u/HAAAAAImbaaaack

Hi all,

I have taken Buspirone for almost three weeks now, and it worked great for about maybe 2 weeks and now I am back to crying off an on a lot and have noticed I get easily angered and have a rage that I didn't have before.

I am only taking 5 mg in the am and 1.25 mg in the pm because when I tried increasing the night dose all it did was make me more upset and anxious at night while keeping me awake for several hours.

Not sure if I should stop it or increase the dose. Has anyone experienced this personally? If so what did you do?

Hi all,

As the post says just wondering if any nurses have done this? I probably wouldn't sell it right away, but eventually if I like traveling.

Just wondering if you can bring pets with you travel nursing (two birds). How do you like seeing different places etc? To start I may do more localish travel just to get a taste of it...

Any info is good, ty!

SORRY I HAVE ANOTHER QUESTION: Are travel jobs like real estate listings so to speak in that are kind of up for "sale" and all the agencies are competing to find the candidate. In other words if there is a travel gig for will say PICU in Maine does only one agency offer that or do all agencies have access to it .

Hi all,

As the post says just wondering if any nurses have done this? I probably wouldn't sell it right away, but eventually if I like traveling.

Just wondering if you can bring pets with you travel nursing (two birds). How do you like seeing different places etc? To start I may do more localish travel just to get a taste of it...

Any info is good, ty!

SORRY I HAVE ANOTHER QUESTION: Are travel jobs like real estate listings so to speak in that are kind of up for "sale" and all the agencies are competing to find the candidate. In other words if there is a travel gig for will say PICU in Maine does only one agency offer that or do all agencies have access to it .

As the title says...

I am an experienced RN and a couple months ago I decided to leave my specialty day job to try a new area. I had been doing my other specialty for about 11 years and felt stagnant and thought change would help. It didn't and I am so angry at myself for leaving that job.

I had always thought this new area was my "dream" job so to speak and looked at it with rose colored glasses thinking at 48 that it would be worth the adjustment to night shift and worth the stress of learning a new specialty. Here I am 2.5 weeks into night shift and I am depressed, exhausted, my veins are filled with the various sleeping aids that I have tried over the last two weeks plus (none of which have worked for me), I cry multiple times a day, I am tachycardic at baseline now with a rest rate of 110 plus (my norm is in the 50s) I have this constant hung over feeling, at work I repeatedly break out into cold sweat and shake like an alcoholic withdrawing (and I mean dripping sweat and I don't even consume ETOH), I sleep 0.5-1 hours post shift at most and have had repeat episodes where I have been up for 36-44 hours straight, I am nauseas all the time and the only benefit to this is that it has nixed my sugar addiction in the bud because I don't want to eat at all, and even when I do I take a few bites and don't want anything to do with food. I cry most nights at work, sometimes throughout the shift until day light happens. My skin is breaking out everywhere, mostly my legs with some sort of excema which I had very mildly before night shift. I got a freaking fungal infection on my chest which has never in my life happened.

my body refuses to sleep during the day no matter how exhausted it is, no matter what drugs I take. Today I took Trazadone in the am two days ago and laid in bed waiting for it to work for three plus hours with nothing. I added a tiny bit of Benadryl and I finally slept for maybe an hour at most and I had to work that night.

Before you start giving me tips on why I cannot sleep thinking that is the problem please don't, I have tired them all; My room is pitch black from the black out shades I bought on amazon, I have a black out eye mask, I have taken Magnesium for the past three weeks, I tried showering before bed and not showering before bed, I tried watching TV (which is what I do at night to fall asleep), I tried not watching TV, I have a sound machine have tried that off/and on, my room is cooled down with AC, I have tried winding down in other ways with a book or a monotone talk show, I have tried Benadryl, Trazadone, Benadryl and Trazadone, Unisom (got a whole hour on that and then felt hung over for 24 hours, and Melatonin. Melatonin kept me awake for 17 hours post 24 hours of being awake already, it was like drinking ten cups of coffee when you are short on sleep feeling for many days in a row and on top of it when I closed my eyes I would see weird shit while awake, which only lasted for a half hour but then my vision was off for 24 hours(I will never touch that shit again). I tried getting out of bed when I cannot sleep and pacing for a few minutes and then going back to bed (which works at night when I cannot sleep on occasion), I don't look at my phone at all for at least 2 hours before I intend to sleep and I keep it on the warm setting all night. I tried getting out of bed and taking a shower. Not a damn thing has allowed me to go to night shift with more than a teaspoon of sleep. It is absolute hell listening to screaming babies all night long when you haven't had adequate sleep in days. I would NEVER ever hurt a baby or treat them poorly, I love them and love taking care of them.

Anyway, tonight will be my last night. Please pray for me as I trust in god to help me find a new DAY SHIFT job. I have multiple possibilities lined up and am hoping for the best. The thought that I may loose everything if I cannot find a new job has crossed my mind, but so has becoming sick, having a seizure (saw this happen many times from sleep deprivation when I worked in EMS), stroke or MI from a damn job that has ruined me in only 2.7 months. I am a shell of a human that I used to be. The thought of loosing my own wellbeing and good health has scared me more. My nurse manager is a wonderful human being and I know she will help me with the situation. The hospital HR has been also wonderful and I cannot thank them enough. A hospital that actually values their staff!

