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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jan 23, 2011 - 02:11am PT
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Mr Braun wants a piece of everyone tonight!!!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jan 23, 2011 - 02:16am PT
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I know all that, Lois. But I am only saying that M.D.'s are a little too quick with the drugs. 'Pull up yer f*#king bootstraps, boy'.
EDIT:
Werner, he wants that but he also wants the other piece I mentioned. Climbing alone is not enough for him. He is multifaceted and he needs to satisfy all components of his persona in order to be whole. He very much needs and wants to serve people in the highest capacity in which he is capable.
Holy Shit!!!! Are you a shrink too???
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Turdoly
Social climber
Boulder, CO
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Jan 23, 2011 - 02:17am PT
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Hello ST,
First off, sorry to hear you have had such a long struggle with sleep. I have struggled with narcolepsy for many years, and know the battle well. Just wanted to say a few things.
First of all, get a referral to an American Board of Sleep Medicine (www.absm.org) certified physician; GPs, NPs, and shrinks usually know very little about sleep. Just as an example, I presented to my physician with insomnia and excessive daytime sleepiness; I was labeled as depressed. I was eventually diagnosed as narcoleptic by a sleep doctor. Most people don't realize insomnia is a symptom of exhaustion. Whoever mentioned naps in the afternoon might be onto something for you??
Sleep hygiene is a must. Getting out of bed at the same time every day is much more crucial than going to bed at the same time.
There is a web site that you should check out. http://www.talkaboutsleep.comThere is a ton of information and forums designated specifically for different sleep disorders. I have found very friendly and knowledgeable people on the forums. You will be able to get a lot more information there, without the back and forth here.
Please consider looking into a sleep doctor; most doctors treat sleep issues as a symptom. Anxiety, depression and many other things can be a symptom of a sleep disorder; and visa versa. However in my opinion, and experience, it takes a physician with the right tools to know which is which.
Good Luck,
Bill
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jan 23, 2011 - 02:21am PT
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good stuff, Bill. Hang tight, bro!
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jan 23, 2011 - 02:25am PT
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Fair enough, Lois.
EDIT: Ignore, Riley, he's hysterical.
(or just piss him off...)
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ST Friend in Need
climber
Our Shared Experiences
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 23, 2011 - 02:30am PT
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Turdoly/ Bill- you say it is even more important to get up at the same time (than going to sleep at the same time). What about if I wake at 5AM- maybe get a few more snatches of sleep till 6AM or 630AM.. should I get out of bed once I am mostly awake (say 6AM), or is it more restful to lay in bed 'till 7AM?
Riley- I'll call you. We've met at a sushifest once.... but my tomorrow.. whoowee.. get a decent breakfast up to my wife who is in Day 16 recovering serious neck surgery.. going to church for basically the 2nd time in my life kinda sorta... try to get my neighbor to help me fix my busted drier... clean the kitchen since my niece is coming over to make us dinner.. .. . no JT, alas
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jan 23, 2011 - 02:31am PT
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Riley, lighten up, dude.
Really. Forget this crap. Take a day off from everything! Ya know?
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jan 23, 2011 - 02:34am PT
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ST, ever hear of Old English??? Pound 2 16's of that and call me in the morning....
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jan 23, 2011 - 02:45am PT
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Riley!!!!!
relax, dude. You seem wound up!!!
Settle down.
Matt? F*#k off!!!!
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Turdoly
Social climber
Boulder, CO
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Jan 23, 2011 - 03:05am PT
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That's a good question; not sure I have the right answer for you. I myself, will get up a little early if I feel awake and alert. The main thing, I think, is not to let yourself sleep in, even on the WEEKENDS.
However, as a narcoleptic I bounce around from different phases of sleep at a drop of a hat. That means if I doze for an extra 15 mins the rest of my day could be miserable as if I awakened from a deeper stage of sleep, or I could be more rested. Does that make sense?
I will tell you that during the preparation for my sleep study it was more behavioral. I had a time to bed and a time out of bed. If I didn't sleep I was SOL for the rest of the day. It was one of the more brutal experiences in my life. Luckily I didn't have to work; the only thing I really remember was listening to Tom Waits and doing jig-saw puzzles for a month.
Please introduce yourself to the insomnia message board on talk about sleep. I have never been to that board, but the narcolepsy board has helped me a lot. The people there should be more helpful. However, don't hesitate to PM me or post here again if you have more questions; I will definitely try to help.
Bill
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bluering
Trad climber
Santa Clara, CA
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Jan 23, 2011 - 03:14am PT
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Do you wanna kiss, Matt? Need a hug?
