Immune system reboots during sleep

[antares4141]

http://medicalxpress.com/news/2017-01-immune-reboots.html

 

[Sasha]

Or not, as the case may be.

 

[drob31]

Maybe if you aren't "truly" sleeping it never reboots.

 

[me/cfs 27931]

I was talking with a sleep specialist relative, who told me that chatting with patients and then giving them a list of sleep hygiene "does and don'ts" simply doesn't work.

He also mentioned there is much evidence that controlled sleep deprivation produces inflammatory response, metabolic disorder, and other things.

And there is quite a bit of bi-directionality, where sleep affects nearly everything and nearly everything can affect sleep.

 

[antares4141]

Maybe if you aren't "truly" sleeping it never reboots.

I think it does (refresh) maybe just to a lesser degree, depending where you are on the spectrum. What other issues you have going on, mold, gluten for me. Eliminating those variables made a huge difference for me. But I still seem to be on this trend that isn't that much different than a value stock like microsoft. A couple of years ago, post mold and gluten i still could hardly do any chores. Now I'm able to do a few hours a day.

IF I push it I crash. If I push it really hard I have vertigo for a day and can hardly sit up in bed. Those usually take about 3 days to shake off the effects.

So I'm on this slight upward trend now. I hope it keeps going in this direction. But I suspect at some point especially with 57 years under my belt, I will baring a treatment or cure, or some other discovery, like mold and gluten, be trending down again.

 

[antares4141]

I was talking with a sleep specialist relative, who told me that chatting with patients and then giving them a list of sleep hygiene "does and don'ts" simply doesn't work.

He also mentioned there is much evidence that controlled sleep deprivation produces inflammatory response, metabolic disorder, and other things.

And there is quite a bit of bi-directionality, where sleep affects nearly everything and nearly everything can affect sleep.

Not been my experience. If I don't have any food or carbs 6 hours before bed and go to bed at the same time every night I seem to develop a rhythm where I sleep all the way to early morning. Which is much better than the way it used to be waking up at 3am and finally getting out of bed cause I know I'm not going to be sleepy until I do.
And I am much more refreshed this way than in the past. And I don't keep all kinds of weird hours cause I am unable to stick to a schedule.

 

[geraldt52]

...If I don't have any food or carbs 6 hours before bed and go to bed at the same time every night I seem to develop a rhythm where I sleep all the way to early morning...

I think diet is something that is often overlooked in sleep problems. No eating after 5pm, very low fat, very low sugar, has been tremendously helpful to me. I had absolutely crushing insomnia for a decade after Klonopin withdrawal, tried every drug, every supplement, every sleep hygiene technique, and nothing helped anything like diet has. My sleep is still poor, but at least I can count on a bit of sleep now...with no drugs, no supplements.

 

[antares4141]

No eating after 5pm, very low fat, very low sugar, has been tremendously helpful to me.

Me too! It has helped tremendously. I used to always be fearful of missing appointment's and what not cause I never knew what time I would be awake and when I would be asleep. I was all over the map.

I only eat 2 meals unless I get up early than I eat three. Hard part, no snacks. And lunch and dinner are always within a 1 hour window. Or in other words lunch somewhere between 11am and 12pm, dinner, 5pm and 6pm.

I can never dictate when I get up but I always try to hit the hay at 12:am. I try to avoid naps as much as possible, but I always have to lay down and rest. I try to listen to podcast's or music, or daydream about what I would be doing if I had the energy to do it. Some days I have more energy than others. IF that's the case I try to push my self to do more chores so I am run down by bed time.

I always get really run down when I cut back too drastically on carbs. I try to get them from fruits but not always possible so I have grapejuice & oj sometimes to fill in the gaps. Probably goes against a lot of the conventional wisdom especially as far as candida goes. And probably need to look into more natural probiotics. That's a weak area for me.

Tried pills and I started having episodes that might be similar to panic attacks. Which I generally have never had most of my life. One other time many years ago was when I was trying out thyroid medication early on before I knew about mold and gluten. So if that (thyroid) was part of the problem I would have never known. It would have been masked.

