A Statagy for Fixing Me - My Visit to a RLS/Apnea Guru

[EeFall]

I was wondering, when was the last time you had a sleep study? I might be totally off base, because I really don't know what I'm talking about. I was wondering, since you feel your sleep maybe has changed. Or maybe it hasn't. I don't know. I was thinking about this regarding myself because it's been five years since I had it done. I was wondering, if my sleep has changed.
Just a thought.

Drugs affect sleep - makes total sense in this situation to have a sleep study WITH the new drugs to see what's happening.

I guess I could ask about it, I will write a note tomorrow, I just need to remember. I am very out of it, the drugs have me. My left ear also, the tinnitus is terrible, it has been for the last week or so. I suppose also, can't remember, I just don't know. Later.

[EeFall]

Dang it. I tried to go to bed last night and could only stay in bed a moment and got back up. Then my incision on my stomach was bothering me, it opened slightly the other day, and now it is about the size of a dime round and growing. Looks like the flesh has been eaten away and it is wet. I'm going to try to get in with my surgeon today, she said to come in right away if anything like that happened. I woke up sitting on couch at 4 am. I may have slept a few hours sitting up. Since it was without VPAP machine though it does little good. I called in sick to work. I don't think I should even drive today, just too tired.

[Polar Bear]

There is so much going on with you at the moment but please go see about your wound that has opened. Even if you have to see the nurse who can then call in the dr. But it sounds very much like immediate attention is required. Good luck.

[EeFall]

There is so much going on with you at the moment but please go see about your wound that has opened. Even if you have to see the nurse who can then call in the dr. But it sounds very much like immediate attention is required. Good luck.

I went in to see doc. I called and they called back. I went and saw a PA of the surgeon, she was in surgery all day. After the PA saw me she had to go ask the surgeon anyways. After about 45 minute wait (I was laying down on table and fell asleep) they let me go after the PA removed a couple of sutures from the hernia surgery. They think my body was trying to expel them, hence the hole. There was a knot in there. Hopefully it will be okay but they gave me a note saying I could stay home from work tomorrow so I could take it easy over weekend. I feel like a little kid getting a doctors note.

I have been really tired all day, hopefully I will be able to sleep tonight. There is a small possibility that something went wrong with surgery, hopefully that will not be the case but I should know by Monday. Grandkids came yesterday for a few hours while their folks did a little shopping, I think they took their sleigh as my son was heard yelling something about his 8 reindeer or somthing like that It must have been a success as they returned for the kids. The kids enjoyed their time here, they got to play with grandpas new dog, his name is Zoomer and he is a robot.

[EeFall]

I went to bed at 3am and got up at 9am. I have been taking kratom and mj in addition to methadone and lyrica the last few days. Because my quality of sleep has been going down, probably because when I sleep it is mostly light sleep, I have become increasingly depressed. It should be a happy time and it is changing my mood to the good. At 3am I was getting drowsy and thought I should go to bed.

I feel like frankenstein's monster. I lay down with a wedge pillow beneath my main pillow and have my air hose dangling over me from a hanger and wear the nose pillow mask, my earplugs, and a night guard because I grind my teeth. I sit there and think I should probably try to sleep and then wake in the same position. Today because it was so late, I woke moving around like a freak

It is just a crazy way to live, sleep is like a necessity, something I know I must do, not something that I have to do or something that gives pleasure. Last night after getting settled in I had to get back up to fill the humidifier in the machine because it was bone dry thank goodness my wife is sleep through pretty much anything. I was writing my doctor a letter last night, don't know if I will send it but I promised my wife, she thinks I am losing it.

[Polar Bear]

Lack of sleep plays crazy tricks on us.

My memory is beyond useless, I have notes about notes... seriously. Since forever I've been functioning on 3 or 4 hours sleep, the occasional treat of 5 hours. My mother suffered from Alzeimer's and there is always a little fear but I guess a lot of folks get to a stage where the smallest forgetfulness brings the fear of dementia.

Also clumsy from lack of sleep... for example...
I knocked over a bottle of covonia cough syrup, the real dark sticky stuff. It hit the window sill and broke, landing in the kitchen drawer that holds all the homeless stuff like rubber bands, paper clips, paper etc etc. The drawer contents were tipped into the trash.
Next day my foot hit the mop bucket as I did the wooden floors. OMG.. I ran and lifted about 12 bath towels to throw down and mop up as quickly as possible.
Or - Forget that the tap was running !! Yep, I sometimes wonder am I losing it.

Without good sleep we wonder, or I wonder, does clumsiness like this come from fatigue, or is it normal - and I am just wary.

I decided two nights ago that I must get some sleep. I doubled the amitriptyline (it doesn't bother my WED) and doubled my zopiclone. Got about an extra half hour.
Sometimes I consider reducing/stopping the zopiclone and ami... and see what happens.

Eefall, I agree it all seems like a crazy way to live.

[badnights]

yes definitely betty, it's the lack of sleep that makes us clumsy. Lack of sleep can damage everything about us. The bright side is, you don't have to clean out that drawer for another few years now....

