Useless Doctor

Snug, don't you just love the folks on this forum? Such good advice! You can already feel the stress leaving your body!

robysue, thank you for your input and support. You were posting the exact moment I was! Yes, I've been told to avoid the lying in bed trying to sleep thing, and enacting that has helped my feelings of anger and frustration, which are not conducive to sleep. I've never been able to get to sleep when pissed off.

Robespierre you're so kind, thank you for the encouragement.

cpapcharge wrote:I do have a question. If you've been getting 4 hours of sleep for 20 years what made you want to try and change it now?

Whoops, I guess I wasn't very clear. I've been going to bed at 2 am for 20 years. I started waking up early and not being able to go back to sleep about 3 years ago. And even when I was waking up after 4 hours, I was able to get another 2 hours in as a return to bed or as a nap. So for a blessed 17 years, I was going to bed at 2 am and getting up at 10 am. Three years ago, this double shift sleeping started up. Medication has had absolutely no effect on it whatsoever. We've tried everything in the book. We had hoped that cpap might affect the insomnia... if I wasn't choking to death all night long, I might sleep better. *sigh* So far, no dice. The big problem that I had with this psychologist was that he said to stop napping. So I was trying to exist on 4 hours of sleep. Not good if you're bipolar. And the thing that gets me is that they KNEW I was bipolar and told me to do this anyway. I should have been smarter and just flat out refused. But oh well, hindsight is 20/20.

Dori, you're so right, this forum is a treasure.

"Useless Doctor"

I consider that to be a redundant phrase.

I find it amazing that so many people (including doctors) don't understand how complex "sleep" can actually be. It's not that easy to "just get more sleep" or change one's sleeping patterns/times.

During part of my working years, I worked different shifts (computer operations).
For other parts, I worked way too many hours and slept too little.
In the last dozen years or so that I was working (at that particular job), I was usually up before 5:00 AM and averaging about seven hours of sleep (especially after starting CPAP therapy). It took me many months (almost a year) to finally break out of that sleeping routine. I'm now averaging over 8 hours and getting up at around 7:00 or 8:00 AM. (or later).

Best wishes.

Den

Wulfman wrote:"Useless Doctor"

I consider that to be a redundant phrase.

Den

I was going to turn off my computer but just had to read this last post, glad I did! Good night!

snuginarug wrote:robysue, thank you for your input and support. You were posting the exact moment I was! Yes, I've been told to avoid the lying in bed trying to sleep thing, and enacting that has helped my feelings of anger and frustration, which are not conducive to sleep. I've never been able to get to sleep when pissed off.

Yep, it's also important to not lie in bed when angry or frustrated. That was one of the (new) rules imposed on me by the PA I'm working with for my own insomnia issues. Hubby gets to enforce it. Fortunately the number of days I have to get out of bed because I've lost my temper at the BiPAP and/or the Lamictral (migraine medicine) and/or the insomnia itself has dropped by quite a bit since starting my CBT for the insomnia.

You say that for years you sleep on a schedule that was roughly 2:00 AM to 10:AM, and that the new (unacceptable) pattern of waking up at roughly 6:00AM started about 3 years ago. Does that roughly correspond to when you started to feel fully adjusted to sleeping with the CPAP? In other words, did the "wake up too soon" insomnia start AFTER your sleep apnea was under control by consistent use of your CPAP with good AHI numbers? Or did the "wake up too soon" insomnia start BEFORE you were diagnosed with sleep apnea?

And now you find yourself waking up at 6:00 AM and unable to get back to sleep. I know I suggested it before: How light is your room at 6:00? Even if the ambient light hasn't bothered you in the past, it's possible that your bedroom is now simply too light for you to get back to sleep. Blackout shades or curtains can be used to solve that problem.

But another issue might be worrying too much about the clock: How much do you focus (intentionally or unintentionally) on the clock when you are waking up too early to start your day, but find yourself unable to get back to sleep in a timely fashion? Is the clock the very first thing you look at when you wake up? And is your first response to what you see on the clock something along the lines of "Oh God, not another morning where I'm awake at 6:00 AM? I wonder if I'll ever get back to sleep today?" Because this kind of behavior is also quite capable of keeping your insomnia monster fat and well fed.

