How to normalise sleep pattern

[physicsstudent13]

I have a terrible sleep disorder and haven't been able to sleep normally in 7 years. I take klonopin+gabapentin. I think the key is to increasing slow wave sleep or stage 3 which gabapentin does, it isn't necessarily a sleep prolonger but increases slow wave SWS

 

[heapsreal]

I have a terrible sleep disorder and haven't been able to sleep normally in 7 years. I take klonopin+gabapentin. I think the key is to increasing slow wave sleep or stage 3 which gabapentin does, it isn't necessarily a sleep prolonger but increases slow wave SWS

baclofen i have found similar, also mirtazapine. There are a few things i have found that seem to help improve sleep quality but i think the gaba receptors need a tickle to help us initiate sleep.

 

[Mij]

My doctor explained to me that melatonin dosages are very individual. Some people can acheive deep sleep on a tiny spec amount. It's also important to remember that if you wake in the middle of the night, not to turn on any lights because this destroys the effect of melatonin.

 

[physicsstudent13]

it's a terrible mystery I just started waking up with fog and headaches maybe because my respiratory neurons in the brain stem were dying or degenerating. and the fog was sooo terrible I couldn't read sentences, it was terrible last night when I slept without klonopin+gabapentin.
I don't understand why my doctors didn't prescribe me the klonopin+gabapentin for 7 years??

the disease is terrible, I got diabetes and nerve damage and abscesses from that for life and Bell's Palsy as a complication. and my heart is damaged it doesn't conduct electricity correctly, i have right bundle branch block on an EKG and tachycardia.

I didn't really like mitirzapine it seemed to give a bad foggy effect while when I take klonopin+gabapentin I feel nothing, no drowsiness.

I think elavil amitriptyline may be good and gave me on rare days some clarity after 24 hours of being up

I'm not sure how to analyze the synergistic effect of klonopin+gabapentin. Klonopin and triazolam seem to reduce central apnea events but not everyone has sleep apnea I guess.

 

[WoolPippi]

I recently fixed my sleep so I'm cherry picking your post to show off my experience in a most favourable way, hmkay? In other words: here's my 2 cents but it's not worth more. But perhaps of some info to you.

But it's the time I'm going to sleep that's the current problem

my sleep dr said to change the times not more than 15 minutes at a time. Slowwwly.
And don't ride that second wind of cortisol that starts at 11 at night. Be in bed before that.

I don't drink tea or coffee, but I do get a lot of caffeine from chocolate, so that is something I should probably cut out in the evening.

Yeah, that's my experience too. And I don't drink after half past six either because otherwise I wake up. Also: nothing in my belly that excites it. No raw vegetables, no whole wheat grains, no corn, no nuts, no egg white, no lentils etc. Anything that keeps my belly busy at night.

I'm interested in the gut effect on sleep. I tried resistant starch and that made no difference for me. I'm very focused on improving my gut but it's a mess after ten months of abx,

This! I did this! I fixed my gut. With gelatine. I make a big pan of chicken soup every week, cook the bird to the bones. Eat trice a day. Or I make fish stew. Or plain gelatine pudding. I've been eating gelatine for a year now and it has healed my guts. Also the no-excitement thing, which is personal to each gut.

I also follow a slightly ketonic diet meaning I get all my energy from fats, not from protein or carbs. My blood sugar is level and with fat you don't grow hungry in the night. (You also won't grow fat on this diet because there's no insuline to store excess energy away in fat cells.)

The suggestion of the day lights is something the sleep clinic also reccomended, though I never tried it. They were quite expensive when I looked before, but I might take another look at that.

They're still expensive but I'm happy with mine. I have a full spectrum light I use during the day in the winter. But excess vit D3 helps too. I need more vit D than my blood work suggests because my receptors are shot. Only when I did the genetic research it made sense that I function better on higher levels, even though my blood levels seemed fine before.

I have a cheap alarm clock with a light that slowly brightens. This is not the real day light light but it helps me very well to wake up in the morning. I lie there and slowly brighten it, waiting to get properly awake. I always wake at the same time, very strict. My body learned it better go to sleep when I lie in bed because at half past 6 that light will go on and we. will. rise.

