LucidChaos
05-29-05, 03:34 AM
Forgive the length.
Sleep problems have always been an issue with me all my life and I suspect that much of my ADHD symptoms, and other symptoms, are caused by poor restorative sleep. I feel like crap when I wake up and can barely remember what it feels like to be refreshed. It was almost ten years since I woke up refreshed. Before that it was a very rare occurance. A nap would sometimes produce that sought after feeling of being refilled.
The Adderall I was initially prescribed actually helped my sleep patterns for a bit. The Dr. I am seeing recommended Neurontin for me for sleep, as well as my son, and it worked amazingly in the beginning. The first night I took 300mg of it and woke up without being tired. I can't describe how good it felt to wake up and not feel like I was pulling myself out of molasses. The dosage was slowly raised to and stabilized at 900mg with continued positive response. I could go to sleep at 1am and wake up at 7am and feel on top of the world, even on the weekends... unheard of for me. I thought most of my issues were going to be resolved. This worked well for about a month. Unfortunately I had a severe reaction to it (excruciating pain that would wake me up) that caused me to have to stop. This reaction is not expected at all with Neurontin from what I have been told and could have been caused by other factors (in conjunction) happening at the same time. For me, when I was able to wake up refreshed I could get more done without fatigue and concentrate much better on a single task.
I had a sleep study years ago but was considered borderline for apnea. That study was initiated because of a few episode of cluster headaches and general daily headache problems. The clusters have not been around for a while, crosses fingers / knocks on wood, but I still live with daily headaches that do not respond to any medication. I did not experience those headaches or fatigue on those days recently when I woke up refreshed! This shows me that for me poor sleep is a major contributing factor.
Both of my sons have sleep trouble. My youngest is now on benadryl to help him get to sleep and my oldest is on ambien. Without these they spend hours awake in bed going over things in their minds. My oldest has expressed problems of being unrefreshed upon wakening so I suspect he has sleep issues. He does not snore but does awaken many times at night.
I grind my teeth quite bad and have severe TMJ pain. I have ruined a few of those custom made, expensive, night guards. I snore extremely loud and wake my wife up often. She finally took my advice and tried some earplugs. Now at least she can sleep and I can just go on with my snoring without getting a hit in my side to stop! I also have poor healing problems with my skin. If I cut myself it will literally take months for it to heal all the way. I was diagnosed years ago with fibromyalgia but all the medication I had tried didn't appear to help at all. Some of the medication, ssri's, appeared to make me worse.
I have very poor stamina and fatique quite easily. I used to like to work out and do some strenous activities but now all that does is make me tired and ruin me for weeks. I was always amazed when I heard people say that exercising made them feel good. That was never a adjective I would use to describe how I felt after exertion...ever.
My ADHD symptoms are classic, forgetfullness, constantly losing things, distracted easily, procrastination, spending/bill issues, poor/no goal setting, hyperfocusing on issues that interest me, trouble finishing any job after the thrill is gone, social problems (tell it like I see it), multitasking but never fully engaged in any one project. You all know the story. I have piles of papers on every subject I have researched, but don't ask me where one particular one is!
I've done some searching recently on sleep disorders and the effects of sleep deprivation. A reduction of slow wave sleep along with interuptions in REM has been shown to cause the exact same symptoms that are shown with ADHD and fibro. Alpha wave intrusion on delta waves during stage 3 and 4 sleep appears to be a major issue when dealing with non-restorative sleep. I'm experimenting at this time with a program to do some brain entrainment during sleep. Growth hormone that is normally released during the SWS stage of sleep is not being properly regulated. This is required for the body to properly refresh and repair. Poor skin healing can be an outward expression of a lack of proper sleep. There also appears to be some connection with a poorly regulated HPA axis. The HPA axis issue needs more investigation.
A book I lent to my sister talks about this as a nuerosomatic syndrone.
The name is "It IS all in your head" by Jory Goodman. Take a look.
http://www.jorygoodmanmd.com/services01.asp I need to get it back to read it again. The first time through a book I never assimilate all of the facts. :-)
I have a list of some informative links that I can post later on sleep research.
My older sister is like a clone of me. It has only been the last few years that we have been discussing our medical issues with each other. She is 12 years older than me and we never really talked about things like that until we noticed how similar our problems were. I steered her into a sleep study and she was diagnosed with apnea. She has all the same symptoms of fibro, she was diagnosed, and adhd. She is hesitent to admit to the adhd but from
everything I have read and my knowledge of her she fits the ticket. I have another sleep study scheduled in two months. Hopefully something will come from it. I will be pursuing the issue of non-restorative sleep much closer now.
Here is an article I just found that has some helpful reading.
http://www.ptjournal.org/Jan97/krsnich.cfm
tl,dr:
I have poor sleep and wake up unrefreshed.
