A little humor about our insomnia...

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The lengths we'll go to in order to get a good nights sleep, people are getting rich off of us, aren't they? 

The lengths we'll go to in order to get a good nights sleep, people are getting rich off of us, aren't they? 

 

I know I have contributed!

Thanks for the smiles, Intractable I.

Been there done that. ha

My weighted blanket is in a heap at the bottom of my bed in a chair.

I've tried so many things and spent so much money, but hey, I've never seen a hearse pulling a U-Haul, so I'm good.

 

The reality is it just takes time, which at this point is all we've got.

NG

I’m under my weighted blanket right now, but only because now I’m used to the weight. It was a total waste of time and money for insomnia.

 

And I could open a health food store with all the supps I’ve bought.

 

Sigh

I have a 25 pound weighted blanket I've been using for years, but recently stopped using it and I sleep even better now.  I'm not saying that a weighted blanket is bad or doesn't work, cause it worked well for me for a long time.

 

Now that I am over 5 years off, I don't think I need it anymore.  Slept 9 hours  last night without it. 

I’m under my weighted blanket right now, but only because now I’m used to the weight. It was a total waste of time and money for insomnia.

 

And I could open a health food store with all the supps I’ve bought.

 

Sigh

 

Me too    Feeling pretty horrid this morning.

Post benzo life is such a rough journey.  I sleep a little now and then, but not much.

I definitely need more than 3 hours on a daily, weekly, monthly, yearly basis.

Anyway, some sleep is better than none.

I've decided this might be it.

Deep within, I wish I could still take something for sleep, but know that I can't.

I'm bummed that having a small glass of wine messes with my brain after four plus years.

At least I am benzo free, for that I am grateful, thanks to all of the support I received on BB. Thank you everyone who stood by me and responded when I cried for help. 

Maybe one day I'll write a success story, but feel I'm not there yet.

NG

 

Most of the sleep products on the market are targeted to people who have normal sleep drives, but due to mild physiological or psychological reasons, they don't sleep well.

 

Benzo insomnia is brain damage. None of those products are going to help brain damage induced insomnia.

 

It's like weight loss. The vast majority of people that are overweight, are so because they have bad lifestyles that the body cannot compensate for, but their physiology is normal. Some people literally lose 30lbs just by stopping drinking sugary pops/sodas and sugary fruit juices.

 

But there is a small minority of people with physical damage (for example, a bad thyroid). These people can literally stop eating, and run on a treadmill 6hr a day, and still not lose a pound. At this point, as TheWay2 likes to say, nothing short of Rx is going to help that.

 

With that said, sleep is such a delicate thing even for people with normal physiology. Anytime I had some important presentation to do at work the next day, or even a trip to a vacation, meant a sleepless night the night before. Most people don't worry about it, have a couple of cups of strong coffee to get thru the day, and they know they will likely sleep the next night.

 

We on the other hand, have gone thru (or currently are going) thru sleepless after sleepless night, feeling closer to death every single day. That does a number on your mind. It's literally PTSD. I believe many here have healed enough to sleep on their own, but the trauma prevents them from being able to do so (I am specifically speaking about those who have jumped from a benzo over a year and still can't sleep).

 

One thing that helped me was carefully monitoring my sleep improvements. When I started taking Mirt for example, 3.75mg would get me 3hr. After 5 months though, I had a couple of nights when I got 8hr with the same amount. I knew I was healing.

 

And I was lucky enough to have used a FitBit for a few years before. I started comparing my before sleeping patterns to my patterns as I healed, and as of now. Ironically, my sleep is now BETTER than it was back then. All the sleep hygiene techniques I practiced, have not only cut my sleep onset by half, but they have increased my deep sleep by 15-20%.

 

I compare my heart rate for example. My unit can measure snoring. If you snore and you can't remember? you were sleeping.

 

Supplements were a big help. The fallacy is to think you can take them one at a time. You need to take a stack. Again, as I have mentioned before, I was probably swallowing like 20 pills at some points. I am off everything now except Zinc and Mag, and a few stalks of celery before bedtime. I have been able to lose 8lbs of the 30lbs I gained by being on keto for the past month or so even. My life is essentially back to normal, and many of these products helped.

 

So don't shun them all. Ask here, many others have been helped just as I have.

 

Andros, you wrote a very informative comment.

