Insomnia, Stupidity and Saved by The Bloggess

Ah, the holidays. I don’t know about you, but for me and the hubs it means lots of driving combined with sleeping in strange beds all wrapped up in being around 4 germ-infested children.

This year’s Thanksgiving was a little more hectic than usual as we visited his family in Long Island for the first time (surprisingly it was the drive there that caused yelling, panic, getting lost, and stress – leaving LI on Black Friday morning was actually easy). I’ve been battling insomnia for quite some time now; usually my fibromyalgia puts me through long cycles (not unlike bi-polar disorder) where for months I’m passed out by 10pm without help followed by months of me stumping doctors as drug after drug fails me.

I was taking one of the benzo’s, Klonopin, which if you read about it on Wikipedia starts to sound downright scary for longterm use. Couple with the fact that I was immune and to the point where 4mg was barely affecting me. For reference: most people are started at .25mg. Many doctors don’t want to prescribe anything higher than 1mg. I wrangled 2mg pills yet quickly needed 4mgs. It was then that I gave up and started to slowly wean myself off it.

Except….what NOW? Over the years I’ve been on:

Ambien (crazy ass dreams)
Lunesta (didn’t work, plus crazy dreams when I would sleep)
Elavil (worked for awhile, til it didn’t)
Trazedone (worked until I required such high doses that I would be hungover til noon)
Various herbal teas
Lavender
Kava
Melatonin (works, then it doesn’t, then it does)
Advil PM
Klonopin
Valium
Xanax
Flexeril (nope)
Soma (nope)
Zanaflex (nope)

I’m sick of being reliant on drugs. I am. I’m thankful right now that I don’t work because I’d be a mess. No sleep = fibro flare ups. Next up on the River of Dreams is a cocktail of supplements. Namely, I’m going to increase the melatonin and get a timed-release version. Adding in timed-release 5-HTP. And a combo pill (which I’ll be lucky if I can swallow) of Calcium and Magnesium.

You’re wondering where the stupidity and Thanksgiving work into all of this.

I’ve been trying to sleep at night without taking Klonopin. I’ll take it if I’ve been up more than 1.5 hours after taking the melatonin and Advil PM. Despite my exhaustion, this was of course the case Thanksgiving night at his family’s house. I had to sleep….we had a 4.5 hour drive the next morning to see my family. Plus I was having a flare-up and/or coming down with something. Because he was tossing and turning I thought he wasn’t sleeping, either. I asked him something. Then I asked him “Where is your Klonopin?” because I couldn’t find my bottle. He had told me earlier he didn’t bring much spare Klonnie, and in his sleepy stupor he thought I asked “Did you take your Klonopin?” He answered ” ‘course”. I heard “purse”. When we travel he sometimes keeps his meds in my purse. Except now that he takes Klonnie only at night, that’s no longer the case.

Anyways. I go to my purse. Yup there’s a prescription bottle. Take 2 (he had 1mg pills, I have 2mg). Go to my bottle of Coke Zero. Throw the pills in my mouth. For a second I experience a bitter taste and swig in a mouthful of Coke and pause before swallowing….wait..why are they bitter? Maybe I should turn on a light and check the bottle before swallowing….nah. its fine.

Yeah, it wasn’t Klonopin. Instead, I took 20mg of Ritalin. Why I even bothered to fucking look after the fact is beyond me. I likely would have slept if I hadn’t jacked up my adrenaline from fear and panic. I’m ADD, so stimulants don’t wake me up. In fact, too much puts me to sleep. However I haven’t taken Ritalin in well over a year and a half. I’m currently taking Nuvigil during the day and while it should be gone after 12 hours I know that there’s a half-life and some was still in my system. I panicked on how it would interact with the Nuvigil from the morning and the Nuvigil I’d take the next morning. Would I die? Would I be sick? So I did the only thing I could think of. I went to the bathroom and forced myself to throw up – something I’ve never done before. Where’s the fucking uber-sensitive gag reflex when you NEED it?!?! The process was difficult. And painful. And I have no idea how much of it I got out of my system. And I was sick for days as a result.

I will NEVER fucking do that again.

Oh, The Bloggess? She mentioned this NeuroSleep drink that helps her sleep and Neuro Drink was sponsoring the post. Jenny has RA and insomnia as well so if it works for her, I feel like it could work for me. Thanks to her I’m trying it out soon and I have fingers crossed. Of course I also have ordered those supplements too (which, I know, don’t take those plus the Neurosleep, I’ll be in a coma for 3 days) because frankly if the NeuroSleep works it would be a great item to take with me when we do the family visits for Christmas. Very portable. But I only found out about all these supplements because I was researching NeuroSleep. So unless I’m a unicorn and this all fucking fails spectacularly, The Bloggess saved me.