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I have slept a total of 5 hours in 6 days. What's wrong with me?
I'm on day 7 with an acute onset of near total insomnia. I have slept a collective of 5 hours in these past 6 nights and I'm not sure I can go much longer like this.
I need to sleep and I'm completely exhausted but I just can't cross over into sleep no matter what I try. All I do is lay there, terribly tired with my eyes closed for hours on end only to watch the daylight peek through my window without sleeping. On the nights that I do sleep, it's maybe 1 hour and only after 4am comes around.
6/22/2024 - It started with a mild cold that kept me awake most of the night . This cold was annoying but nothing too bad. I slept poorly but got 3 or 4 hours.
6/23/2024 - The next day, I took a melatonin before bedtime and slept 6 hours or so. I felt fine this day and had a great cardio workout.
6/24/2024 - This is when it hit me. I did not sleep; not 1 minute and it seemed to come out of nowhere. As I laid there, my mind was racing and my heart rate was 20 bpm above normal. When I moved, it spoked to 110 bpm and seemed to pound.
6/25/2024 - By this day I am exhausted and needed to take the day off from work. I thought I could sleep off the cold I was fighting and catch up on sleep. When I tried to nap around 10am, I slept 1 hour but only after laying there for 90 minutes trying. When night fell, I had zero hours of sleep. Nothing, nadda.
6/26/2024 - I'm getting a bit scared. This isn't normal and I've never had this happen to me. I decide to go to the walk-in clinic. The doctor listens to me and concludes I'm having sleep-anxiety and prescribes Trazodone. When night came, I took the meds which seemed to make my hear race but I did feel very relaxed. Despite this, I got maybe 1-2 hours that night.
6/27/2024 - I'm starting to loose my mind but still have hope that the Trazodone will work. I take the meds that night and again I cannot sleep until 4 am rolls around and then it's only 1-2 hours.
6/28/2024 - I'm a zombie all day but after some reading I decide not to continue the meds and try Theanine and magnesium. As night fell, I took the Theanine and magnesium and oh boy, I cannot sleep, not 1 minute.
So here I am pleading for help. I don't know what's happening to me and I'm well into the stage of extreme anxiety. I've read about CBT-I, I'm doing the things like meditation, breathing, relaxation, exercise, meds, supplements, etc but nothing helps. Any time I lay down now, my heart races, my chest gets butterflies and I can't sleep. It's like I've completely lost the ability to turn off and my body is dumping adrenalin into my brain. I'm worried that the worst is in the cards for me if this continues.
Can someone help me figure this out?
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Welcome @jdwspecial, I have had short periods of time where I have difficulty sleeping but nothing compared to what you are experiencing. I know it has to be extremely hard to function when you are not sleeping well or are unable to sleep at all. The past few years I've forced myself to stick to a regular sleep schedule and it has made my sleeping better. I did find an article on the symptoms that seems to be what you are experiencing and may be worth reading for some suggestions.
-- Treatment-Resistant Insomnia: When Sleeping Pills Don’t Work:
https://www.webmd.com/sleep-disorders/treatment-resistant-insomnia-sleeping-pills
Have you let your doctor know that the Trazodone is not helping?
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1 ReactionHi @johnbishop -
Thank you for taking the time to reply and the link. I actually came across the same article early this week. I'm a non-drinker but love my coffee so I was heartbroken when I removed caffeine entirely. The part about "catching up" is one I'll have to ignore for now. I'll take any amount of sleep, at any time of the day at this point. The path to sleep depravation psychosis is paved with missed opportunities.
I just came back from the walk-in since they require a patient to be re-seen when asking for a prescription change. I discussed my insomnia with a different doctor and that Trazodone didn't work. I mentioned the severe anxiety related to losing last 6 nights and I honestly felt like he was giving me the brush-off. I asked for a benzodiazepine since my research revealed this class of drugs is often used to treat both insomnia and anxiety in the short term. I need to break this cycle and the risks of taking a benzo is lower than total sleep depravation. He initially refused this idea out of hand, even for short term therapy, but I pushed him to allow a 1 week course of Diazepam which he begrudgingly agreed to and then lectured me on the side-effects for the next 5 minutes.
I took this medication, 30 min later I felt better and laid down to get 2 hours of sleep. This is far from enough and I woke to feeling about the same as when I started but it's moving in the right direction.
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2 ReactionsPlease see a sleep medicine Dr. I have gotten so much help from her and the sleep therapist she referred me to. Tried multiple things, including what you’ve tried and am now on a very low dose of mirtazapine and I mg of melatonin. Can finally sleep again.
