I’ve been dealing with restlessness at bedtime only for the past couple of months and I can’t figure out why .., I thought at first it was because I was sitting with my head buried in my cellphone before bed… stopped that and Im still restless …, So I thought maybe its the TV shows Im watching, true stories so I stop watching them an hour or so before bed … still have restlessness … Its so bad that I cannot just lay in bed and relax eventually after 2 hours of thrashing around my bed I finally fall asleep only to wake up a couple of hours later … rinse and repeat the thrashing all over again .,,, This morning I found myself wide awake again 4am so I decided to just take my thyroid meds (normally take at 5am) and within 30 mins I was sound asleep for 3 hours even my husband getting up for work didn’t wake me.
Is it possible my thyroid levels are to blame for this insane nighttime restlessness .. Im due for bloodwork next month but I just know those labs will all come back fine..I’m considering taking a small dose of thyroid meds before bed just to see if this stops this insane restlessness.
Besides doing Lab … anything else I can do its starting to drive me mad.
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Batty1
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it’s certainly worth experimenting with timing of thyroid medication to see if this aids your sleep Batty1. For me, taking magnesium early evening really helps me relax- do you supplement magnesium?
Hi, I do take magnesium a couple of hours for bed and this has always been helpful but like I said recently its been terrible … I think Im going to try a very small dose of thyroid meds at bedtime to see if this can help me .
My iron levels are still high. Yes, Im still on the same med doses and my last thyroid test was a few months ago and those are always the same they never move up or down just stay steady… So going to my endo about this issue is useless and I will be retesting next month.
I will try splitting my last T3 and take half in the afternoon and the other half at bedtime.
Look at Restless Legs forum on healthunlocked. There is so much information about what can trigger RL S in people. Good luck and hope it is not RL S as doctors are as poor at treating RL S as they are at treating thyroid problems
It might be worth getting a 4 part saliva test done so you know what your cortisol is throughout the day.
I can't take thyroid hormones at bedtime because they make me restless, I take mine first thing in the morning when I have just got out of bed.
It is definitely worth experimenting with your timing. I know quite a lot of people on the forum have said that bedtime suits them, morning doesn't. I'm the opposite.
I took 1/2 of my T3 last night before bed and I managed to fall asleep after 30 mins which is normal for me …. Im not sure if the T3 helped or if I was so tired from the night before …. I will test it again tonight.
I can relate to what you've described. While the trigger may be different for you than it seemed to be for me (I would eat too much carbs/sugar, elevating my cortisol, spilling into the night), one approach is sleep restriction to break the cycle.
The more sleep you lose, the higher your cortisol levels rise and it becomes a vicious cycle. Eventually, that cortisol starts to impede the process that regulates adenosine, which is the chemical responsible for accumulating during the day and giving us the sleep pressure to sleep throughout the night. You have to accumulate a sleep debt large enough and long enough to overcome the cortisol dysregulation.
What you might consider doing (if you didn't actually snap back into your usual sleep cycle the previous night) is one of the following:
A) Go to bed at your usual time, but if you don't fall asleep within 20 - 30 minutes, get up and do something (I usually pace) for 20 minutes or until you begin to feel drowsy. You may have to do this a few times. In my case, I could get back to a normal sleep cycle within 1 - 2 days.
B) Go to bed at midnight and get up at 6:00am. This will likely only translate into around 4 or 5 hours of actual sleep but you'll be in control of your sleep debt. Keep at it for a few days, maintaining the same bedtime and waking up time. I actually would go to bed at 11:30pm and get up at 5:30am; for some reason I became 'hyper' if I waited until midnight.
It's actually possible to fail to go to sleep if you 'try to sleep'. The treatment for this is paradoxical intention which is to tell yourself that you're going commit to staying awake all night (It's like a bet against yourself). I've experienced this desperation of trying to sleep when I was only getting 3 hours of sleep per night which occurred at the beginning of my thyroid journey in 2013.
As for T3, it had no effect in correcting my sleep, even though a study showed that certain amounts of T3 (~8 mcg @ 180 minutes) was very effective at lowering cortisol levels. I did find that taking ashwagandha was very effective in restoring my sleep depth.
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