The lessons here is to value your LIFE OUTSIDE OF WORK more than the job itself. If you have a job that works for you and your outside work life stick with it, it's not worth the risk. Find fulfillment in friends, family and hobbies - not being a nurse. Don't ever put any nursing job on a pedestal, none of them deserve it. Another lesson here is the plump up your bank account! I have at least 4 months of savings to rely on if I have trouble finding a job and if I didn't have that I would have to continue risking my wellbeing for this job. Don't spend all your cash save a solid majority of it and. have a decent cushion to fall back on! I also have a very good short term disability policy which I will make use of if needed!

With this I head to put my scrubs on, and pray to god once again for help and prepare for the journey ahead. I will update.

Hi all,

I am in process of finding a job with a few areas of interest. In my area there are four major systems that own multiple hospitals.

Is it bad to apply to multiple jobs within the same system, if the jobs are not really similar and it's at two different hospitals within the same system?

Any HR recruiters out there?

Hi

I just started nights last week and have really been struggling with depression since then and just exhaustion all the time. I feel my mind has gone crazy. I had to call out twice this week because I was unable to sleep a wink after getting off night shift. I was just put on Trazadone to try and help with that in the future. That is making me sleep but then I feel nauseas and shitty.

I just feel so damn depressed like I through my life away switching to a night job, I miss the sun nd having a normal life. I am so mad at myself for doing it and making this mistake. I cry all day everyday about it.

Will it get better? I am just at a loss. I have been applying like crazy for nursing day jobs for the past three weeks. I want to just quit so I can get my mental health back, but I am concerned I won't be able to find another job.

Any words of wisdom?

Hi all,

I am desperate to find a new job because the one I have been at for almost two months I do not like it, it's night shift and I just haven't been able to adjust my sleep schedule! I feel awful and I have only been on nights for one week. I hate that I have to spend most of my days off sleeping!

I have been a nurse for many years, almost two decades as well as being a paramedic for slightly longer. I have been applying for the last couple of weeks and have had two interviews so far, but it sounds like lots of nurses are looking for jobs because both of them said they had multiple candidates to interview before making a decision, even on just having shadowing experiences.

I legit just need any job that is not bedside (probably the biggest issue with finding a job and that is days. I am not wired to do a normal bedside job unfortunately, as I am finding out.

Anyway, can anyone who has been in a similar predicament recently give me any hope? Or anyone start off hating nights and adjust to it and like it? Thanks for any help.

Hi all,

So I have been at a new job for about a month and had my first night shift last night after being precepted on days for four weeks. I am still on orientation so I do not count as a person yet.

Anyway, yesterday I took some Benadryl and was able to sleep for three hours before my night shift last night. It was fine, I am a night owl by nature so I wasn't too sleepy last night during my shift. This am I got home and really wanted to get some good sleep and had a lot of people tell me how wonderful Melatonin is for sleeping. I stupidly took it and it had a paradoxical effect on me which apparently isn't all that uncommon and it made me tachycardia and wide awake but exhausted still if that makes sense, like I drank ten cups of coffee before going to bed. I was still feeling the same at 1pm and legit could not fall asleep because I felt like I had caffeine, so I got up and trying taking some Benadryl and tried showering again to see if that would help. I finally gave up around 430pm and was still feeling the awful effects of the Melatonin. I am SO exhausted my brain is not working right and there is no way I would be safe caring for patients tonight, so I called out. I feel terrible about calling out, but I have only had 3 hours of sleep in 36 hours and it would have been 3 hours in 48 hours if I worked tonight.

Anyway, do you think they will fire me for this? I have worked at this hospital on another unit and called out sick maybe twice in 3 years. It's not me and I honestly was looking forward to going to work tonight. Should I send an email to my nurse manager explaining things? Or just let it go? I feel so dumb this is the second time I have called out sick in the month, last time I had an issue with my vertigo which I get on rare occasion.

Please any advice would be helpful!

I feel so ashamed. I started a new nursing job about a month ago and last night was my first shift on nights. I was able to do some Benadryl to sleep yesterday before my shift for three hours, felt ok working all night, but this AM I was SO WIRED when I got out. I tried winding down, I tried a shower, I tried melatonin taking it right when I got home, by 1300 I was still exhausted but wide awake. I tried another shower, tried some Benadryl, legit nothing worked and I could not get a wink of fucking sleep! My body is so wired but so exhausted at the same time! I HATE night shift! I am so pissed at my own body. So pissed nothing I tried would even let me get an hour or two to get by.

Anyone else have any other suggestions? I know the sunglasses trick but unfortunately my eyes have gotten so bad I now need prescription sun glasses or I cannot see and have not had a chance to get them. My next row of shifts starts Tuesday and I cannot obviously keep calling out sick because I cannot sleep. Does anything over the counter work well other than what I have already tried??? The melatonin I swear made my heart beat out of my chest and almost had the opposite effect, it was weird. So I will not be using that again, I'm mad because everyone said it worked so great, but of course not for me!!

Please help, any kind tips welcome! I hate calling out sick but no way I could safely drive and take care of patients on 3 Hours of sleep in 36. I have already started looking for a new job that will be on days.

So proud of myself, I actually took a day time nap!! First night shift tonight and looking for tips!

I had to take 50 of Benadryl to induce it, but overall I think it was a 3 hour success. I usually can NEVER sleep during the day unless I am really sick. I woke up to the alarm clock at 5 pm and felt like I had been in a deep sleep! still feeling a bit groggy from the Benadryl, but over all not to bad. I am normally somewhat of a night owl so I am hoping I can tolerate night shift, even though I have tried before and couldn't sleep during the day.

I have my Melatonin pills ready for tomorrow morning when I get home just in case I can't fall asleep on my own!

Any tips/tricks you can give me?! I only drinking half of an energy drink as this is my first time and I do not normally consume caffeine.