You mentioned in OP about distracting yourself from bad body. That's a big one. I have no answer.
I cried a lot, sighed a lot. Still do. I only have this lame suggestion I used myself: a "ta-dah" note book in which I wrote each evening the things I did accomplish/was happy about that day. It's lame but it's the best I could think of.
It did help a bit. Especially reading back and seeing I did something each day or had a profound thought or had noticed a bird singing. Reading back and realizing my recent past was not one big hole of doom and misery.

Also, each evening I write down the plan for the next day. They usually consist of only two things. I'll never get more done than two so I don't bother writing down more than two. Prioritizing is such a big part of chronic illness and writing down the plans for the day after help me to resign to it and to park away the day of tomorrow which will be doable, with only two things.
It helps when at the end of the day I can strike through the two things I did. I feel accomplished.

When I was really ill my two things were: get dressed, cook food. Or: get dressed, take shower.
Now that I'm better it's more like: call plumber, knit. Or: clean room, write friend. Always something blergh/useful and something lovely. The lovely things are a must to get through illness. And they count as accomplishments.

best to you, sorry for my weird english

 

[snowathlete]

@WoolPippi thank you; your post is really helpful. Interesting about gelatine healing your gut. I've read that in a few places. It's part of some versions of the SCD and other diets, including leaky gut ones. Though I don't follow the SCD, I have thought about giving the chicken soup/gelatine angle a go. Would really like to hear more about what you did and any tips. What gut problems did you have before and about how they improved would be really interesting to hear.

 

[physicsstudent13]

I think the main issue is increasing slow wave sleep or stage 3 sleep. Is there a way to do that? What does riding the 2nd wave of cortisol do to your sleep? I have a horrid sleep disorder and have basically 0% stage 3 sleep for some reason.
I'm interested in the gelatin and ketone diets. Are they safe for heart disease?

 

[WoolPippi]

What gut problems did you have before and about how they improved would be really interesting to hear.

I was malnourished because my gut did not take up any nutrients. Up till the point my body couldn't function any more and collapsed (2009). That's when we found out, via blood test, stool tests and hair test.

I found several factors at play in this:
[LIST=1]
[*]stomach acid was not acid enough. Food didn't get broken down and instead passed in "bits" through the gut, causing pain and bodily stresses. And the malnutrition. (btw stomach acidity is governed by cortisol levels. low cortisol = not enough stomach acid),
[*]no bile. Thusly no uptake of fats and the nutrients they carry. (bile is induced by stomach acidity levels)(I found out by looking at the colour of my poo. It was grey/white and floated),
[*]no uptake in the gut right after the stomach (duodenum) where the most important uptake ought to be,
[*]daily/nightly painful passage from small gut into colon (small gut is virtually bacterium-free and food needs to be properly "mush" before it's allowed to enter the colon. If it isn't it sits before the portal (appendix) to mush some more.),
[*]gas gas gas. In the colon. My colon and its inhabitants didn't fair well on what I was eating at all. Fibres and egg whites were the worst.
[*]much pain. Both in the small gut and in the large one.
[/LIST]
So here's what I did:
[LIST]
[*]acidify stomach acid. I drank diluted vinegar, lemon juice or took HCL pills with every bite. Especially when nausea came with food. Clears nausea up in a jiffy. (btw, most heart burn is caused by not enough acid and the stomach not being able to do its work properly. Adding acid would help better than taking something against heart burn)
[*]bathe my cells in whatever they would get had they lived in a petri dish in a lab: all amino acids, all salts and minerals, a little bit of glucose. I based my diet on this. My cells were malnourished, I needed to get stuff to them.
[*]So I ate full spectrum of the amino acids. Gelatine and egg yokes are these, in the most easily digested form.
[*]took all the minerals, in their best digestable forms (no [I]mineral[/I]-[B]oxide[/B] for example but [I]mineral-[/I][B]citrate[/B] instead)
[*]the better acid stomach caused bill flow. I aided my liver by eating things a liver likes (liver, gland supplements, no empty protein such as chicken breast but complex protein such as oval or chicken leg with cartilage and skin)
[*]small meals. About the size of a fist, no more. (more will trigger insuline anyway). I bought small plates and bowls, just to please the eye with these small meals.
[*]I aided digestion by lying down 45 minutes after eating. Those 45 minutes is what the stomach wants to digest some stuff and after 45 minutes it starts presenting it to the duodenum. That's when I laid down. I laid flat for an hour. My belly would gurgle. That's nutrients uptake, I tell myself. I still do this every day.
[*]not eating anything that causes pain or friction. So no fibers, no egg whites, no lentles, no onions, no nuts, no corn, no raw veggies, no grains, no whole wheat, no leafy vegetables. I just cut them out and feel much better for it
[*]enhance blood pressure because that's what ultimately pushes the nutrients into the tissues and cells. (take salt, lie down, take HC)
[*]enhance waste removal on the other side of the tissues by activating the lymph system (yawning, stretching, perhaps taking a walk)
[/LIST]

