[granny weatherwax]

Hey Everyone

I hope you are all well? Before christmas and the new year I was feeling reasonably good I was sleeping well after my new GP put me on amitriptyline and thought "yeah at last the light at the end of the tunnel" um how wrong was I. I forgot how this wonderful :worried: condition of ours likes to lead you into a false sense of security and then hit you like an express train.

Well, they decided to try out a christmas rota at work as they do one for the vets so the other staff had been pestering. The only thing was that it ment doing 2 11 hour shifts together then having 2 days off. I went along with it for everyone else and as I had been feeling pretty good I thought "it wont cause too much of a problem"hno: First mistake. Second one was after doing these 2 mamoth shifts I then travelled 230miles to see my family for New Year.

So now I am flaring and feeling really tired. I think it is only a small flare (if you can call it that) as compared to some of you guys my lupus is "mild" (no organ involvement). My question is does anyone else find it really hard to sleep during a flare even if you feel you could sleep for a year?? I am so tired I am not quite sure where to put myself sometime? Any advice would be so welcome.

Thanks everyone

Claire

 

[lin]

ive been inding sleep hard now for a few months well before xmas,, doesnt matter how tired i am, i keep waking up around 3 to 4am, have been known to come down as hubby is comming to bed, im geting up, it drives me mad, No i have felt yuk too since october, so weather feeling yuk and steriods doing it i dont know.

take care
Lin x

 

[Clare.T]

Dear Claire

I find sleep difficult when I am plain worn out physically from overdoing or emotionally from too many troubles. Actually it's not going to sleep that's hard but this early morning morning waking after 4 hours sleep. That's been much better since I started Prozac.
I hope you can find some way of getting better sleep- it quickly builds up into a vicious circle and can certainly cause a flare in my experience. But the same things that can cause flares can also spoil sleep so I wouldn't know which is chicken and which is egg

Many Hugs
Clare

 

[Katharine]

Hi Claire,

I too have been flaring again recently and yes, I do have hugs problems sleeping when flaring. I have worked out that it is actually pain that stops me sleeping. The funny thing about pain is that I think we either get used to ongoing pain most of the time or our pain threshold goes higher (maybe one and the same thing) and so I actually don't "realise" that I'm in pain. Usually, if I take an anti-inflammatory that does the trick and I sleep (at least until it wears off). With this flare I had to put my pred up for a few days, again that did the trick. The pain and inflammation go down and I sleep.

Thankfully when this does happen to me, I am usually able to take a nap during the day (which can be up to four hours at times if needed) and that stops me getting into a vicious circle of not sleeping and flaring more.

Katharine

 

[granny weatherwax]

Thanks all

It's uncanny what you have said Katherine, I think I have been in pain for so long I sort of "got used to it" if that is possible. When the Doctor first put me on the amitriptyline I eventually stared (for the first time in ages) sleeping right through 8 glorious hours of sleep and it helped control the pain a bit better so didn't need to take the co-codamol so much during the day.

Since the mammoth sessions before new year I have had a pretty naff time sleeping, waking with headaches and just generally achy.

Thanks for your help

Claire

 

[flutterbye]

I can empathise with this problem, I too think it has to do with flaring, and pain, and it can become a really vicious circle of pain, poor sleep, mega fatigue, trying to keep going. I have found that taking a tramadol and increasing the amytrip can help a bit, to get back into a better sleep pattern, and for me sometimes a hot muscle soak type bath helps muscle pain and helps me to unwind, but even then i regularly see silly o clock in the morning during periods of flaring up.

Hope you can get some decent sleep soon, it really is no fun at all, these shifts sound like a nightmare for keeping things in balance as well, is that something you are going to have to do all the time, that sounds hard to cope with, and there does always seem to be a payback in terms of syptoms being worse after overdoing things.

Hoping you have better days (well nights!) ahead.

 

[granny weatherwax]

Thanks Flutterbye

The "shifts" thankfully were a one off. Although I have been under a little stress just lately as well as doing my own I have had to fill in for staff that have been off sick. This was supposed to stop when I reduced my hours.

I am also trying to convince my husband (with the help of his mother and sister) we need to move. We live in a small house and there is absolutely nowhere to store anything, so I get stressed that the house is constantly looking untidy. To top this off we have young families either side of us, one is reasonably quiet but the other side's youngest I would love to strangle at times. Tantrums like you wouldn't believe she has been sent up to her room and spend half an hour kicking heck out of her bed and the wall which ajoins our homes. I am sure she should have been a red head:rotfl:. So to be honest it's not really surprising I'm having a bit of a flare (stress is a big trigger for me).

Claire

 

[dudley]

Hi,

I had sleeping problems. The doctors put me on traditional sleep aids. They had the reverse effects. I was more awake than ever. One pill I would clean the house (which I hate to do...they doubled it and cleaned house and did laundry). Had sleep study done went into rem or stage 3-4 sleep for only 4 mins). My shrink tried me on a drug called seroquel. It normally works like a charm. Down side is that it can cause certain people to gain weight. Yes I am one of them.

However, I also have fibro.....lack of level 3 and 4 sleep or REM with fibro does not allow the body to go into the deep sleep that my body needs to heal the every day stress on the body. So I am taking the drug. Fibro is much better for me. And yes I a have gained weight.

Elaine

 

[pollianna]

[email protected] elaine, where can I get sum of those pills. :lol:

Me too, in a flare, body broken, painful and weak, adrenylin rushes like i can climb mountains but I can't sleep, can't sit down. It's like my flare puts my body on red alert at night

 

[onetay]

Claire,
I have a chair that used to be my mothers and it seems to put the most active person to sleep in 5 minutes. Would love to let you use it but then I would not get my much needed naps lol. Ok, with that out of the way. Try finding a nice comfortable place like the chair I have. You may need to sleep in it for awhile. You can always ask for something to help you sleep. I do find it hard to sleep but it is like that all the time just worse with the flares.

Did you learn something about the things you did and thought would be fine doing? lol. We have all done it, push yourself to be as normal as possible. We pay the price for it later and wish we could turn back the clock and do it again. I am sorry that you have been having problems. Just because they have labeled you as mild don't make it any easier to deal with.

 

[wheeliefab]

Hello
Yes I also have trouble with sleep when I'm in a Lupus flare. I find it really hard to get off to sleep, and it's often 3 or 4 am before I can sleep. These episodes usually last several days (usually 4-7 days if I don't take medication).
For me the lack of sleep is part of having mental health problems (hypomanic episodes) when I'm in a flare up, and when I'm suffering from them I need medication to help prevent the hypomania becoming any worse.

Hypomanic symptoms are similar to the "high" that people with bi-polar disorder get and can be quite frightening or lead to other problems (eg spending too much when on a spending spree, putting self in dangerous situations due to having bizarre and uninhibited behaviour, a worse flare up because you feel "great" and then overdo things,). For more details about hypomanic symptoms see
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hypomania,
http://counsellingresource.com/distress/mood-disorders/hypomanic-symptoms.html

Please mention the sleep problems to your Dr/consultant to ensure that you are getting the correct medication and that it is not a symptom of other physical or mental heath problems that may be part of having lupus.