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'emmaree' wrote on '13:
Hey Marina , welcome to Insomnia, looking forward to reading your future post 🙂
Thanks for the welcome!
If you look around the forum, you'll see quite a few of my posts & replies.
'seenafterscene' wrote on '05:I'm ashamed to admit I don't know who Robin McKinley is. I am very cine-literate (huge film buff/geek), but not the most book-literate person in the world (though in my youth, I read voraciously.) I hope you have a good time at the Release Celebration.
She writes what is commonly called YA Fantasy. Most of her books have featured strong women/girls, but Dragonhaven centers around a teenaged boy. I read her blog, and she footnotes it like you wouldn't believe! She has retold a number of “fairy tales” including two versions of Beauty and the Beast, written a couple of rather intense-for-YA books, an interesting variation on vampires book–with a cook named Sunshine (name of the book, too) who is the first character in a book I've ever wanted to sit down and chat with. She spent a fair amount of her adult life in Maine, but now lives in Hampshire, England, where she grows “too many roses” and goes wild in her plant orders, and is the second wife of author Peter Dickinson, with whom she has written two anthologies, Water and Fire. Her first two books, The Blue Sword and Hero and the Crown, have long enthralled readers with the world-building, plot and characters. She has had several thousand requests to write more novels in that world, but Damar (the world) isn't ahving any, thus neither is she writing any.
As to your interests, do you follow Roger Ebert's blog or his tweets? He is one prolific writer & correspondent. Though he can no longer eat in the usual way (liquid diet, due to issues surrounding botched operations on his jaw area), he cooks for friends and has a recent cookbook out. He has encouraged a number of amateur film critics to pursue their passion, and is counted very friendly and pleasant to be around. I had to give up Twitter, as it was taking up to 6 hrs a day of my time, some of it cutting into my sleep.
Is there a genre/Are there genres of film you prefer?
'seenafterscene' wrote on '05:Wow. I'm impressed you do your research. I do too, I'm one of those lucky dorks that has a PDR (bigger than the Bible) and it uses it constantly. That said, I just thought I'd throw some medicines out there. Rozerem didn't really do much for me, but I know it has helped others and the relative safety of it, though questionable, is a plus.
My current regimen is a tightly self-regulated roundelay of Trazodone, Neurontin, and Ambien.
Thank you! I have had frequent recourse to the PDR, and I can occasionally get lost in it, like a dictionary, thesaurus, Wikipedia or a web search. What's your dx, if you don't mind telling?
'LindsayK' wrote on '03:Also, if I know I have a busy day ahead I'll lay there for hours on end waiting for the damn alarm clock. It's like why even set one? lol
Exactly! Drives me bats when that happens!
'littlespy' wrote on '02:I'm not stressed but my mind is rushing with thoughts and ideas. I'm wondering if this is a facet of my bipolar though.
It is indeed. More common during a (hypo)mania, but happens at other times, too. Talk to your pdoc!
'Bobbie' wrote on '02:Those nights after I've been asleep for a while, I'll wake up with terrible leg cramps. My doctor has me on calcium with vitamin D and magnesium but they really don't help. I just end up marching around the house until I'm wide awake trying to get rid of them. I've also noticed if I drink less water during the day than normal, I'll get leg cramps that will wake me up from a sound sleep.
Ask your doctor for an anti-spasmotic med. If he won't, then ask him why, because there's no excuse for a doctor not pursuing treatment, other than hideboundedness or laziness.
'astradaemon' wrote on '03:I sleep better in the fall and winter, when I do get sleep. Any overcast day usually gives me hope. However, the sun keeps me going on the days after sleepless nights.
The only time I never have sleep problems is when I am visiting family in England.
In fact, I generally don't have a problem with jet lag regardless of where I travel to — an insomnia bonus.
I sleep better when it's chilly. I'd like to find out, travelling without a snorer, if I sleep better in Britain, too. Your lack of jet lag is indeed a bonus!
I do seem to have SAD, but I have a HappiLite for that (found it at CostCo one day, and have never seen one there since), and as many full-spectrum bulbs around the house as I can manage to find.
Due to a Peeping Tom in the early 80s, I slept with opaque curtains firmly closed, esp. if it was a first floor bedroom. Sometime in the late 90's/early 21st C, I found that I felt imprisoned with the opaque curtain closed, and began to sleep with the curtains open. I think I also needed the light to help wake up, then,and I'm sure it had something to do with SAD and quality of light. It did tend to be a dark house.
I knew someone with PTSD who had to have the house dimmed all the time, and it drove me nuts. So did her smoking, but that's another issue. Had the same issues with my father, while I was still in contact with him. I have since learned that preferring dim/dark rooms is often a symptom of PTSD.
'sarahkay' wrote on '19:I use classical sooting music, no words unless made up ones such as Karl Jenkins' Adiemus stuff.
When I'm writing anything, I have to have instrumental music only, unless it's stuff like Adiemus or Dead Can Dance–or something in a language so foreign to me I can't make out any words I might know. Yma Sumac is right out–I learned a little Quechua, and the other songs are in Spanish, which I can follow. The Tuvan throat singers (male) or the Inuit throat singers (female) are fine.
'Martin' wrote on '02:I remember reading about how to pick the right type of music to listen to when trying to fall asleep. I think you've all just proved there is no such thing as one 'right' type that works for everyone.
However, I have read that you should choose something you are already very familiar with. Otherwise, your brain will remain active as it listens to the words and sounds. When you listen to music you're already familiar with, it helps your brain relax (and hopefully helps you sleep).
When I'm trying to get to sleep by running an instrumental piece of music through my head, trying to get all the notes in the right order and pitch, a familar tune is all I *can* use.
I was at the San Jose Harvest Festival (not a true festival: you pay to get in to shop, much like Dickens Fair, Renaissance Pleasure Fairs, and the like) yesterday, hoping to connect with a particular vendor (never did manage to meet), I found a musician, Richard Searles <http://earthdancemusic.com/> whose albums I have in vinyl LPs (yup, that long ago) or on tape. He had about a dozen more than I knew I had purchased. We chatted for quite a while while I tried to figure out which albums to buy. I had a chance to listen to various tracks on several albums, talk about the instruments he'd used, stuff like that. I also had the chance to tell him how enjoyable I found his albums, which one rarely gets to do directly. I found his new series of Nature Sounds, and asked about them.
Redwood Grove [Relaxing sounds of the forest after a heavy rain (no music). Featuring a continuous stream of water accompanied by birds and other wildlife. Recorded in a grove of Redwoods by Richard Searles at Julia Pfeiffer Burns State Park on the California coast.]
Unlike many other “nature” or environmental albums, there is no music to interfere. This is not white noise engineered to sound like something, and the ear and brain can tell. There are no repeats, no looping, just one continuous 60 minute track of nature with water being the predominant sound. Pacific Coast Surf has no sounds save that of the surf, ebbing and flowing.
We talked about how other series having jarring sounds, obvious looping after 10-20 minutes, and how unsatisfactory this was to either of us. When I get a chance to listen to the Surf album, I'll let you know how it goes. I'm wondering if my MiL might like it, in spite of the fact that she lived on the Intercoastal Waterway in Destin FL for many years, and that there is no real surf there, nor really on the Gulf coast on the other side of the peninsula/barrier island. Water sounds are very soothing to me–except the sounds of faucet trips, toilets running, and the irrigation system turning on.
YMMV!
'mspeekay' wrote on '01:I haven't found that music helps, but spoken word does. Go figure!
Did anyone read you before/to sleep when you were younger?
'cherrychapstik' wrote on '27:Again thank you guys. It's hard to sit in my apartment while my husband sleeps, and be alone in my head. I was glad I found this.
Do I ever know what you mean! I spent too many years doing just that. I'm always sad when someone else has been in that situation.
You mentioned in this post that you were going to see your counselor in early October. What came of that?
'Dozydame' wrote on '29:I'm sorry to say I struggle to come up with any positives to having insomnia.
