The midnight club

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy Forums

Welcome to the Coping With Epilepsy forums - a peer support community for folks dealing (directly or indirectly) with seizure disorders. You can visit the forum page to see the list of forum nodes (categories/rooms) for topics.

Please have a look around and if you like what you see, please consider registering an account and joining the discussions. When you register an account and log in, you may enjoy additional benefits including no ads, access to members only (ie. private) forum nodes and more. Registering an account is free - you have nothing to lose!

And its

4 am, and I've been up now for a while. Guess I'll go try to do some writing.....

*yawning*
 
I could start a gig as Lamotrigene Autrey and write a bunch of twangy woe is me Lyricas about the trying life of an epileptic troubadour. Except no fiddles. Just lots and LOTS of violins.
 
Two hours of sleep tonight. Again.

Not much to do at 3am when your brain is fried.

Hey, make those violins bagpipes. Then at this hour, at least I'd have lots of company. Everyone else would be awake, too.
 
love the bagpipes/violin idea :p

I finally found something thats letting me sleep. It's Mirtazapine. I think it's actually an anti-depressant, but it's working for me. The relief is palpable!

Just as well - my sick note runs out this week so i'm back to work on friday.
 
Good luck, Lou. Sometimes it's hard to go back to work after you've been away for awhile. Do you think you are ready? Are you happy or nervous about work, or feeling something else entirely?
 
mostly nervous i think, because i know they've changed all my hours around while i've been off, so i might end up working all over xmas now. The workload should be easier though as two of the four people i support are off to florida for two weeks over xmas and new year.

Alright for some lol.
 
also, i've been told that i have to have a chat with my area manager about why i've been off. Oh the fun. Our "chats" are normally one-sided.
 
Two hours of sleep so far tonight. That'll probably be all, since when I wake up I'm not able to go back to sleep.

I think I'm finally hitting the wall. My eyes are so blurry I'm having trouble typing, even with the screen size enlarged. My brain feels like it is literally swimming inside my head. It's weird. I don't feel exhausted anymore. More like empty, like there's very little of me left. Hollow.

I'm still sick with bronchitis/sinus infection. My seizure frequency is up. I have to think a long time to make things make sense. My dog, who is up when I'm up, has glazed eyes and walks in circles. This is ridiculous. I have to sleep. Or maybe I don't. I googled it, and some people can go for years without sleep. Maybe eventually I'll just get used to it. After all, I'm getting an average of 2-3 hours a night. Maybe that makes me sleep-rich and I'm just being whiney. http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_is_the_longest_someone_has_gone_without_sleeping So I might be able to go months or years without sleeping, but can my dog?

Gee. How do I spend part of these many hours awake? Writing. Sometimes inane drivel. (see above and below)

I have one more thing to try. In college my boyfriend used to read to me out loud out of "Dante's Inferno" before bed, and it would put me out cold. Sounds like a topic that's not terribly sleep inducing, but it is. The book is mind-numbingly boring. And the words have a certain cadence to them. Read aloud it's hypnotizing. Online I found it on tape, but it's a dramatization. No good. Too interesting. It has to be one guy, reading each line in a rather bored fashion..... I'm so sure this might do it!

My other idea is to listen to Phillip Glass. He writes modern-day opera. His music is typically repetitive and hypnotizing, like a chant rising and falling like leaves in the wind, like a cry echoing through a canyon. Really beautiful and haunting, and his instrumentals are sleep-inducing. One of Glass's operas, Satyagraha, is a political opera which doesn't sound soothing, but it is. I saw it years ago and couldn't stay awake through the thing, which is kind of embarassing seeing I was in an opera hall surrounded by people and nodded off with my head on my date's shoulder. Anyway, maybe it would help to have a constantly looping tape of the thing, just instrumentals, no singing. Not sure how to make it - maybe just the same song 30 times over on a CD.

Here's a piano version of one of Satyagraha's Sonatas, not nearly as wonderful as the symphonic version, but nice anyway. Listen and you'll get what I mean:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=<obj...e" width="200" height="175"></embed></object>

On my failed sleep list: various sleeping pills, hot baths, massage, supplements and herbs, "sleep hygiene," audio effects like falling rain, cold room, warm room, heating my feet up before bed (old wives tale), etc.

Got any more ideas for me? Or are you willing to read and record Dante's Inferno for me? Or maybe have a little Skype session every night - you can read live. lol...
 
Last edited:
Tonight I'm up, but totally my own fault this time. Holiday, husband, life stress just did me in and I gave up and went to bed about 4PM and slept for 4 hours. So I've been up cleaning; feeling as if I could sleep a bit soon. Husband was diagnosed with neuropathy in his feet today. Another worry. Good thing was he had the test done at a neurogist today...and I picked the brain of a patient waiting in the waiting room with me about this Dr. She sounds pretty good, so at least now I have someone to try when mine retires in a year or so.

Endless, do you try just resting quietly and not getting up when you awaken? Would that put you back to sleep? I'm too nervous to do that, but I always thought rest was the next best thing to sleep. Hmmm, maybe that's what you are doing when you are listening to music. Ya, good idea with the music. I can go back to sleep with the drone of the TV sometimes, giving myself permission to listen with my eyes closed, that usually helps.
 
I just can't sleep tonight. WA state is doing cut backs on medicaid. And on special ed children who are on medicaid. It makes me so angry I'm just not sleeping tonight.
 
Hi, all. My usual awake time. tonight went to bed @10pm, up at 1:30. Ugh.

Stilldancing, I'm so sorry the state is cutting your medicaid. That stinks. Are you on Medicare?

Hey, elsie. Yep, on countless nights I've just laid there. I don't go back to sleep. Also have laid there and listened to music or the tv. Didn't help. My doc said to use good "sleep hygiene" which means if I lay there and don't go back to sleep within a half hour or so, get up and do something light, like empty the washing machine, read, etc. Then when I'm sleepy go back to bed. Except I'm never sleepy. Lamictal is driving me into the ground.

Hi, Court. You seem to be a regular poster in the midnight club. Are you up every night, or just some nights?

Most nights I'm awake my brain is too fried to write and to post in here.
 
I learned something tonight. If you want to go back to sleep, don't listen to Pink Floyd while you dust the living room.
 
I used to listen to Pink Floyd to go to sleep, but not while dusting the living room. And my wife is against music when going to bed, so I no longer get to listen to anything now. :+( Although I do remember being mostly asleep one night (years ago before I got married), when Pink Floyd had been playing. All of a sudden, I heard someone in my room saying "Hello? Is there anybody out there?" I thought I was dreaming, but snapped awake and heard it again a few times. Freaked me out pretty bad, until I realized it was just from the CD. LOL!!! After that, I didn't listen to that album at bedtime anymore.
 
I am on medicaid but a lot of stuff did not pass. alot of stuff did. Like kids on Medicaid and in special ed. The state is not matching there funds any more. ooooooooooooh!My school will help I'm sure, but I'm mad at our govenor.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom