sleep (or lack of it)

[ChilliBangBang]

can anyone offer any suggestions of how to get more sleep. I am totally exhausted and when I go to bed I fall asleep pretty easily but wake up an hour or so later and then can be awake for 3 or 4 hours followed by dozing until the alarm goes off.

I have dropped caffeine, take magnesium and progesterone at night. I have tried melatonin orally and sublingual but makes no difference.

I take armour thyroid 3 grains per day and many of my symptoms have improved but my sleep just seems to get worse.

thanks

[Calceolaria]

Magnesium Glycinate is thé better of the three types for sleep I understand. It works for me, pretty much. It’s certainly an ordeal not being able to sleep. Especially when all the science puts pressure there!

[ChilliBangBang in reply to Calceolaria]

Thanks. Glycinate didn’t seem to help at all for me sadly

[Buddy195 Administrator]

From your post a couple of months ago… are you trying to improve ferritin by including more iron rich foods in your diet? Are you taking a good B Complex, as per recommendations on previous post?

I feel for you, as poor sleep is awful and I’ve gone through periods of little sleep myself. For me, magnesium glycinate early evening helps me unwind prior to bed and I do gentle stretches to relaxing music before bed to release tension. I also follow a ‘guided meditation’ track if I’m awake and restless in the night…sometimes I’m able to fall asleep listening to this

[ChilliBangBang in reply to Buddy195]

Yes, ferritin is improved (still a way to go but getting there) and taking a b complex which has brought my b12 up greatly. I tried magnesium glycinate first and it didn’t help so for the past 2 weeks I am trying taurate as I read that this is good.

Meditation tends to stress me as I feel under pressure to relax 😂 but audio books send me off to sleep in a few pages. It’s the waking up at between 12 and 1 and then staying awake for hours that I would like to stop. The books don’t seem to work for this sadly.

Thanks for your reply

[Buddy195 Administrator]

I have taken over- the- counter sleeping tablets for a couple of nights to get me back in a routine of sleep. Maybe worth considering, short term, but important not to ‘rely’ on them (the herbal ones did nothing for me, but others swear by them!)

[sparkly]

Utrogestan is my sleeping aid. I'm prescribed 200mcg, take about 7pm and I'm knocked out by 10.30 usually.

My sleep problem was being wide awake till 2/3am until I started on utrogestan.

Have you tried taking it with food, as this will increase absorption and help more with sleep.

If it's waking at 3/4am, that's usually a cortisol thing and so common with peri/menopause

[ChilliBangBang in reply to sparkly]

I haven’t tried it with food, I generally take it as I go to bed so will give that a go.

I used to have sleep problems at 3am kind of times before I sold my business and put that down to stress/cortisol but these days I don’t feel stressed (other than from not sleeping 😂) and my wake up times are much earlier.

Thanks for the advice re utrogestan.

[sparkly in reply to ChilliBangBang]

For 2 years, I took it as I got into bed and would be wide awake. One day, I took it early, and by 10pm, I wondered what was wrong, I couldn't keep my eyes open and had to go to bed, I fell asleep immediately. I'm never coming off it, it's not only my sleep aid but it's also my calming hormone. I really noticed the calming effect when I increase from 100mcg, to 200mcg. I do sometimes take 300. I know not everyone has the sedative effect but it's worth experimenting with.

[Jazzw]

3 grains of Armour is quite a lot. Having said that, I used to take 3 grains but something changed about a year ago and it was suddenly too much (it coincided with some new menopause symptoms which threw me no end as I’d honestly thought I’d got through that part of my life several years ago). Now on 2 and a half grains and it seems about right.

Have noticed that you weren’t on Armour 3 months ago (you appeared to be taking levothyroxine?), so was just wondering… have you done any recent blood tests?

[ChilliBangBang in reply to Jazzw]

Results weren’t great and symptoms were bad on Levo so was moved to 2 grains of armour in December. Blood tests in mid Feb showed some improvement but symptoms were still bad so moved me to 3. I’m due my nexts bloods in about 2 weeks. On the whole I am feeling better but the lack of sleep is really starting to take its toll.

[Jazzw in reply to ChilliBangBang]

It could be that it’s slightly too much Armour that’s causing the sleep issues. Going up a whole grain at once is quite a big jump—we usually recommend going much more slowly than that, a quarter of a grain at a time. So it’s possible you’ve missed the “sweet spot”.

[ChilliBangBang in reply to Jazzw]

Wow that’s really quite a big jump then. I have my next appointment in about 4 weeks so will definitely ask questions then. Thank you so much for the information.

[Ellie-Louise]

Try spraying lavender into your pillow and then sleep with your nose close to the pillow, if I can’t sleep that really works. It’s old fashioned but a well known remedy for sleeping.

You can buy a lavender sleep spray. Holland and Barrett, Amazon, lots of places sell it. Google it.

[RuthieRuth]

The magic trick for me for sleep is exercise. Make sure to do enough in the day not too close to bedtime. And I read about waking in the night being perhaps related to blood sugar issues, so maybe eating or drinking something with a low glycemic rating before bed might help. Can't remember the source of that but sounded plausible.

[Holidays4]

I really struggle with sleep plus cannot wake up in the morning. Even though I take medication for sleep I often wake up after 2 hours sleep and am wide awake. I don’t know if this will work for you but worth a try. I get up and eat lots of full fat Greek yogurt and find it relaxes me enough to be able to go to sleep. I’m not sure but think I may have read that yogurt reduces cortisol. I also take magnesium glycinate at 9.30pm but can’t say it’s really made any difference. Good luck.