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Re: Sleep, etc. » greenwillow

Posted by karaS on October 31, 2004, at 16:54:57

In reply to Re: Sleep, etc. » karaS, posted by greenwillow on October 31, 2004, at 16:22:17

> .
> >
> > I haven't had problems sleeping lately and I'm not taking anything for it. I do have occasional times when it is a problem now (and I have to take something) but most of the time it isn't. This is odd because for 20+ years I couldn't sleep AT ALL without taking something. My pdoc brought up the possibility of my being "soft bipolar". I'm more inclined to think that my occsasional bouts of insomnia are more hormone and/or stress related (since this is a relatively new phenomenon for me) but I haven't dismissed his theory entirely.
> >
>
> I would like to share my neat insomnia-sleep story here. I have had insomnia since fall 1997 and had tried many many medications, and had bad luck with most. This summer, I was not working due to an accident and had alot of time to use as I could. My sleep doctor and I decided to find out if I had delayed sleep disorder, since i didn't have much in the order of regular hours to keep. He instructed me to just stay up as long as I wanted and go to bed when I eventually felt sleepy. For me, my circadian rhythm was such that I would go to bed and promptly fall asleep at 5:30 or 6 a.m. then I wake up about 11:30. I felt great and it was the first time in years this was happening naturally. Once that was established after about a 2 week period, the doctor instructed me to start taking melatonin about 2 a.m. to coax my bedtime back to about 3 or 4 a.m. After about a week or two of that, he added bright light box therapy at 9 a.m. for one hour daily. That is when things really started to correct themselves. Within a week, I no longer needed the melatonin, and most nights fall asleep easily about 11:30 or midnight. Then we moved the wake up time to 7:30 a.m. I now awake about 7:30, use the light box 20 - 30 min. and am very happy that I no longer need medication. I have been to resume some work. Maybe this info can help someone.


That's a great story. I have read about using melatonin along with a light box for resetting the sleep cycle. I'm surprised, though, that you no longer need to use the light box or the melatonin at all. If you have a delayed sleep cycle wouldn't your body be trying to delay your sleep again once you've reset your clock?

K


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