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Sleep makes me feel worse

SwanRonson

Senior Member
Messages
300
Location
Alabama
Maybe this sounds strange, but it's been very consistent over the last 3 months. I have severe insomnia, but I actually feel worse when I actually do manage to sleep. If I sleep for just a couple of hours I'll feel better within an hour or so. But, if I get 5-8 hours of sleep it makes me feel horrible the whole next day. My only theory right now is that it's cortisol related somehow, but I don't know enough to say that. Just guessing.

Any theories on this or seen this before?
 

lauluce

as long as you manage to stay alive, there's hope
Messages
591
Location
argentina
I have a similar question, since when I take a 1, 2, or 3 hours nap I awake feeling weak, feeling dissy, paniting and with a 130bpm heart rate. On the other hand, when I sleep 6 to 8 hrs during the night, this doesn´t happen... I don´t have a clue about why it is this way
 

Critterina

Senior Member
Messages
1,238
Location
Arizona, USA
Do either of you have saliva or blood cortisol lab work results? That would be one place to start. Are you losing weight, particularly muscle tone? Do you have digestive problems, too?
Editing to add:
SwanRonson, are you sleeping at night? Are you waking with an alarm?
 
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SwanRonson

Senior Member
Messages
300
Location
Alabama
Do either of you have saliva or blood cortisol lab work results? That would be one place to start. Are you losing weight, particularly muscle tone? Do you have digestive problems, too?

I do not have Cortisol test results. I'm not sure where or how to go about getting that done and would love a recommendation on that.

I have lost a little weight but I can't really tell from where at this point. I'm already a very thin person. 5'10" - 147lbs.

Yes, all of my issues actually began shortly after getting gastritis 3 months ago. It's been mostly down hill since then. Constipation, insomnia and upper gi irritation have been pretty constant.
 

Martial

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Location
Ventura, CA
I do not have Cortisol test results. I'm not sure where or how to go about getting that done and would love a recommendation on that.

I have lost a little weight but I can't really tell from where at this point. I'm already a very thin person. 5'10" - 147lbs.

Yes, all of my issues actually began shortly after getting gastritis 3 months ago. It's been mostly down hill since then. Constipation, insomnia and upper gi irritation have been pretty constant.

You should look into getting checked for small intestine bacterial overgrowth. Sounds like there is some kind of dysbiosis and you can treat the infection and replenish proper biosis fairly simply with the correct treatments. I have issues where I feel worse after waking up from sleep. Think about it this way, most of the healing your body does is when your in deep sleep. With chronic infections or ill health we do not sleep as well and have fragmented REM sleep. Because of this it is not too uncommon to feel more groggy or sick in the morning after your body is trying to heal. Just make sure there is no apnea going on or upper airway resistance syndrome. Also practicing good sleep hygiene is very important, especially for a stressed out system.
 

Seven7

Seven
Messages
3,444
Location
USA
Mine was due to sleep apnea (I developed due to CFS for some reason, Also I did not reach stage 4 sleep. Ask fro sleep study. They only ussually look for apnea so you have to ask them to pay attention to the stages sleep, so you can get med specifically to induce stage 4 if you have that issue (You will wake up every few hours instead of staying sleep).
 

sregan

Senior Member
Messages
703
Location
Southeast
I agree pretty much with what @Martial said.

For my experience I can have pretty good sleep like 6 hours and feel good. If I go back and try to get that last 1-2 hours I can feel much worse.

I am very sensitive to caffeine and dark chocolate and cannot have either too late in the day or my late REM get very fragmented. I also think that having a colon full of toxic waste will disrupt sleep also. Better to eat light for that last meal of the day.

@SwanRonson seems like your gut bacteria has made a change for the worse lately. Were you on antibiotics recently?

I think you would do well to adjust your diet down to a vegan, SCD, paleo. Take your pick just something that scales down what you eat to a manageable few.

What makes you think it's cortisol related btw? If you have too much you can take L-Glutamine or Phosphatidyl Serine at bedtime to lower it and get sleep. If it's low you can take things in the morning to help that.

Are you highly stressed or have been in the last 4-5 months?
 