My uptake is good now. My gut is at ease. No more pains, no more gas. Bowel discharge is excellent (small, soft marbles).
And this helps me to sleep. A side effect I welcome dearly.

the other thing is the ketogenic diet. It eases the body very much too. (And the brain, it is a proven medicine for epileptici. Won't cure epilepsy but will lessen seizure frequency significant)

Braincells are the only cells in the body that run on glucose. All other cells can run on either glucose or ketones. Ketones are made out of fat. The digestion of fat doesn't need much vitamins or minerals. The digestion of glucose (carbohydrates, starch, grain, vegetables) demands a lot of vitamins and minerals.

Also: when fat enters the duodenum it gets transported through the wall to [B]the lymph system[/B], not to the portal vein to the liver. All other food stuffs go the the liver for detox screening but fat goes to the lymph system. There it travels through the nodes, aiding in immune functions, up to the collar bone where it gets dumped into the large blood veins.
Hence: eating fat lessens the digestive strain on the liver. (But eat the right fats: full fat animal fats and coconut oil.)

Are these some of the answers to help you? Hope it's not overwhelming...

I use my eating as a tool to comfortably nourish the body and put it out of stress and those two things are what gets me to sleep through the night.

 

[WoolPippi]

I think the main issue is increasing slow wave sleep or stage 3 sleep. Is there a way to do that?

I don't know. Normally people only enter Deep Sleep about twice a night, only when they run through the cycles in the first five hours. When you are sleep deprived you usually get longer Deep Sleep the next night to make up for it.

What does riding the 2nd wave of cortisol do to your sleep?

it means you kind of "missed the train" that left for sleep at 10 o'clock. You have to wait for the second one that comes along at half past midnight.
You should be able to enter all sleep cycles after that. "Should" being the operative

I have a horrid sleep disorder and have basically 0% stage 3 sleep for some reason.

Have you had a sleep study done? no Deep Sleep is alarming!

I do know that to go from stage 3/Deep Sleep into stage 4/REM your brain chemistry has to change modus. You need a little bit of noradrenalin to rise from Deep Sleep and stop the no-REM neurons from firing. (I suspect that people who lay widely awake after just a few hours of sleep get too much noradrenaline and rocket straight out of (deep) sleep. Since MAO A enzymes govern the break down of noradrenaline, people with that mutation might be more suspectable to having this kind of insomnia)

Perhaps there are some enzymes needed for transitioning from stage 2 into stage 3 sleep also...?

I'm interested in the gelatin and ketone diets. Are they safe for heart disease?

see post above for info. I don't know about heart disease, please ask a doctor. I know cholesterol will increase with ketonic diet, but only the right one. Half ketonic diet + carbohydrates = recipe for heart disaster.

 

[physicsstudent13]

stage 3 or slow wave sleep I think is important for me, not really REM sleep. I think your body heals itself and does accelerated tissue repair in stage 3. My sleep study showed 0.1% stage 3 when it should be 10%, these levels decrease with age. There are several medications which can increase stage 3 sleep but I needed to combine gabapentin with klonopin for some reason on my ventilator and oxygen. the ventilator alone wasn't effective

for gut health you can also try a parasite cleanse with a week of albendazole+ivermectin+pyrantel. this will also help absorption of vitamins. I think I was vomiting because of this and ended up anemic

 

[chipmunk1]

i think klonopin etc. do help you with sleep but at the same time make it harder to get deep refreshing sleep. Your body will adjust quickly and long-term your ability to fall asleep might decrease. as time goes by the klonopin might also become less effective on it's own the longer you take it.

i found niacin and magnesium rather sedating and useful if taken before bedtime. Magnesium also does seem to help with sleep quality. Melatonin also seems to help with sleep but if you already have a serious sleep disturbance(you can not fall asleep no matter how tired you are) i does not seem to be very helpful.