And the first step to ending the "worrying about the clock" problem is to get rid of the clock and anything else your mind can use to accurately estimate the time. So I would suggest that you move the clock somewhere where you cannot see it from the bed when you first wake up---preferably somewhere where you can't see it at all from the bed. And get some blackout shades/curtains. So that your room looks more or less the same at 2:00AM, 4:00AM, 6:00AM, 8:00AM and 10:00AM. As silly as this sounds, not being able to identify the time when you wake up really helps you not to worry about the time you wake up and that in turn helps re-establish that it's still time to be asleep in your mind as well as your body, which in turn makes it easier to get back to sleep .....

Re napping: I know that not napping didn't work out for you, but your psychologist was suggesting a standard approach to trying to make your body sleepy enough to sleep the whole night through. But as you mention, you can't give up napping because it aggravates the bipolar symptoms. So some relevant questions: How long do you nap each day? And when do you take your naps? If the naps are excessively long or too late in the day, that can create problems with sleeping through the night. Since you can't give up naps entirely, can you at least restrict the length or time of the naps? For example, could you function with one one-hour long nap that ends before 5pm?

Finally, you might want to pick up a copy of Sound Sleep, Sound Mind by Dr. Barry Krakow.

Snug -- keep in mind that for years docs told us three square meals a day were what we should all be doing -- that it was "normal".

Only now are they starting to understand that this just isn't so -- several more smaller meals are actually much better for us.

Don't worry about what the doc says -- find what works for you -- if that be a couple of 4 hour sleep sessions and you can figure out a way to work it in then go for it.

I've a friend who works shift work who's been following such a pattern for years -- she gets off shift, winds down a bit and grabs a 3-4 hour nap. Gets up and functions through the main part of the day then grabs another 3-4 hour nap before going into work.

Most doctors want:

1. you out of their office in five minutes

2. do absolutely zero research to determine the exact diagnosis

3. prescribe meds rather than diagnose your underlying problem

4. dont listen to your symptoms

Thus, GOOGLE is your best friend. You can find out WAY more information on google than you can
at almost any doctors office, and my friend, Ive been to the Mayo clinic to be (un) diagnosed

DavidCarolina wrote:Most doctors want:

1. you out of their office in five minutes

2. do absolutely zero research to determine the exact diagnosis

3. prescribe meds rather than diagnose your underlying problem

4. dont listen to your symptoms

Thus, GOOGLE is your best friend. You can find out WAY more information on google than you can
at almost any doctors office, and my friend, Ive been to the Mayo clinic to be (un) diagnosed

I know that this is true in some cases, but I feel the need to pipe in here and say that there ARE good doctors out there that don't feel this way. I have been fortunate enough to run into a lot of them (a lot of bad ones too).

My Pulmonologist never rushes me. She answers all my questions and does listen. She's very busy, but never tries to push me out. She also never tries to drug me and IS trying to help figure out better settings for me.

My Neurologist #1 never rushed me, spent as much time as necessary and researched my situation frequently. When I complained about medication being difficult to swallow, he turned around, got on the computer to check to see if it came in a form that would be easier for me. He called me one time, saying he had been on a plane, had time and was researching my condition.

When he felt we needed "bigger guns" and referred me out to another facility, Neurologist #2 came in a day off (one of his emergency appointments). I was there for over 6 hours and I was his only patient that day.

Neurologist #2 has called in Neurologist #3 to try to figure out what is going on.

DavidCarolina - it's obvious that you have had pretty rotten experiences with doctors and I can understand that as I've had my fair share. Please know there are GREAT doctors out there that do this because they care about their patients.

DavidCarolina wrote:Most doctors want:

1. you out of their office in five minutes

2. do absolutely zero research to determine the exact diagnosis

3. prescribe meds rather than diagnose your underlying problem

4. dont listen to your symptoms

Thus, GOOGLE is your best friend. You can find out WAY more information on google than you can
at almost any doctors office, and my friend, Ive been to the Mayo clinic to be (un) diagnosed

No. The doctor works for you, you pay their salary - somewhat in directly but you do. They are your employee. What they want is irrelevant - go with a list of questions and don't leave the office until you have an answer. Go with the same attitude as if you were buying a second hand car. Also take your business else where (fire them) if they don't come up to your standards.
When you find a good one reward them with much praise, make their day feel good for them because most patients don't want to be there, don't want to / can't say what is wrong, don't want to hear what they have to say and only want a pill to "make it go away" and even those they often won't take properly.