SwanRonson

Senior Member
Messages
300
Location
Alabama
@SwanRonson seems like your gut bacteria has made a change for the worse lately. Were you on antibiotics recently?

I think you would do well to adjust your diet down to a vegan, SCD, paleo. Take your pick just something that scales down what you eat to a manageable few.

Well I haven't taken any antibiotics in years - probably close to 10. Unless, iodine (which I was taking lugols 2% daily for a long time) counts as an antibiotic. Not sure on that. I've actually been VLC for about 3 years. Before the gastritis I was averaging about 50 carbs a day. Fat and protein were 80% of my diet. I've thought about SCD and would like to try it.

What makes you think it's cortisol related btw?

Are you highly stressed or have been in the last 4-5 months?

I thought about cortisol because of the odd sleep pattern combined with the creep up in my blood sugar. I know that it regulates sleep to a degree. For instance, the previous 3 days I got a total of 3 hours of sleep, and by last night I felt actually less foggy headed and less fatigue. But, last night I managed about 6 hours and woke up feeling terrible again.

My fasting blood sugar back in January was 84. It's now slightly over 100.

Stress? Yes, very much so lately. My full story is in this post. Since then I've also had a case of shingles and a stomach virus with vomiting/dehydration, both of which put me in the E.R. They mis-diagnosed the shingles and thought I was having a heart attack and gave me a heart cath. Needless to say, the last 3 months have been a nightmare.

Just trying to put any pieces together if possible. Thanks guys for all of the input.
 

sregan

Senior Member
Messages
703
Location
Southeast
@SwanRonson, I see now I even replied to that thread. I can understand your stress most definitely. Seems you have been taking some supplements or another for a long time. Have you let yourself have a "wash out" period recently? Just let everything wash out and start over?

Left you a message on that other thread. btw
 
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Victronix

Senior Member
Messages
418
Location
California
You can order your own cortisol test through various organizations if your doctor won't do it.

I use Life Extension, since I get my own blood tests regularly. http://www.lef.org/Vitamins-Supplements/itemLC004051/Cortisol-Blood-Test It will give you a normal range.

I had mine checked recently through my doctor and she ordered one at 8 am and one in the afternoon.

There are other ways to test cortisol, like a saliva test done through out the day. I did that one with Canary Club -- http://www.canaryclub.org/diurnal-cortisol-4x-stress-hormone-kit.html

You do want to rule out any issues with cortisol.

You also mentioned that you messed up your thyroid with iodine -- that can take a long time to sort itself out, even if labs are normal. And cortisol / adrenals / thyroid are all interconnected. Feeling better in the evening could also be cortisol / adrenals.

Are you sweating at night?

Three hours of sleep, total, in three days will probably start to get everything out of whack, including blood sugar and adrenal function. Regardless of feeling like crap upon waking, and worse with more sleep, you must have sleep to figure out what is going on (this is my belief, but I'm not an MD). I would concentrate on getting decent sleep and reducing stress, keep working to get back to sleep no matter how many times you wake up. Take the things you know help sleep. Hot baths before bed, chamomile tea, enough potassium (low potassium will wake you up at night), calcium, 5-HTP, etc.

As far as GI, that can take awhile to sort out, but you could try to focus on going easy on your system with foods that your body can handle easily, which only you would know. Digestive issues will make it hard to sleep through a night.

There are a lot of things that suggest you need more potassium, except your lab results. But potassium can change radically in a short time. I would double the amount of coconut water you are drinking. That will also help with the constipation.

Complicated! Good luck with it. These are my suggestions, but I'm not an MD. You basically need to spend a lot of time researching on here what's worked for people, reporting what changes on here for yourself, trying things out . . .
 
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Martial

Senior Member
Messages
1,409
Location
Ventura, CA
I thought about cortisol because of the odd sleep pattern combined with the creep up in my blood sugar. I know that it regulates sleep to a degree. For instance, the previous 3 days I got a total of 3 hours of sleep, and by last night I felt actually less foggy headed and less fatigue. But, last night I managed about 6 hours and woke up feeling terrible again.

My fasting blood sugar back in January was 84. It's now slightly over 100.