 

[place]

One of them any sleep specialist I've talk to over the years, she changed carter's from engineering to med. which is what people need , docs who take these as problem solvers..... anyway, one of her patients cured her insomnia by eating low carb to no carb.

After my pregnancy, I sleep really well for a year, now my old tossing and turning is back.

 

[place]

Oh, I do eat gluten free, but I love my carbbies late at night

 

[Sasha]

I think diet is something that is often overlooked in sleep problems. No eating after 5pm, very low fat, very low sugar, has been tremendously helpful to me.

Interesting. What's the rationale for that, Gerald?

 

[Sidereal]

I think diet is something that is often overlooked in sleep problems. No eating after 5pm, very low fat, very low sugar, has been tremendously helpful to me. I had absolutely crushing insomnia for a decade after Klonopin withdrawal, tried every drug, every supplement, every sleep hygiene technique, and nothing helped anything like diet has. My sleep is still poor, but at least I can count on a bit of sleep now...with no drugs, no supplements.

Interesting. Very glad to hear of your improvement.

I've always slept a normal number of hours in the past without any meds but typically woke up feeling dreadful, certainly much worse than the night before. One thing that has improved my actual sleep quality tremendously was to eat not just a very low fat and processed sugar diet but to eat a meal around 9 pm containing a lot of phytic acid and complex carbs.

The reason why this works is that distally-fermentable carbs give slow steady supply of energy during the night so that was the end of the dysautonomia-induced horror show at night waking up gasping, choking or panicking. Phytic acid (inositol hexaphosphate--IP6) modulates the activity of calcium channels. Far more effectively than pharma sedatives in my experience. Personally I cannot tolerate benzos or Z-drugs at all, that stuff was horrific for me.

Anyway, it has to be zero fat and whole foods full of fibre, otherwise it doesn't seem to work (for me). Something like "wholegrain" bread or cereal does nothing. Flour is not a food, it's a product. What seems very effective is something like steamed potato with bean or lentil soup on top, in particular large white beans such as cannelini, lima or great northern beans. This stuff is so loaded with phytic acid it used to make me feel practically anaesthetised. I'd go cold, weak and become very sedated and fall asleep within 20 minutes and wake up 8 hours later of deep, comatose sleep. Fortunately, some tolerance does develop over time so the effects are not so pronounced and irresistible but I still feel too spaced out if I try to eat legumes during daytime.

Too much of this stuff of course causes other problems like excessive mineral depletion. IP6 chelates stuff like iron, copper, zinc, magnesium so too much of it in the diet is not good either, hence the paleo hysteria about "antinutrients" in grains and legumes.

Another useful hack might be sprouted brown rice also known as GABA rice. I get that stuff on Amazon or iHerb. It's really tasty unlike regular brown rice (which tastes horrible) and it seems to promote good mood and calmness/sedation.

 

[lauluce]

Maybe if you aren't "truly" sleeping it never reboots.

good point! I'm sure most of us don't ever actually "sleep"

 

[Sasha]

That's interesting, @Sidereal. I have a big bowl of quinoa at about 8:30 pm to avoid being too hungry to sleep and that also contains phytic acid. However, I put a dollop of butter or olive oil in it! I'll experiment with leaving that out and see if I sleep better.

 

[geraldt52]

Interesting. What's the rationale for that, Gerald?

I kind of stumbled onto it by accident over several years, Sasha. The first thing I noticed several years ago was that if I skipped dinner I would often sleep that night...but when I tried always skipping dinner, sometimes it worked and sometimes it did nothing. I knew then that there was something going on but I couldn't figure out what.

I have a lot of dietary restrictions...gluten, eggs, milk, corn, an assortment of vegetables (that are all supposedly good for you). I've eaten those things very sparingly for more than a decade, and rotate them when I do eat them. The point being that I've known for a long time that diet is critical in keeping my head above water relative to my CFS, not just my sleep in particular.

A bit more than a year ago I was telling my wife that my worst insomnia feels like my brain is inflamed...badly inflamed. Almost the minute I said that it occurred to me that it was probably food causing the inflammation. Since sugar and fat both aggravate inflammation I went as close as possible to zero fat and zero sugar for a couple of days and the result was almost magical.

