Meds update

Wow, I have ignored this blog horribly. I had been keeping a written sleep/symptom diary with the intention of posting it every week, but that obviously fell through the cracks.

I'm still undecided on the meds. I have noticed a definite improvement in my moods, and I don't have 3-4 major crashes a day where I need to take a nap. Even with experimenting with dosages, I'm still super sleepy all day at work and when I get home, but I can't nap. I haven't had a nap after work in weeks, which would be a good thing if I didn't still crave them. I'm just afraid that since the urge to take a nap isn't as strong as what I used to be that I'll actually wake up refreshed and not be able to sleep at night. Which brings me to my next part... I can't sleep at night! I will be so tired to the point of stumbling around so I faceplant in the bed and then I'll just lay there staring at the pillow for hours. Alternatively, if I am able to fall asleep within a reasonable amount of time, I have been waking up in the middle of the night and then been unable to fall back asleep until it's almost time to be awake for the day anyway. I'm still impossible to wake in the mornings, and this week has been particularly difficult. I overslept Monday -- luckily, my fiancé had called me at 8am to wish me a good day at work so that call woke me up and sent me into such a panic that I had no problem getting up after that. Then the past two days, I've been rolling out of bed around 7:30am (which is about 15 minutes late) and unable to shake the grogginess. This morning, I even woke with my first alarm and took a pill in hopes it would kick in for my morning routine, but it didn't.

I really don't know how to feel about this drug. I like that I'm not crashing and I'm just mellowed out all day. But I don't like that I have no energy all day and am still unable to sleep at night. My doctor said he is willing to try Xyrem if the pills caused insomnia, but seriously -- I don't have narcolepsy and I'm scared to death to try it. I've heard wonders about it for narcoleptics, but I've yet to hear anything about people with hypersomnia taking it. I do go back to the see my sleep doctor at the end of this month, so I will definitely be asking about some kind of sleep aid if things don't improve, but I'm really really hesitant about Xyrem.

OK, new meds no worky. I went to bed semi-late Sunday, so I'm not even counting Monday as a test day. I went to bed around 11pm Monday and Tuesday nights, which gives me exactly 8 hours of sleep each night. Both days I woke up same groggy (no surprise). Tuesday, the 30mg at 8am seemed to work ok but I felt the meds be pretty much gone by noon but no hard crash. I had a 20 minute nap when I got home from work and still was in bed by 11. Today, groggy all day. Took 30mg at 8am, felt it wear off by 11am, so I took another 15mg (one pill) at noon. Never kicked in, I swear. I feel like a total zombie. I might as well be off meds completely with how I feel. I fell asleep at the chiropractor's office TWICE, and I still feel like hell.

Speaking of which -- I think the first sleep thing might have been cataplexy. I was laying face down on this one table that he uses to stretch my back, and my face went limp and I remember thinking, "I hope I'm not asleep. My cheekbone is pressing onto this table and it kinda hurts" but I couldn't move. I don't know what could have triggered it, though. I didn't laugh or have any kind of emotional response from having my back stretched. Hmm.

However, the second time I fell asleep, it was definitely sleep, hah. I was laying on the table where the electrode things are on, and I had a dream about my dad being dressed up like Santa. *shrug* I still haven't un-groggified since the nap, though. Grr.

Long time, no see!

After I gave up on the daily diaries, I haven't really had much to post about. I'm not having a fantastic home life right now, so keeping up with my sleep hasn't been a priority at all. Really, the only change lately has been that I have started gaining weight the past few weeks, which I haven't done since I began taking meds, so it's a little disturbing to me. I think it's just a combination of me binge eating every night due to stress and the 15lbs of Kit Kats I've been consuming every day since Halloween, so no big worries. I saw my sleep doctor last week, and we're trying a controlled release version of the dextro I'd been taking. Normally, I take 20mg dextro in the AM and 10mg dextro at 1pm. With the CR, I'm going to be experimenting over the next few days or weeks to see what works best.

Today, I took 30mg of dextro CR at 8am. Feeling it wearing off around noon, but not a hard crash like regular dextro. My head is just gradually feeling more and more woozy.