Stress? Yes, very much so lately. My full story is in this post. Since then I've also had a case of shingles and a stomach virus with vomiting/dehydration, both of which put me in the E.R. They mis-diagnosed the shingles and thought I was having a heart attack and gave me a heart cath. Needless to say, the last 3 months have been a nightmare.

Just trying to put any pieces together if possible. Thanks guys for all of the input.

Your blood sugar could be high due to the high stress on your body and spiked cortisol, doesn't mean that you are higher risk of diabetes just a common thing that happens under stress. Blood sugar levels become higher, your body turns catabolic and burns muscle to fuel itself, holding onto any fat as a survival mode instinct. Having three hours of sleep in three days, or did you mean three hours of sleep each night? You should look into what you can to fix your sleep first, going that long without quality of sleep is unhealthy no matter who you are. You may feel worse after sleeping longer but your body does need the extended rest to get better and heal!
 

SwanRonson

Senior Member
Messages
300
Location
Alabama
Your blood sugar could be high due to the high stress on your body and spiked cortisol, doesn't mean that you are higher risk of diabetes just a common thing that happens under stress. Blood sugar levels become higher, your body turns catabolic and burns muscle to fuel itself, holding onto any fat as a survival mode instinct. Having three hours of sleep in three days, or did you mean three hours of sleep each night? You should look into what you can to fix your sleep first, going that long without quality of sleep is unhealthy no matter who you are. You may feel worse after sleeping longer but your body does need the extended rest to get better and heal!

Unfortunately it was really 3 hours of sleep over a 72 hour period. :( I finally gave in and took some unisom just to get some sleep. I don't like to do that, but at some point you have to go with what works. I agree, the sleep is a huge factor right now. Seems like it's making everything else more complicated.
 

SwanRonson

Senior Member
Messages
300
Location
Alabama
@SwanRonson, I see now I even replied to that thread. I can understand your stress most definitely. Seems you have been taking some supplements or another for a long time. Have you let yourself have a "wash out" period recently? Just let everything wash out and start over?

I agree with sregan -- I would consider backing off things slowly and see how it goes.

Actually I haven't taken any supplements of any kind in a few days (since Sunday I think). After the stomach virus put me in the E.R. over the weekend they had me on Zofran for the nausea, but I'm off that now. Seems like maybe I'll let things wash out for another week and concentrate on just sleeping well and try to come back at things fresh.
 

Critterina

Senior Member
Messages
1,238
Location
Arizona, USA
@SwanRonson ,

You've got a few things to look into in the responses here that have a good probability of helping, either with what went wrong or how to help. I have a nurse practitioner who straddles east and west forms of medicine. Her approach is listen, guess, test, revise guesses, treat, retest. My first visit resulted in 23 vials of blood for testing (at the lab). Sometimes I prefer to try a treatment first, if it meets my three criteria: Probably won't hurt, might help, doesn't cost a lot. What you do may depend on if and who you have to work with, costs, and insurance.

Some things you could try:
BCAA (branch chain amino acids). If you body is turning catabolic like @Martial said, BCAA will help you get to sleep and sleep well immediately. I used Source Naturals, and followed the instructions on the bottle. I was sleeping a max of 3 hours a night at least 5 nights a week. I slept the first night I used it, and every night until I ran out. Although I was eating 2 lb of ground meat (lamb, bison, turkey) per week, I wasn't digesting it and lost about 15 lbs of muscle until I started using the BCAA.

Gut-healing products. If you tolerate dairy, colostrum may be a good place to start. 5 grams twice a day perhaps. It seems to be changing my life. Glutamine is one, too, but it's already covered in the BCAA in most brands. The kinds of fiber for gut healing are inulin and larch (arabinogalactins). There's the 4R Gut rebuilding program that has a lot of suggestions (@caledonia wrote a good summary), and there's the "Fixing leaky gut" thread where Hip posted his list of products.

For some reason that my logical mind can't reach, my intuitive mind says Epsom salt baths - that you need the transdermal magnesium to restore your sleep cycle. Hmmm, that intuitive mind rarely speaks up. Do what you will with it.

