Like many here i was discharged from hospital, and told 7 to 10 days, which is in line witht he NHS guidelines (due for review in 2020), hopistal have offerd no followups, no adive, no information about after effectes, they just sent me home with a big box of aciclovir, and said take 3 a day. which i have been doing for 2 weeks.
So. here is my questions. Is it normal to beomce completely sleepless? i am typing this at 4:30am becuse for the 5th night runing i have not had any sleep. but im not sleeping int he day. im ready to drop. i get into bed, and nothing. all that happnes is my head starts to ache.. my nech is stiff. tried new pillows, tired old pillows, tried using old dovet folded up.
I lay there: Awake in the shadows of the gentle night, searching for the stillness I need to get some sleep! The ticking soound of the clock as the hands slowly go round. hearing the birds as the pre dawn light breaks - I am getting no sleep!
I am a school teacher. i want to go back to work, i want to give my students a future a chance in life. and oppertunitys, I cant do this! when i cant reat up and sleep. ihopes to be back at work by the 26th febuary. jsut over a week away. but i dont see how when i cant do the most essentail thing tot he human body. sleep. so any ideas. is this even normal for an after effect of viral meningitis.
(they had to put persumed) - Due to failing to be able to do a successfull spinal tap. to much damage in my lower spin from a horse riding accdent years ago. but the blood works, and other tests were all consistant, they jsut could not get the EXACT cause.
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Safra
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Hi David here from Memphis Tennessee. I had bacterial meningitis 4 months ago and I cant sleep. My head just won't stop buzzing and ears ring very loud. I read that it can a year or longer to start sleeping normal. I feel your fustration. I was released from hospital after being there a month and doing iv antibiotics three times a day thru pic line. There was no one that helped me understand. So I took it on myself to go to different doctors. Still no help. I think I'm going to drive to Ohio to see a speciaist. There is really no doctor's who speciaize in these viruses. Just think about it there aren't enough people dying from this so if a doctor was a specialist he would be sitting around waiting for someone to get it so then he could make money. So if more people die they might get doctors on board. I hope this didnt discourage you. I know both viruses effect your sleep. I take all kinds of meds and stagger them. So i wont go thru withdrawal and get addicted. If I take a tamzapam I will feel hungover the next day. And still my body feels like its on fire but not nearly as bad as no sleep.
Hi, they gave me antiviral meds that made it difficult to sleep, ur choice but I stopped them the first week, I was a basket case mentally and the antiviral was adding to the problem. I also had lorazepam, soma, anti nausea pills. These helped relax me so I could rest. I had 4 LP , infection specialist never figured out why I had VM. Please take time to recover it’s been 2 1/2 years for me and I still have symptoms. Hopefully u will recover faster & get back to teaching wishing u the best future . U are ur best advocate , listen to ur body , research everything u can about VM, Dr’s , Nuero’s, Specialist’s , ENT’s, didn’t contribute to regaining my health, time and trying everything I read about helped. I stumbled upon the best relief of symptoms by chance.
Trazadone recently prescribed for insomnia, I’m a lite weight so 1/4 the 50 mg pill. Works perfectly, no after effects, I’m sleeping which is so helpful.
Hi, had headaches, neck right sided pressure, cramps, tightening almost a year after VM. Stress added to this pressure, had to find a dimly lit quiet room, & when I say stress it was little things that shouldn’t have bothered me. I wasn’t very active for a long time, good days & lots of bad, couldn’t stand noise, quiet seemed too work. Thank goodness I wasn’t working, don’t know how people recover, family, job, life.
Hope this helps, ur body is doing weird things on its own, adapt and accept!
Hi I had severe vm 5.5 years ago and had insomnia for 5 weeks. Finally I meditated into my brain so much I found a way to turn it off and I slept. It was desperation. In the middle of the night after 5 weeks I just went in deeper and deeper and focused on finding the insomnia brain damage. I had nothing else to do so had to focus inward. Not sure why it worked but I remember finding the area and sending some kind of message to it like a white healing light and recommendation to sleep. I this is weird but I physically knew where the damage was done top left hand area of my brain. That night I slept and have been sleeping ever since. Also some 3 months after that I started endep for pain and it's fantastic for sleep. Ask your dr to try it if ur having pain as it will help both. I have migraines and nerve pain from meningitis. Endep helps both. Don't let this go on go see dr. Remember the longer the brain out of whack the deeper the neural pathway. It's worth trialling a drug as you need to fix it, don't live with it. Good luck
Hi Safra I am sorry you are going through this. I had v meningitis and Encephalitis back in August and September 2017. When I came home I couldnt sleep either and it was awful watching the clock all night. I was put in a coma for 1 week and had several spinal taps. They could not find out what caused it. I was in hospital for 1 month. I still have terrible headaches, light sensitivity, and if I am can only lay on my bed on my side otherwise I get a bad pain up the back of my neck head or if I shake my head it feels like my brain is moving back and forth and creates a huge pain that until I lay down on my side . I cant lay on the back of my head as it feels like my head is in a vice. But I have come a long way from when I left hospital.
I wear sunglasses everywhere in my home and outside but my bedroom have black blockout blinds so it is my sanctuary.
My drs gave me a depression meds that helped me sleep. I took them at night and none through the day.
In desperation I tool some old billows i had and shoved them under the head end of the matress, and proper the matress up a bit. this seemed to work, it helps releave the pressure, and lets me sleep without the banging in my years all the time. 2 months on. and starting to feel normal, I read it takes 3 to 6 months to recover, I am beginning to undersand and appreciate this. It doe snot end a few weeks after hospital, it is a life changer.
Hi Safra. I found through a lab test , that my pineal gland was no longer doing it's job producing melatonin, the sleep hormone. So I'm now experimenting with melatonin supplementation, and finding that the slow release one was not appropriate. I went into a half sleep mode only, and woke up fully the next morning feeling groggy and tired. I understand that melatonin is non addictive and you don't build up a tolerance to it [tolerance meaning it fails to work at all]. So at the moment I'm experimenting with myself re the dosage.
I'm taking 6 mgs at night [no alcohol within 3 hours of it] and when I wake up during the night I take another 3 mg. It seems to put me to sleep again for another few hours.
The other thing I did was to sort out my hugely raised cortisol level with an adrenal tonic. that was because the cortisol[the stress hormone] was impacting on my melatonin.
It's now over 2 years since I had viral meningitis, and I finally feel that I can see light at the end of the tunnel!
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