However none of this can replace a strong medication i would guess.

a recent period of insomnia that i had might have been caused by a hidden allergic reaction to one of my supplements(gut related) but i am still unsure if it was supplement related.

Over the past years i had 3 periods of serious insomnia which lasted for a few weeks.

Strangely it seems that i can link all of them to the introduction of a new supplement. Once i went off the supplement the problems went away. The first two supplements(or medications) could be considered at least mildly stimulating (thyroid hormone, adrenal cortex extract) The last supplement (still not sure if really the cause) was for gut health (probiotics,digestive enzymes)

the reason why i think the last might have caused an allergic reaction was because i did remember having a mildly elevated slightly unpleasant pulse at night. I had noticed in the past that reducing food allergies could lower my resting pulse.i remember having a slightly elevated pulse since becoming ill. because of my experiences with dietary modifications and avoidance of food allergens i believe it is caused by food allergies.

this time while battling insomnia the pulse was far worse than usual and my mild tendency towards insomnia had become serious sleep disturbance.

now looking back over a period of several months the sleep problems had gradually started when i introduced the new gut supplement and increasingly became worse the longer i took them. Now since being off them, sleep is greatly improved. I introduced them once again and started having had serious insomnia the same day. Stopped taking them and could sleep again. Not sure what to make of this.

 

[physicsstudent13]

my sleep disorder is that I never reach stage 3 slow wave sleep and I have terrible crippling exhaustiong and fog for days and low oxygen headaches. I also got diabetes from the disease and my asthma is much worse, my oxygen levels are lower during the day when I don't sleep well.

 

[eafw]

I want to bring my sleep forward.

The suggestion of the day lights is something the sleep clinic also reccomended, though I never tried it. They were quite expensive when I looked before, but I might take another look at that.

Shifting the bodyclock is quite hard, but the lights may be a way forward if you've not tried that. A combination of a dawn riser clock, plus the early morning bright light, then darken down in the evenings should - in theory - bring your sleep and wake times earlier. You might need to tinker with it a while to get the best time of day and dosage. Start low go slow, as with most things.

 

[snowathlete]

I was malnourished because my gut did not take up any nutrients. Up till the point my body couldn't function any more and collapsed (2009). That's when we found out, via blood test, stool tests and hair test.