[cornelia]

If you stop Ami and Zop you will probably be right back where you were before, which wasn't a good place to be in was it? It might be a bad idea to stop Ami on your own as it is an AD (?) and that could be dangerous without help from your GP. So please consider.

I can imagine that you are afraid sometimes of having Alzheimer's because yourr mother suffered from it. My mother did as well and I sometimes wonder myself. But I read somewhere that you don't have Alzheimer's if you can still draw a clock on a piece of paper with the hands (right word?) at 3.00 pm on it. As long as you do that right yoiu don't have to worry. So try it (LOL)!

Corrie

[Polar Bear]

The amitr... was prescribed at a dose of 20mg for my fibro and as a sleep aid to assist the zopiclone. So it's not a big dose and not the dosage that would be prescribed if it was for AD.
I might reduce it a little every other night and see how it goes.

I haven't heard that one about drawing the clock at 3pm, Guess what I'm going to do now ???

[debbluebird]

In my job, I use to give that test to all of my patients. You give them a blank piece of paper. Ask them to draw a circle, then have them put numbers on it to make a clock, then put the hands on it to make 5:45. One of the hardest parts for people who do have issues is putting the numbers on. I have seem many interesting clocks through the years. Sometimes when you talk to people you would never guess that there is a problem, until you see the clock.
I also think that the lack of sleep causes many problems. For me it's memory.

[EeFall]

The amitr... was prescribed at a dose of 20mg for my fibro and as a sleep aid to assist the zopiclone. So it's not a big dose and not the dosage that would be prescribed if it was for AD.
I might reduce it a little every other night and see how it goes.

I haven't heard that one about drawing the clock at 3pm, Guess what I'm going to do now ???

There is an online test that has the clock, it has several things like that.

[EeFall]

MERRY CHRISTMAS!

[Polar Bear]

And a very Merry Christmas to you.

The Board is very quiet these last few days and I hope that everyone having a peaceful and contented holiday time.

[ViewsAskew]

Whatever your holiday - hope you enjoy (enjoyed) it.

[EeFall]

We were married in September of 1975 and it seems like yesterday. Time goes by so fast. It is a difficult thing to comprehend for a young person, I would not have believed it in 1975. Now I think we are on the verge of ending our marriage. It is purely because of WED and sleep apnea. It is because my wife cannot fathom the difference between who I am and the man I have become because of this sickness. I can't keep fighting this thing, I can't keep being punished for being sick, and I can't keep making my wife feel like she is in a constant free fall. She never knows from one day to the next how I will be, how I will react. We can never make any plans.

I'm lucky to be alive, but I don't believe she understands it fully. I'm tired out. I need some peace. Maybe it would be for the best. I don't want to be around anyone anymore for fear I will get angry. 100% sleep via meds is a terrible way to live, it just is. I think I need to face the facts, I would be far happier to be in a place by myself. I can't take the confrontations, she is always thinking what I am thinking, and she is usually totally incorrect. I have tried to tell her that I would never intentionally argue with her about anything, why would I, I love her. Now I am finally coming to the realization that I can't keep defending myself, I can't continue to keep up this on and off again fighting about nothing.

Good Lord, I am so sick and tired, literally, sick and tired. I just want to enjoy the time I have left. If it means packing my stuff up and moving out and living by myself, I am really thinking I might actually enjoy it. I could work and come home and relax. I could read and write, and play my games, watch movies, and just hangout. It has been a long while since I have used my big ole 8" telescope, or written a book, or did a piece of real artwork. I think I'd enjoy doing those things. I'm just so introverted now, mostly because I need to be, that I think life would be good by myself now.

From my perspective people are treating me badly, to say the least. I just want to avoid conflict. I'm a ticking time bomb. Even at my best the artificial sleep makes it so I am far more tired than a normal person. The last few nights I have slept very little at all. I went to bed for 5 minutes last night. Do I get any slack? No. She just is so thick headed, like many people are, I'm not well. Why can't they see that? I don't have some great plan, I have no soap opera plots, I have no motives for doing much of anything except to want to get through the day with as few problems as possible. It is like the old song, Girls just want to have fun. In this case I would say WED sufferers (me) just want to live on an even keel without rocking the boat, I just want to get along and live. I guess it is too much to ask, but maybe if I lived by myself it would remove most of the conflict and I could just hangout.

I can see from my wife's perspective. I'm just turning into this mean old man and making life difficult for her. If I had a sickness that she could see, I doubt I would be having these problems now, but I look healthy. Really, it sounds rather sad to be all alone, but it might actually give me back some happiness...true but sad. The only thing I can think of that I truly hate is this disease, it has disrupted my whole life and continues to do so. It never seems to end but is always on a course headed for becoming worse. It is just past midnight and I took all my pills hours ago and I'd like to go to bed but I can hardly sit still to type this. I keep nodding off but no sense going to bed if I can't stop moving. Wonderful. I wish I had something good to report, but everything continues to go to hell it seems. I'll probably spend the night looking for an apartment to rent. I suppose I should attempt to go to bed first though, maybe I will actually fall to sleep, stranger things have happened.