It's hard to eat like that on an ongoing basis, but the minute I am careless regarding sugar or fat I will lay awake that entire night, and maybe the next night. If I eat sugar and fat very sparingly, and eat nothing after 5pm, I won't pretend that I always sleep like a baby, but the difference is absolutely undeniable...for me. After years of fighting with drugs and supplements it feels like a godsend to be drug-free.

 

[Sasha]

Very interesting, @geraldt52. I also have a lot of problems with food and am on a restricted diet but I don't have any sense of having brain inflammation (but perhaps I need Jarred Younger's brain-temperature test!).

We're all so different. Personalised medicine just can't come fast enough!

 

[antares4141]

A bit more than a year ago I was telling my wife that my worst insomnia feels like my brain is inflamed...badly inflamed. Almost the minute I said that it occurred to me that it was probably food causing the inflammation. Since sugar and fat both aggravate inflammation I went as close as possible to zero fat and zero sugar for a couple of days and the result was almost magical.

It's hard to eat like that on an ongoing basis, but the minute I am careless regarding sugar or fat I will lay awake that entire night, and maybe the next night. If I eat sugar and fat very sparingly, and eat nothing after 5pm, I won't pretend that I always sleep like a baby, but the difference is absolutely undeniable...for me. After years of fighting with drugs and supplements it feels like a godsend to be drug-free.

Me to with the brain burn. That's been a hallmark symptom for me the entire 20 years I have been sick. I always attributed it to mold in the past. Lately with my gluten sensitivities I see it's not that simple. I've given up on food allergies. There are just too many other variables that drive my symptoms and because non of them are on and off again, all I could do is speculate as to the cause. Too many variables.

There are some exceptions. Once for the hell of it I swallowed a clove of garlic and within an hour or two my foot itched so bad I had to take my shoe off in the middle of a waiting room and dig at it with one of my car key's. I've many times related high mold exposure to itching. When I was in a particularly bad living arrangement I chronically had itching on my arms, and scalp mostly and it felt exactly like bugs crawling on my head.

The benefit's for me of not eating before bed are undeniable also. Sometimes I will cheat and get away with it but more often than not I wake up at 3am, can't get back to sleep and eventually get up.

I can get away with something small maybe like a banana which is loaded with carbs, go figure, or a handful of walnuts. Sometimes I will do this immediately before bed to make me drowsy. I ate a handful of walnuts last night before bed and slept like a baby. So like most rules there are sometimes exceptions.

I think the big thing is don't load up with carbs and don't have late dinners, stay awake for an hour and fall asleep.

Prior to becoming sick that was what I did and I was a night owl. And I never ate breakfast, always had brunch, late lunch, followed by a late dinner.

 

[Sidereal]

That's interesting, @Sidereal. I have a big bowl of quinoa at about 8:30 pm to avoid being too hungry to sleep and that also contains phytic acid. However, I put a dollop of butter or olive oil in it! I'll experiment with leaving that out and see if I sleep better.

Worth trying, though I will say that for me quinoa is energising as opposed to sedating. It's only the legumes that make me drowsy. And the amount of fat or sugar in a single meal makes no difference to my well-being: it's about the overall composition of the diet.

 

[geraldt52]

The fat and sugar thing is very subtle, which is a lot of the reason it took me so long to figure it out. I was always thinking of individual foods, not so much the "content" of the foods. I have no noticeable reaction to eating reasonable amounts of fat or sugar, upon eating, or any specific time thereafter...unlike the actual food intolerances I have. It is only when I go to bed that night that I am reminded why it is that I can't eat fat or sugar.

It can be absolutely dreadful, as though I am wired to be awake. In the past I have been known to go 4 days without sleeping a single minute. I realize now that what I had always attributed entirely to Klonopin withdrawal was probably a lot more complicated than that, and I was unknowingly contributing to the problem by eating fat and sugar...the classic "comfort" foods.

The great thing about this is it is so easy to try. If there is no benefit after several days of eating as near zero fat and zero sugar as is possible, you can probably safely conclude that isn't your problem. It costs nothing to try, and there are no side effects. I ate just plain rice cakes and boneless, skinless chicken breasts baked in the oven.