Posted by Phillip Marx on December 23, 1999, at 2:22:01
In reply to Re: INSOMNIA, posted by Andy on December 22, 1999, at 11:10:45
Are any of you diagnosed as severe (bizarre) insomniacs?
I haven't been to sleep for over five years without medication. I was up for over 14 days straight the first time, I think the record is 15, people start dying at ten, I was up 10 days straight the second time, but that time I really wanted to never have been born. As depressing as that ought to be I’ve had no unusual mood swings, though my worry thresholds have changed from being out of work these five years from crippling sedative buildups which did reverse a lot of stress damage, so I regret it more than I complain about it. I was lucky enough to be a zero-debt half millionaire when it happened, though that is half gone now. They tried lithium for about three years and gave up since it only gave me lithium withdrawals and zero improvement, even after an instance of severe dehydration from running a half marathon which exacerbated toxicity way past the toxic threshold maintenance they attempted to guarantee with time-released lithium and frequent blood tests. It should have helped. I found that exercising all the muscles just enough to trigger glycogen (et. al.) retention forced the blood brain barrier permeability to open up to sedatives (et.al.) enough better to benefit sleep even though exercise normally delays sleep. Muscles actually develop really well when subjected to immediate sleep for regeneration. The lithium also lowered my thyroid numbers to 20% my norms. UCI’s world famous Sleep Disorders Center failed to find relief without using long half-life medicines that kept me from ever waking up thoroughly since I had become immune to all the short half-life varieties, probably should have rotated and used higher doses early on. I used to be able to go to sleep in seconds and could even sleep a half-hour on the floor at work and then work another 24 hours straight since my sleep was apparently very efficient. SDI Research and Development had become suicidally competitive after Clinton was elected. I was also managing a proposal for Strategic Defense Initiative technology reinvestment in the commercial sector that would have shrunk the electronics for a 128-256 electrode geodesic array EEG sensor network from a cabinet the size of a couple of luggage trunks into a single NASA-grade, Rad-Hard IC chip the size of a thumbnail for http:// www.egi.com/Research.shtml (my former company is now working on a flexible wearable sensor with memory for sleep disorder diagnosis http://community-1.webtv.net/SYZYGIAN2/IRSNShareholder/page3.html (bottom of page) for NIH (NINDS)). Those work hours “grew” into working up to twice a month over 80 hours straight (3-1/2 days) without sleep with the last time being the time that broke something. I suspect EMF. I was working 4 computers simultaneously around me in a circle constantly, all within a couple of feet, without breaks. The government’s EMFRAPID program http://www.google.com/search?q=EMFRAPID&num=10&sa=Google+Search shows that 90% of the EMF research is on the pineal gland, the sleep center and it’s related organic chemistry, which is at or near the foci for the skull’s internal paraboloids. They won’t admit it (plausible deniability for litigation liability defense, especially the Navy), but they know or they would have funded the research on something else somewhere else. I’ve heard there is a lot of research going on regarding sound and light frequencies and juvenile computer addictions. I suspect the work was self-anaesthetizing addictively in a non-sedative way. Parabolas focus both sound and light. My doctor now, www.DrJensen.com has me on Halcion (triazolam) and Serzone combined, both of which have zero effect on me taken alone, it was a lucky find, nothing logical worked. According to the PDR, Serzone makes the Halcion 1.7 times stronger and last 2.8 times longer synergistically with a falloff instead of a taper-off from mere renal clearance. The only side effect is a persistent worry that I’ll get immune (tolerant) to this as well. It saved my life and gave me a life back for about two years now. I am now taking classes to transfer into something that has income for semi-retirement and getting the top grades in the classes: so it is working well. My home computer randomized I.Q. tester scores me between 135 and 150 consistently when fully awaken, much less when wearing off, well 150 only once, but with a large range that shows lingering sedation asymptotes are really low really quickly, though a 15 point plus (10%) daily range is still sometimes difficult to count on, though much better than the old 50-75% walking zombie stages.
If it is EMF, then there should be lots of victims like myself, though maybe most of them are in asylums on haldol or haloperidol because of the consequences of such severe sleep deficits on those with less endurance training. Because the loss of sleep function indicates mania, bipolar disorder is the first assumption. I’ve never switched back, it’s been almost 6 years, yet often feel it is eminent. Because traditional bipolar medications only produce side effects and not corrective effects on those who aren’t bipolar, with many of the side effects similar to the bipolar disorder they are attempting to treat (masking), I suspect most diagnoses de-specialize into atypical bipolar disorder eventually if the sleep deficits can be kept short of psychosis. Thus I would expect those other survivors most functional to be diagnosed with atypical bipolar disorder. Statistical diagnosis software will have to be redesigned to not filter out non-gaussian data to locate the rest of us. I’ve been forced to get relatively literate on all this and will be willing to contribute to any mutual assistance discussions.
There should be lots of people like me. Does this ring any bells?
Atypical Bipolar Disorder Insomnia (NOS)??
Phillip Marx
PhilMarx@net999.com> >John: What dose of Nortrip do you take for sleep? Any side effects ? Weight gain?
>
> Hi Joanne,
> >
> > I think I've tried most everything out there for insomnia. Such as tricyclics, benzos, Remeron, Serzone, Trazodone. Of them all I personally have to say I like the tricyclics best. Even though they all put me to sleep and pretty much kept me asleep, the tricyclics gave me that feeling in the morning like I had really slept well. The others seem to give a strange kind of sleep for me.
> >
> > Tricyclics for me are smooth. And it seems like a high quality kind of sleep, not a drugged kind of false sleep that I get from everything else. I take one of the less sedating ones, called Nortriptyline, and it's just right. There are more sedating ones. And you won't need much more than a low dose which shouldn't affect you during the day. Since they come on a little slower and more subtle than other drugs, I dose anywhere from 3:00 to 5:00 in the afternoon. That way it's kicking in strongest just about bedtime. Any later messes with the next morning. I've seen the tricyclics, especially Nortriptyline, combined with Wellbutrin for refractory depression as well. Based on my experience, I'm putting a vote in here for a tricyclic for insomnia. Imipramine, Anafranil, and Amitriptyline are the more sedating ones, while Nortriptyline is a bit more mild. So before you see your doctor, sleep on it. :) JohnL
poster:Phillip Marx
thread:16735
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/19991212/msgs/17371.html