I haven’t had a good solid night’s sleep in several weeks and it’s taking a toll. The last few weeks have been stressful ones for people I work with and supervise, and I have a tendency to take things on and not keep them at a distance. That’s part of it. But my knee has been a problem for me at night pretty much since I stopped taking the Percoset after surgery. When I roll over or even move much in my sleep, I jar it and the pain wakes me up. To be honest, it doesn’t take much.
A few years ago I went through a full-blown sleep study and was diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. I just thought I had insomnia caused by menopause; shows you what good diagnostic skills I have! Now I am a “hosehead” and have a BiPAP machine with a hose attached to a mask that looks like a gasmask to wear when I sleep to keep the air moving, so I don’t stop breathing and sleep.
Well, it’s not working so well.
The doctor gave me prescription sleep medication to take to “consolidate my sleep” and that worked for a while, but it’s not working now either. It hasn’t for a while, to be honest. Maybe the menopausal insomnia is creeping in, maybe it’s stress, maybe it’s the knee pain. I just know I’m tired a lot and tired of being tired.
Studies have shown that people who get 7-8 hours of sleep regularly lose weight more than those who barely grab enough, but I can’t remember when I got that much of uninterrupted sleep. It seems like such a luxury and makes me want to take one of those Percosets in the cabinet, just so I don’t hurt and sleep, but that wouldn’t be a good idea, much as the sleep is a lure.
No, meds are not the solution. I need to just get what sleep I can and talk to the doctor when I see him in a few weeks. And squirt lots of those eye drops that “get the red out”.
Image source and great resource: my Yahoo! Group for CPAP users
Random Thoughts of a Disordered Mind 