The cortisol-blood glucose-insomnia relationship is complicated. Essentially, the liver needs cortisol (or a substitute like prednisone) to make blood glucose. If your cortisol is high or the pattern is wrong (it should be higher in the morning and tapering until about 5 am), it will cause insomnia. If your cortisol is low, you'll experience hypoglycemia, which can also keep you awake. (It did me, about 18 months after I solved the BCAA issue. I would go to bed, sleep for 1-2 hours and be awake until about 5:30. I figure that was when my cortisol was high enough for my blood sugar to get high enough for me to sleep. I also had achy pain in the kidney area at night and dizziness, nausea, hypoglycemia, and fainting with stress, etc. during the day.) The mainstream medical profession believes saliva cortisol is only useful for diagnosing high cortisol or bad patterns. Serum cortisol is useful for diagnosing low (hypo) conditions. Cortisol is definitely worth testing, as treating it the wrong way can be dangerous. I tried phosphatidyl serine complex, which lowered my already low cortisol and slept even less.

So, those you can do quickly to see if they help, but I really would suggest you work with a doctor. It seems you have enough going on that I (in your shoes or your doctor's shoes) would really want a complete workup - CBC, chemistry, lipid panel, hormone panels (cortisol, DHEA, testosterone), amino acid panel, and stool analysis with parasites. Something went wrong, and it's hard to tell without more data.

Best of health!
 
Messages
83
Nope it doesn't sound so strange - I had that as well in a period of my life, but what caused it I still dont know. But I think it had something to do with healing / stress reactions in the body.
 

5150

Senior Member
Messages
360
Unfortunately it was really 3 hours of sleep over a 72 hour period. :( I finally gave in and took some unisom just to get some sleep. I don't like to do that, but at some point you have to go with what works. I agree, the sleep is a huge factor right now. Seems like it's making everything else more complicated.

If you are able to get sleep using Unisom, consider yourself lucky. Most require a stronger aid, but go with what helps the most, and if it's a light-weight med., so much the better for you. (as opposed to prescription strength as may be needed over a longer period of time). Please, do not be reluctant to have some kind of medication to help your sleep. It's that important.
 

SwanRonson

Senior Member
Messages
300
Location
Alabama
So, those you can do quickly to see if they help, but I really would suggest you work with a doctor. It seems you have enough going on that I (in your shoes or your doctor's shoes) would really want a complete workup - CBC, chemistry, lipid panel, hormone panels (cortisol, DHEA, testosterone), amino acid panel, and stool analysis with parasites. Something went wrong, and it's hard to tell without more data.

I've been trying to find a local naturopath M.d. to work with (I found a great one local but he can't see me until Feb. 2, 2015) and going to traditional doctors in the mean time, none of which have helped except to prescribe me the shingles antiviral meds. I've seen 4 so far over the last 3 months. Between them and the E.R. visits and the blood donation on 9/18/14, I've had so much blood drawn that my last CBC at the E.R. showed low hematocrit/rbc. That might be a factor in my seemingly weak immune system at the moment. None of the blood work has turned up anything except a slightly low Vitamin D (25 out of a 30-100 ref range).

Your hunch on the epsom salt baths is kind of wild because over the last 3 months that's the only thing that has made me consistently feel better. I'm religious about a hot epsom salt bath almost every night. And when I don't get one (like happened twice over this last 3 day period) it really turns on the insomnia.

I got about 8 hours last night. Got in bed at 10pm and woke up at 9:30am. I took 3mg of melatonin before bed and took another 3mg when i woke up at 5:30am. It took a while to get back to sleep, but all in all I think it was about 8 hours.

Thank you for the BCAA suggestion. That sounds definitely worth trying.
 

rosie26

Senior Member
Messages
2,446
Location
NZ
I have a similar question, since when I take a 1, 2, or 3 hours nap I awake feeling weak, feeling dissy, paniting and with a 130bpm heart rate. On the other hand, when I sleep 6 to 8 hrs during the night, this doesn´t happen... I don´t have a clue about why it is this way

I could not let myself go to sleep during the day because of this. I felt so dreadful when I woke up after a hour or two nap during the day. I think the blood pressure must have dropped too much. It was so unpleasant, I didn't want to experience it again - so I wouldn't let myself fall asleep. I had severe insomnia for years and those afternoon naps would have been so helpful, but no, I couldn't even make up for lack of sleep that way.