sleep deprivation

For everything and anything else not covered in the other RLS sections.
Frunobulax
Posts: 431
Joined: Mon Jun 02, 2014 7:41 pm

Re: sleep deprivation

Post by Frunobulax »

fuz_mind wrote:For RLS - is it possible for the legs to be better i.e. no twitching, pain etc but the sleep problems persist?
Additional to my other response: I did suffer from insomnia for all my adult life (~30 years now), of course it got worse when my RLS manifested itself, about 12 years ago. However, I slept like a baby when I was on dopamine agonists (when they were working), sometimes it felt like I was asleep before my head hit the pillow. But the insomnia was back when I switched to opioids. (Note that I suffered serious side effects from dopamine agonists, and would strongly recommend to stay away from DAs.)

fuz_mind
Posts: 108
Joined: Sun Apr 23, 2017 4:27 pm

Re: sleep deprivation

Post by fuz_mind »

i have trialed magnesium which helped a little but not significantly with sleep

i did a cheeky thing - i copy and pasted stjohnh reply and sent it to my doc who has been suggested that me not sleeping is all psychological; he consulted his sleep specialist colleague who had no idea what stjohnh was referring to and had to do some research on this. i had my review today and none the wiser. instead my doc said he needs to speak to his colleague to understand what it all means..... such is the standard of medical care in my country. i think i am just totally done with my docs all suggesting that since I'm not sleeping despite having no pain, it must be psychological or psychiatric in nature

on a more positive note, after months of surviving on 3 - 4 hours of sleep for the last few months, i decided to do a sleep binge as the pain that was well controlled was starting to wake me from sleep. which is usually a bad sign. with the help of some medication, i slept for 20 hours on 1 sunday. surprisingly my sleep improved after that binge, and i'm now clocking about 5-6 hours (sometimes 7-8!) of sleep with no change in medication. clearly it wasn't enough because i was still falling asleep in the day, but my brain seemed to have "reset" if that makes any sense.......

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