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naraburns  nihil supernum  1yr ago (text post)   3003 thread views

Wellness Wednesday for December 7, 2022

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

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So...does anyone here suffer from severe insomnia or sleep apnea?

How do you handle it? I personally find it hard to both GO to sleep and STAY asleep and I feel like everything I've tried helps with one or not the other or helps with both but has potentially horrific side effects.

  1. Melatonin: used to work but kept me sleepy in the day. Last time I tried it it just didn't work.

  2. Trazodone (50mg): didn't work until I paired it with a lot of CBD and I'm never playing chemist like that again. I don't know if I was having some sort of interaction or just dealing with the anxiety of potentially having one but the outcome was the same. And I still mainly got only a few hours sleep.

  3. Marijuana (smoked. 1g of concentrate every 6 days) : this worked for both getting to sleep and staying asleep, mostly. When I first started I could get up to 7 hrs, around 5 with my cpap machine. Now I also wake up early again. I assume I developed a tolerance. I've also heard bad things about using it long term.

  4. Seroquel (25mg): worked for both; even if I do wake up I soon go back down. But also allegedly has horrible side effects and there's been a push against prescribing it for sleep. My original sleep clinic sounded...perturbed when I mentioned I was on it. I went off it, worked out 5 times a week and fasted and lost ~20lbs (suggested by my doctor as a way to help with sleep apnea). Then I tried it again once, as an experiment. Now I know why it was so hard to lose that weight until now: I was so hungry it almost wrecked my fast. For some reason, I also tend to pull of my cpap mask more when I'm on it - maybe due to being sedated? So I'm not getting therapy on it. Which raises my blood pressure.

  5. CBD (70mg) + L-Theanine (200mg): I did fall asleep,eventually. Got about 3 hours then woke up.

In all of these wakeup cases I essentially end up "topping up" on something else (e.g. benadryl) halfway through the night to get more sleep. Not only is that worrying in and of itself (you develop a tolerance quick) but I don't actually end up feeling as rested.

I've also done other things like getting smart bulbs that I lower to 2500K color temperature and dim around sunset and night lights on all devices. I think the smart bulbs actually did help me to be slightly more sleepy but I don't think it was that big a difference in the sleep quality.

I feel like I'm in a box where any choice will lead to bad health outcomes either way. Even worse: I have very limited window to experiment: a bad night of sleep wrecks me and now is really not the time to be cognitively crippled at work.

I have a much lesser issue where I simply have trouble falling asleep but stay asleep. What's your bed like? I got a top of the line tempur-pedic with cooling and it was huge, temperature in generally has been super important to me. I'm sure you've heard all of the standard practices that I've heard, like flexing/tightening and then releasing each muscle down the appendages until you get to you neck/traps. I have found that one helps a bit but not if I'm not already in the sleep "mood", I find I basically know 5 minutes into laying down if I'm going to be awake for several hours before falling asleep or not.

What's your bed like?

Pretty generic shitty twin tbh. I don't really notice it as uncomfortable anymore but maybe I'm desensitized.

I find melatonin very helpful. If you were taking a larger dose, consider a small one. It may be more effective and less hangovery (see SSC).

Thanks, will try that on the weekend!

My cpap took ages to get used to. A lot of fiddling with settings, trying different masks, etc.

I actually really like the mask I have now, finally. Took switching to a full face mask but it's far less annoying and I can get more than an hour on it, which was the situation before. I have another sleep study in 2045 (thanks Canada!) so I'll see if we can upgrade to another machine after that.

I was joking. Canada has long wait times for specialist care and I don't think things have improved since Covid.

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