r/sleepdisorders

Serious question. Read below...

Serious question. Read below...

Would you use a simple social site, kind of like Twitter-style or this subreddit, just for sharing why you couldn't sleep last night? You could anonymously vent about whatever kept you up, and the whole feed would refresh every 24 hours.

u/Top-Attorney3115 — 9 days ago

REM Fragmentation Disorder

I've had this for over ten years now. I used to have insomnia as a kid, but it's fallen apart into this.

I had a sleep study when I was 16, and the only advice they gave then was a lamp to help me get up in the morning.

My results at the time showed I was having conscious and unconscious wakeups throughout the night. My stages were normal until I entered REM. I had 12 minutes before that stage collapsed and I was kicked back out. According to them, I either woke up, or moved backwards to a different stage, causing waking brain activity while I still slept.

I kept trying to find answers to fix it but nobody had any.

I had another sleep test to update my results last year. They confirmed it was still happening, and had progressed.

I had a third to check for narcolepsy. It was negative.

When my brain scans showed normal, I was referred to a psychologist. She tried, but nothing substantial was showing. I now develop panic attacks when I'm told "Try sleep hygiene" (I do. I have. It's useless. And at this point it feels dismissive)

My regular therapist hesitates medication. Normal sleep medicine helps you fall asleep, but not stay asleep. I had a poor reaction to it. He also mentioned one to keep me asleep, but with my arousals, there's a risk it'll keep my body asleep, but not relax my brain. Aka... now I'm a sleep walker.

So no go.

I'm just tired of being tired. I don't even know if I want to keep fighting my disorder. I take medicine to help me stay energized throughout the day. I can only do the bare minimum all the time, so it's hard to go out and have fun, or try harder at work.

I fall asleep easily, but my bad nights have me waking up 4-5 times in the same HOUR.

Idk what to do, I just need to somewhere to vent about it.

reddit.com
u/Anuyushi — 9 days ago