Somehow we survived, but I have never been so relieved to drop off a car and walk in my entire life. I'm still glad we did the trip, but I can't help wondering how much more enjoyable it might have been if only I could just have slept like a normal person. I try not to dwell on the many experiences in the last 40 years which have been spoiled because of this problem, but the overall cost has been very high. The average person, as well as most therapists, is utterly oblivious as to how soul destroying chronic insomnia can be for long term sufferers.
You and I seem to have had very similar experiences on a “once in a lifetime” trip, as well as more ordinary trips. I do know how much more enjoyable many occasions would have been had I only been able to sleep.
With most bipolars of any designation (I, II, NOS–and anything else there might be found in DSM5), insomnia is tied into (hypo)manias, but having had darned few of those hypomanias in my life, I seem to be an anomaly, because I have my worst insomnia during the deepest depressions, with few exceptions. Of course, if I get to sleep and can stay there, I am not interested in getting up until I've had enough sleep. On a trip, or working or in school, or as the parent of a child from babyhood to getting to school without your assistance, this is just not feasible.
I'm off to bed–I've been staying up too late catching up on my email & blog reading/responses.
'Martin' wrote on '28:Lately the chipmunks have been making a racket – luckily that's only restricted to daylight hours. To prove how unaccustomed we are to nature sounds, we wondered what the hell the noise was for days before I finally looked around over the deck to see one or two had moved into one of our bird boxes! Cheeky chipmunks!
Chipmunks and squirrels are bad that way.
We have had tree frogs, apparently, which my brain says are crickets and therefore to be ignored. However, for about a month, we had some birds in the crape myrtles directly outside our bedroom window (the pollen, the noise, it being a habitat of the glassy-winged sharpshooter insect, inimical to the wine grape industry–I want them GONE) that started their loud raucousness at 9 pm and finished somewhere around 4 am, in early summer. I was going to go nuts! No way available to shut out the arhythmic noise. Those trees WILL be gone by next summer.
'seenafterscene' wrote on '28:I also might add that Rozerem (sp?) is a fairly novel drug here
I read the Wikipedia entry on it. I will ask my pdoc about it–okay, I'll email her the URL for the Wikipedia article. It IS primarily for delayed sleep onset, which I don't really have. I have seen a couple of their truly wacky commercials here in the US. Since it features a US President, Lincoln, I don't suppose they play that one elsewhere.
Its advantages to me are 1) not a benzodiazepeine 2) not addictive 3) doesn't interfere with any meds I'm currently on. If I have a bad fungal infection, I may have to use something other than ketoconazole cream.
It also caused hyperprolactinaemia two to three times more often than placebo in clinical trials, which might be useful for insomniac nursing moms who are not producing enough millk. There is a difference between being insomniac and being a new or nursing mom, however, and this drug will not keep the baby asleep! Studies of rats and mice showed a dose-dependent increase in cancer. The long-term safety in humans is unknown. Ramelteon was teratogenic in rats. It works great on cats–3x better than melatonin. If I ever have an insomniac cat, I'll try to remember this.
However, at 4 weeks out, effectiveness is about as good as a placebo.
It seems we have some things in common besides bipolar, RLS (never officially diagnosed, mild, but I dated a physician who said I probably had it), and insomnia. Also, I live in the East Bay area, so all things considered we are neighbors.
My RLS was never exactly dx'd, but I know it's not Parkinson's. I don't know how to gauge the intensity of it, but I do have breakthrough attacks. I'm going to see about talking to a neurologist about it, as my internist is not educated about it (she admitted that).
Yes, I suppose we are neighbors, compared to many others' locations on this list. In December, there is a Pegasus Release Celebration being held by Bay Area members of Robin McKinley's forum. We're meeting in Berkeley, because we can't think of a place along the 880 where we'd enjoy the food and be able to talk about the book. I couldn't think of an appropriate place on the Peninsula, and we figured Borderlands Books' cafe in SF wasn't going to work for some reason I forget.
