwise these do help me. That's all that i can suggest. I hope that they can help you. Take Care .Gjkas.

[Mrspjsmom in reply to Gjkas]

Thank you. Right now I am looking for suggestions. I see my doctor again in three weeks and will get medicine if this doesn't improve. I really appreciate your reply. I am always more comfortable adding a new medication if I know it works for some people. Right now I am incredibly overwhelmed between lack of sleep, migraines, my fibromyalgia, depression, anxiety, PTSD and gloomy weather.

[Hidden in reply to Mrspjsmom]

How about a light therapy box? Sunlight is a major factor to our sleep I can try to see if I can send you extracted data from a CBT course I have, it has some really good info in it, it’s from CBTforinsomnia.com. I paid 50.00 bucks for the course. Getting a handle on stress and anxiety especially revolving around sleep, cannot stress keeping a daytime routine no matter how much sleep you got or didn’t get. In this info is something called Mind the Mind to Mend Your Sleep, helped me. Waking up abruptly, in your case from nightmares will entail you needing to relaxation and calming methods, in my case, I just get up and do something else till I get sleepy again. Removing the mind from intrusive thoughts and anxiety is hard to do I know. None of this is easy. It might very well be you need sedative antidepressant or something added to your meds.

Another is something called ACT-I, it’s a bit different than CBT, is by Dr. Guy Meadows. contextualscience.org/accep...

I’ll add having a sleeping pill in the house, which I don’t take, physologically helps me just knowing it’s there if I need it. I hate taking meds too.

I’ll try to help anyway I can. I totally get this excessive exhaustion late afternoon and sleepiness. It sucks big time. 😢😢😢

[Mrspjsmom in reply to Hidden]

Thank you. I have an SAD lamp that I use. Also take Vitamin D. Have had a Vitamin D deficiency for years. I diffuse lavender oil and even made a spray to use on my pillow and blankets. I have sleeping pills, took one and it did nothing so I switched to melatonin. I will definitely look into the CBT and ACT recommendations.

[Gjkas in reply to Mrspjsmom]

Hi again. I forgot to tell you that the CBD oil from Holland and Barrett is a waste of money. Some of their stuff is good. But their CBD is useless.

Gotta go now. Gjkas.

[Gjkas in reply to Mrspjsmom]

I know. Life SUCKS sometimes. Especially if you have Fibromyalgia. It's a rotten,horrible disease.

I've got it Chronic and today have been really rough for me. I have a lot of other medical conditions that cause me a lot of pain as well as the Fibro..

I just can't wait to take my sleeping tablets tonight and get to bed out of it..

Hope you can find something that can help you..

Goodnight Godbless. Gjkas.