Your statement about weight lost brought to mind a contractor we had when our kitchen was gutted and remodeled a few years ago. He wasn't that overweight but could manage to lose some.  One day he stopped in after he finished the job and there stood this thin guy in front of me. I congratulated him on his new look. He said he stopped eating any added sugar. That was it!

 

Like you, even the smallest thing takes away my sleep.  Having an appointment the next day, leaving for a trip/vacation the next morning, all makes my sleep disappear.

 

I've still not gotten a new fitbit, as the old one caused my arm to swell. Not sure what that was about, but noticed my daughter's arm was swollen, also from her fitbit.  The swelling is not a lot, but it does bother me why, so I stopped wearing mine.  In the beginning of my taper and after I was finally off of clonazepam, seeing how little sleep I actually was getting,  stressed me more. For me, ignorance was bliss. Well, not really, but I didn't want my lack of sleep staring me in the face each day. 

 

Celery is on my grocery list, so I will try that. I'd rather eat the real deal than take supplements, if possible. 

 

Congratulations on the 8 pound eight loss! You will get there! This is a great start.

 

I was able to lose over 20#'s by not eating ice cream before bed, which did help my sleep.  After my knee replacement last April, I lost my appetite, so had no desire for ice cream along with any food. The downside was I stopped going right to sleep when I went to bed.  I would lie awake until 12-1 o'clock every night. It was awful.  Finally this summer, I resumed eating ice cream again, before bed and the "going right to sleep" came back. I gained back a few pounds, but just increased my exercise and physical therapy to keep from gaining it all back.

 

Take care,

NG

 

 

 

The FitBit is useful as a tool to monitor what's going on, but like you, at the worst of my W/D, I took it off. The last thing I needed was to see "restless, restless" for months on end. Psychologically I don't know if I could have handled it. I did make a resolution for myself: When I was able to get 5hr of natural sleep, without drugs, without supplements, I would put the watch back on. That moment came around mid May of 2021. Since then I have seen my stats go from 5hr to a solid 7 or 8hr sleep. I have seen my deep sleep go from 15min a night to 1.5hr, and sometimes even 2hr (which is more than I used to get even before the brain damage).

 

What has changed is that I am far more psychologically sensitive. Just about anything that threatens to put me back in W/D (like alcohol for example) I have a phobia of now. I've had to slowly pour little bits of Isopropyl in my hands, and assess my sleep, so I am getting better. I can now use hand cleaners without being terrified it will send me into W/D again. It helps that studies show that negligible amounts of alcohol are absorbed thru the skin in such a small amount (like washing your hands).

 

Also I think my sleep drive is not as strong as it used to be.................BUT I've been able to compensate for that with strict sleep hygiene. For weight loss: I was able to do 2 day intermittent fasting before all this. I could go literally without a bite to eat, for 2 days in a row, and still sleep (this is how I used to diet to get lean. Not eat for 2 days, and the 3rd day go to a buffet and eat one meal of whatever I wanted, repeat). I can't do that anymore. If I go to bed hungry, I can't sleep.

 

So I had to find a solution, and celery seems to be working quite well for me. Not only is it negligible in calories, but it has a phytochemical that actually lowers your blood pressure. So that with Keto, while not working as far as I would like, is in fact still giving me progress. So if it takes 4-5 months to lose what I want instead of 2 months, I can deal with that.

 

If hunger is a problem for you before bedtime, and you can tolerate the fiber? I'd say give it a shot.

Andros, thanks for the feedback. Perhaps one day I will put a Fitbit back on just to see how much sleep I really am getting. Right now I am not ready. 

 

Maybe my brain is permanently damaged to some extent because of the years on benzos and my age. My sleep was good and normal until I got married and slept with a snorer. If I could manage to get to sleep first, I did quite well, if not, I would lie awake for long periods of time.  The snoring never got better, but did get worse as the years went by. 

Anyway, I sleep in a quiet room in the basement with a fan running in the background, so the snoring is no longer an issue with me, but insomnia is.

 

When I finished my benzo taper in November of 2017, I was so naïve thinking my sleep would return in a few months.  That never happened and so here I am. 

 

Like you I have a phobia of drinking alcohol.  I never thought of hand sanitizers being absorbed through the skin. I've not used anything except soap for some months, so that should not be a problem. 

 

I cannot go to bed hungry and sleep, but neither can I go to sleep on a full stomach. There is a happy medium somewhere in between. 

 

Last night I did not eat the newly purchased celery, but  maybe will try it tonight.

My blood pressure has always been and still is quite low, which shows up in lack of energy.

 

Take care,

NG