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MH2
climber
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Jan 23, 2011 - 04:40am PT
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Ah, ST Friend. After hearing what you are going through it all makes a lot more sense. Pills can help but a community of relatives and friends and other good social supports go further towards giving you peace of mind in hard times. Best wishes.
For sleep an old trick is to relax the body first, starting with legs or arms and gradually letting all the big muscles lose the stiffness and tension remaining from the day. It can be hard to relax the mind but easier to consciously make your muscles let go. Then the mind calms, too. You can also mimic the breathing pattern of sleep: slow deep breaths. That can make the transition to sleep easier. Another word for it is yoga.
edit:
one other insomniac thought
talking books help some people to doze off
they can just be borrowed from the library
try the following on for size
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3jXMsfLxhI
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jan 23, 2011 - 05:48am PT
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Sorry for the thread drift, but I have to talk about this.
Lois wrote,
Also, you do not have to wean off SSRIs
Having taken..
* citalopram (Celexa, Cipramil,
escitalopram (Lexapro, Seroplex, )
fluoxetine (Prozac, Seronil,}
paroxetine (Paxil, Loxamine)
sertraline (Zoloft, Serlain,)
Venlafaxine (Effexor)
Duloxetine (Cymbalta,
Buprpian ( Wellbutrin)
Nefazodone ( Serzone
And a host of others whose names I can't remember, I would highly recommend that people wean themselves off these drugs. Read about coming off Paxil here..
http://www.adrugrecall.com/paxil/withdrawal-symptoms.html
Lois, you once said that coming off SSRIs would not increase a persons likelyhood of committing suicide. I challenged you to talk to a psychiatrist about this. Did you? If not.. please read the above link. I had many of those symptoms, including increased suicidal ideation.
Prozac has one of the longer half lifes and I had trouble getting off of it.
Look up on the internet what people who have taken these drugs and have had withdrawal symptoms are saying if you don't believe me.
As for what the drug companies say the affects are. I have felt affects after just 2 days from meds that weren't suppose to affect mood for 3 to 4 weeks.
Thankfully I am off all meds. I have a great doctor and a great spiritual teacher and many friends who helped me over the years to get free of this nightmare.
Oh.. I have also taken seroquel. Helped me get to sleep.. couldn't wake up. Trazadone affects me the same way.
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John Moosie
climber
Beautiful California
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Jan 23, 2011 - 05:58am PT
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Oh.. and thank God for ER nurses who are willing to get in Doctors faces. The doctor is standing there saying that this or that drug won't do this or that as you are experiencing those symptoms. Some doctors are egotistical nightmares who wont listen to their patients or even believe the machines they are looking at.
And I'm not saying that all ER nurses are great, but I have run into a few that helped save my life because they trusted what they saw instead of what some book said.
So thanks Riley. I appreciate what you do.
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Roger Brown
climber
Oceano, California
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Jan 23, 2011 - 11:49am PT
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ST Friend,
I did not read all the posts, can't handle the bullsh#t, so maybe this has already been mentioned. You might try a little change in diet. Try no Carbohydrates for 4 hours before bedtime. I'm a junk food junky and that was really hard for me, but it worked. Too simple? Never heard that one! Wouldn't hurt nothing to try it,
Roger
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ST Friend in Need
climber
Our Shared Experiences
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 23, 2011 - 12:14pm PT
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Hi Roger- I only recently learned not to eat 3-4 hours before bedtime. Not just carbs.. that is a tough one. I started trying that 2-3 days ago. But for instance last night- errands = ate a dinner late plus snacked.
OK, so this is my pity party.
Dropped the Trazladone from 75 mg to 50 mg last night.
But also made the mistake of drinking some Tequila before bedtime. So meds made me sleep easy, but awake at 4AM. *F*UDGE*
Mostly tossing and turning for 4 hours- whatever sleep I got not restful really... awake feeling not rested. feel Worked.
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altelis
Mountain climber
DC
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Jan 23, 2011 - 12:46pm PT
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ST,
You clearly have a LOT going on in your life right now. And as many have said (yourself included), you have a lot going on in your body right now. And the two, life and body, well they are entwined. We can't ignore one to fix the other.
There have been a lot of good suggestions floating around. And given all that you are going through (again, both in your life and in your body), one answer won't solve everything. I would imagine that there will need to be a lot of change, and no matter how driven we are, it is HARD to change. To make real, long term change, damn man. That's just plain hard.