How would you rate your sleep quality? :faint:
-Kevin
Sleep problems have always been an issue with me all my life and I suspect that much of my ADHD symptoms, and other symptoms, are caused by poor restorative sleep. I feel like crap when I wake up and can barely remember what it feels like to be refreshed. It was almost ten years since I woke up refreshed. Before that it was a very rare occurance. A nap would sometimes produce that sought after feeling of being refilled.
The Adderall I was initially prescribed actually helped my sleep patterns for a bit. The Dr. I am seeing recommended Neurontin for me for sleep, as well as my son, and it worked amazingly in the beginning. The first night I took 300mg of it and woke up without being tired. I can't describe how good it felt to wake up and not feel like I was pulling myself out of molasses. The dosage was slowly raised to and stabilized at 900mg with continued positive response. I could go to sleep at 1am and wake up at 7am and feel on top of the world, even on the weekends... unheard of for me. I thought most of my issues were going to be resolved. This worked well for about a month. Unfortunately I had a severe reaction to it (excruciating pain that would wake me up) that caused me to have to stop. This reaction is not expected at all with Neurontin from what I have been told and could have been caused by other factors (in conjunction) happening at the same time. For me, when I was able to wake up refreshed I could get more done without fatigue and concentrate much better on a single task.
I had a sleep study years ago but was considered borderline for apnea. That study was initiated because of a few episode of cluster headaches and general daily headache problems. The clusters have not been around for a while, crosses fingers / knocks on wood, but I still live with daily headaches that do not respond to any medication. I did not experience those headaches or fatigue on those days recently when I woke up refreshed! This shows me that for me poor sleep is a major contributing factor.
Both of my sons have sleep trouble. My youngest is now on benadryl to help him get to sleep and my oldest is on ambien. Without these they spend hours awake in bed going over things in their minds. My oldest has expressed problems of being unrefreshed upon wakening so I suspect he has sleep issues. He does not snore but does awaken many times at night.
I grind my teeth quite bad and have severe TMJ pain. I have ruined a few of those custom made, expensive, night guards. I snore extremely loud and wake my wife up often. She finally took my advice and tried some earplugs. Now at least she can sleep and I can just go on with my snoring without getting a hit in my side to stop! I also have poor healing problems with my skin. If I cut myself it will literally take months for it to heal all the way. I was diagnosed years ago with fibromyalgia but all the medication I had tried didn't appear to help at all. Some of the medication, ssri's, appeared to make me worse.
I have very poor stamina and fatique quite easily. I used to like to work out and do some strenous activities but now all that does is make me tired and ruin me for weeks. I was always amazed when I heard people say that exercising made them feel good. That was never a adjective I would use to describe how I felt after exertion...ever.
My ADHD symptoms are classic, forgetfullness, constantly losing things, distracted easily, procrastination, spending/bill issues, poor/no goal setting, hyperfocusing on issues that interest me, trouble finishing any job after the thrill is gone, social problems (tell it like I see it), multitasking but never fully engaged in any one project. You all know the story. I have piles of papers on every subject I have researched, but don't ask me where one particular one is!
I've done some searching recently on sleep disorders and the effects of sleep deprivation. A reduction of slow wave sleep along with interuptions in REM has been shown to cause the exact same symptoms that are shown with ADHD and fibro. Alpha wave intrusion on delta waves during stage 3 and 4 sleep appears to be a major issue when dealing with non-restorative sleep. I'm experimenting at this time with a program to do some brain entrainment during sleep. Growth hormone that is normally released during the SWS stage of sleep is not being properly regulated. This is required for the body to properly refresh and repair. Poor skin healing can be an outward expression of a lack of proper sleep. There also appears to be some connection with a poorly regulated HPA axis. The HPA axis issue needs more investigation.
A book I lent to my sister talks about this as a nuerosomatic syndrone.
The name is "It IS all in your head" by Jory Goodman. Take a look.
http://www.jorygoodmanmd.com/services01.asp I need to get it back to read it again. The first time through a book I never assimilate all of the facts. :-)
I have a list of some informative links that I can post later on sleep research.
My older sister is like a clone of me. It has only been the last few years that we have been discussing our medical issues with each other. She is 12 years older than me and we never really talked about things like that until we noticed how similar our problems were. I steered her into a sleep study and she was diagnosed with apnea. She has all the same symptoms of fibro, she was diagnosed, and adhd. She is hesitent to admit to the adhd but from
everything I have read and my knowledge of her she fits the ticket. I have another sleep study scheduled in two months. Hopefully something will come from it. I will be pursuing the issue of non-restorative sleep much closer now.
Here is an article I just found that has some helpful reading.
http://www.ptjournal.org/Jan97/krsnich.cfm
tl,dr:
I have poor sleep and wake up unrefreshed.
How would you rate your sleep quality? :faint:
-Kevin