I found several factors at play in this:
[LIST=1]
[*]stomach acid was not acid enough. Food didn't get broken down and instead passed in "bits" through the gut, causing pain and bodily stresses. And the malnutrition. (btw stomach acidity is governed by cortisol levels. low cortisol = not enough stomach acid),
[*]no bile. Thusly no uptake of fats and the nutrients they carry. (bile is induced by stomach acidity levels)(I found out by looking at the colour of my poo. It was grey/white and floated),
[*]no uptake in the gut right after the stomach (duodenum) where the most important uptake ought to be,
[*]daily/nightly painful passage from small gut into colon (small gut is virtually bacterium-free and food needs to be properly "mush" before it's allowed to enter the colon. If it isn't it sits before the portal (appendix) to mush some more.),
[*]gas gas gas. In the colon. My colon and its inhabitants didn't fair well on what I was eating at all. Fibres and egg whites were the worst.
[*]much pain. Both in the small gut and in the large one.
[/LIST]
So here's what I did:
[LIST]
[*]acidify stomach acid. I drank diluted vinegar, lemon juice or took HCL pills with every bite. Especially when nausea came with food. Clears nausea up in a jiffy. (btw, most heart burn is caused by not enough acid and the stomach not being able to do its work properly. Adding acid would help better than taking something against heart burn)
[*]bathe my cells in whatever they would get had they lived in a petri dish in a lab: all amino acids, all salts and minerals, a little bit of glucose. I based my diet on this. My cells were malnourished, I needed to get stuff to them.
[*]So I ate full spectrum of the amino acids. Gelatine and egg yokes are these, in the most easily digested form.
[*]took all the minerals, in their best digestable forms (no [I]mineral[/I]-[B]oxide[/B] for example but [I]mineral-[/I][B]citrate[/B] instead)
[*]the better acid stomach caused bill flow. I aided my liver by eating things a liver likes (liver, gland supplements, no empty protein such as chicken breast but complex protein such as oval or chicken leg with cartilage and skin)
[*]small meals. About the size of a fist, no more. (more will trigger insuline anyway). I bought small plates and bowls, just to please the eye with these small meals.
[*]I aided digestion by lying down 45 minutes after eating. Those 45 minutes is what the stomach wants to digest some stuff and after 45 minutes it starts presenting it to the duodenum. That's when I laid down. I laid flat for an hour. My belly would gurgle. That's nutrients uptake, I tell myself. I still do this every day.
[*]not eating anything that causes pain or friction. So no fibers, no egg whites, no lentles, no onions, no nuts, no corn, no raw veggies, no grains, no whole wheat, no leafy vegetables. I just cut them out and feel much better for it
[*]enhance blood pressure because that's what ultimately pushes the nutrients into the tissues and cells. (take salt, lie down, take HC)
[*]enhance waste removal on the other side of the tissues by activating the lymph system (yawning, stretching, perhaps taking a walk)
[/LIST]

My uptake is good now. My gut is at ease. No more pains, no more gas. Bowel discharge is excellent (small, soft marbles).
And this helps me to sleep. A side effect I welcome dearly.

the other thing is the ketogenic diet. It eases the body very much too. (And the brain, it is a proven medicine for epileptici. Won't cure epilepsy but will lessen seizure frequency significant)

Braincells are the only cells in the body that run on glucose. All other cells can run on either glucose or ketones. Ketones are made out of fat. The digestion of fat doesn't need much vitamins or minerals. The digestion of glucose (carbohydrates, starch, grain, vegetables) demands a lot of vitamins and minerals.

Also: when fat enters the duodenum it gets transported through the wall to [B]the lymph system[/B], not to the portal vein to the liver. All other food stuffs go the the liver for detox screening but fat goes to the lymph system. There it travels through the nodes, aiding in immune functions, up to the collar bone where it gets dumped into the large blood veins.
Hence: eating fat lessens the digestive strain on the liver. (But eat the right fats: full fat animal fats and coconut oil.)

Are these some of the answers to help you? Hope it's not overwhelming...

I use my eating as a tool to comfortably nourish the body and put it out of stress and those two things are what gets me to sleep through the night.

Thanks for taking the time to tell me about your experience. Although your problems sound quite different from mine, a lot of people who have gut issues who have improved and spoken about their experience, what I find common in most of the stories, is gelatin. I think there is something to that.

 

[Tired of being sick]

We feel our worst upon awakening then progressively feel better throughout the day/night until feeling our best when it is time to go to bed.

Unfortunately sleep seems to do more damage than good for us..

2 am is the standard time for most ME/CFS sufferers to peek when it comes to feeling our best..

I fought this odd cycle my whole life but always end up back to the 2 am curse.
Just like the movie Groundhog day with Bill Murray.Lol......

 

[physicsstudent13]

yes if you sleep or nap with a high AHI and O2 of 70% it damages all of your organs and gives you arrythmias and diabetes. I'm still very damaged and foggy and exhaust hour after falling asleep wo ventilator and medications

 

[Little Bluestem]

Or: get dressed, take shower.

This might work out better if you took the shower, then got dressed.

 

[s.rae.j]

Is anyone still looking at this thread?
Hi my name is Shauna

 

[s.rae.j]

Hi. Is anyone still looking at this thread? I dont want to post something and find out it hasnt been looked at since 2009.

 

[Sushi]

Hi. Is anyone still looking at this thread?

As soon as you make a post it pops to the top of the list on new posts--which is how most people read the forum. So, yes, if you make a post here it will be seen.