Given that, I have another suggestion. Again, it clearly isn't the end-all-be all suggestion, but I think it might help. Specifically help bridge that gap between helping take care of your life and your health. I can't imagine being in your position and not being stressed. Stressed by what my body is doing, by having to take care of my wife, pay the bills, fix the drier, and all the hundreds of little things that we all do every day. Things that are easy, but when one piles on top of the other, on top of feeling like we aren't in control of our body. Well, we can feel like drowning.
I think the yoga and meditation ideas are really great ones, and my suggestion is something that will augment/complement those. Get a little portable bio-feedback device. Something like this: Portable Biofeedback Device.
Like somebody said up thread, it can be really hard to try and actively calm the mind. But by focusing on relaxing your muscles, big ones to small ones, you end up relaxing the mind too. These devices work similarly. They clip onto your finger, like the little oxygen sensors at the hospital or doctors office, and give you a little readout. They all show slightly different things, but basically they show, in a very simple and GRAPHIC way, how your heart and lungs are working. Your job is to concentrate on making the graph change into a pattern that reflects a calm state of mind.
You change your breathing, basically, to get the graph to change. And this simple act of changing your breathing and concentrating on the read out changing, makes really big differences in your body and mind. There have been some really good peer-reviewed articles about how changing how we breath propagates real changes, minute to minute, in our brain waves and our autonomic nervous system. Changes that are very positive and good for overall health, as well as stress relief.
Yoga and meditation are good for this too, of course. But the little biofeedback machines can be carried with you anywhere and used anytime. Any time you start feeling a little tightness in your chest, you start thinking about how you are going to balance getting your wife lunch and getting to your doctor appointment, pull it out and take 5 minutes doing some biofeedback.
A really simple place to start, even without the biofeedback device, is something called 4-7-8 breathing. You can do a quick search on the internet for it if you want more details, but its really as simple as:
Sit quietly with good posture. Close the eyes and observe the breath. Allow your mind to focus only on your breathing. Breath quietly in and out of the nose for three to four cycles. Exhale softly then inhale through the nose for a count of four. Hold your breath for a count of seven. Exhale in a slow and controlled fashion for a count of eight. Use the abdominal muscles to press in gently toward the spine, helping to move air out of the lungs. Repeat this 4-7-8 cycle three more times. Eventually, work up to eight cycles. You don't have to count in seconds; the ratio provides the benefit. If you feel dizzy or lightheaded, discontinue the exercise
This breathing pattern has been proven to lower your sympathetic activity (like your adrenalin response), increase your vagal activity (the opposite of sympathetic activity), as well as smooth out the normal second to second variations in your heart beat, blood pressure, etc. All this has PROFOUND and quite immediate effects on your state of mind. Practice this at first in a quiet place. After you get used to it (should be pretty quick), you can do it any time. Sitting in traffic, a waiting room, trying to fall asleep.
Like I said, none of this is a magic bullet. But piece by piece, it should help. And of course, and unfortunately, the more you try and change at once the harder it can be. Try and pick and choose advice. Or choose one thing to change a week.
Hang in there, and keep checking in here, posting up. Even if its "ARRG, not sure how I'm going to get X done today". We're hear to help, even if the only help we can offer at the time is listening.
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ST Friend in Need
climber
Our Shared Experiences
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Topic Author's Reply - Jan 23, 2011 - 12:48pm PT
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Atelis- I recall doing bio feedback 30 years ago. great advice. got a link for the bestest/ lowest cost device?
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nature
climber
Tuscon Again! India! India! Hawaii! LA?!?!
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Jan 23, 2011 - 12:54pm PT
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Do you practice any yoga? Meditation?
Ever try accupuncture?
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altelis
Mountain climber
DC
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Jan 23, 2011 - 12:55pm PT
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I put a link in there (its buried, click on the blue "biofeedback" words). Or hell, just click here http://www.amazon.com/StressEraser-SE-1-Portable-Biofeedback-Device/dp/B001B8PIIE.
Its not cheap, but not ungodly expensive. I think it works really well. Its small and portable, but the screen is easy to read.
For me, one of the difficult things about meditation was I couldn't get my mind to stop asking "am I doing it right? is this how its supposed to work? if I change how i think now, is this better or worse than when i wasn't supposed to be paying attention to my thinking back then? crap, i can't remember. oh, wait. did my heartbeat just speed up? sh#t, that's not supposed to happen. why did that happen?"
You get the point. A lot of that was, in retrospect, some un-attended to ADD. But the biofeedback really helped to guide me through meditation, esp originally. I liked having that thing to give me the feedback. Then slowly you learn the techniques that work for you, and can use the device less and the the techniques more.
And really try that 4-7-8 breathing. It really works, and works the first time you try it! Works better with practice, but it definitely works the first time too.
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