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1 ReactionWhat dose of mirtazapine are you taking? I also have severe insomnia and tried it once, 7.5mg. I slept but was so groggy and tired the next day, I never took it again. The daytime tiredness lasted 3 days. I have a new prescription and am considering trying 1/2 of the dose I took before to see how that goes.
Try and have a sleep study done. Ask for an anxiety med; I took Sertraline for a while until my anxiety resolved. Then, ask your Dr to test your cortisol levels. Cortisol is a hormone that affects your sleep cycle. Lots of info on-line about it. It can contribute to osteoporosis, which is why a Dr finally recommended a 24 hr urine test for me, which found high levels of Cortisol. I am waiting to hear from my Dr and what the next step is.
I've been going through the same sleep issues as you for 2+ years and haven't had a good nights sleep in that time. After having Covid, I suddenly developed severe insomnia which began with one night of no sleep at all. Since then, I only sleep a few hours before waking up unable to go back to sleep. I've tried Trazodone along with low dose (2.5mg) melatonin. I've since weaned off the Trazodone because I didn't think it was helping, but am considering starting it again as my sleep has been worse lately. Now, I take sleep gummies (10mg CBN) and 2.5mg melatonin and usually fall asleep ok but wake after a few hours and can not get back to sleep. If I get 5 hrs of sleep, I feel lucky. A year after my insomnia started, I was diagnosed with fibromyalgia, which causes body pain and is known for causing sleep problems.
In the meantime, check YouTube for 'Paul Mckenna Sleep' and listen to his guided relaxation and sleep post. This helped me relax for sleep.
I hope you find some answers. Insomnia is so terrible.
When I was 41 I started not sleeping. It was menopause that started mine. I went 4 days and 4 nights without sleeping. I had a job where other people's lives were in my hands and I could not afford to not sleep. He put me on a sleeping pill. Been on it now for 26 years. Have never sleep so good in my life. I have cortisol problems we found out later in life. Mine is at the lowest when I am supposed to be waking up and the starts going high when I should be getting ready for night. I finally gave up on getting off because I value my sleep and it helps me have a life.
**UPDATE**
I want to update everyone on the path I'm exploring for answers. From my symptoms and the research I have done I believe:
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I am experiencing hyperarousal from fear of wakefulness during the night which was triggered by the first sleepless night I had on 6/24/2024. This is perpetuated by a vicious positive feedback loop of insomnia causing fight or flight and the ensuing fear/anxiety causing insomnia.
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It seems that we are susceptible to our brains associating wakefulness during the night with a physical threat which triggers the fight or flight response making sleep impossible. By design, when a physical threat exists like an eminent bear attack, the brain cannot sleep. This makes sense because if it could sleep with a threat present, the threat would go ignored and we'd perish to predation.
So when a sleepless night occurs, I must be subconsciously recognizing this as a thread since it makes me feel terrible, risks serious disruptions to my day and may present severe mental health consequences. This realization causes wakefulness during the night to be perceived as threatening by the brain. When it comes time to sleep and this fear of not sleeping exists, the brain pops into fight or flight in response to this "threat" and becomes chemically unable to cross over into sleep. This theory aligns best with my symptoms; acute onset, near total insomnia and worsening symptoms the longer it goes on (positive feedback loop).
--- The saving grace ---
For anyone else with similar symptoms, I found a possible workaround that can be used temporarily when sleep is not possible. This workaround produces a partial restorative action in the brain without the sleep requirement and will help prevent total sleep depravation and reduce (or slow down) the health risks associated with it. It's called NSDR or Non Sleep, Deep Relaxation. From the sources I found, 1 hour of NSDR is supposed to be roughly equivalent to 20 min of sleep. This is what I had been doing the past 7 days without knowing when I would lay in 1 position for hours on end 4-7-8 breathing and meditating to space ambient music.
--- I broke the cycle, but I had to take a rocket into space to do it --
I finally got 10 hours of sleep last night (6/29/2024) which broke the cycle but I had to take a rocket into space and blow my mind to do it. The Diazepam I was prescribed along with a huge dose of melatonin and a painfully long wait for 9pm to roll around did the trick (this time). I could feel the anxiety leave my body and my mind being blown 20 min after the 10mg dose of Diazepam. It wasn't long afterwards that my misery finally ended. Amazing stuff...
I know it sounds insane but I am traumatized by this experience and have trust issues with my brain when it comes to sleep. I'm not taking this lightly and am committed to sleeping well with absolutely no meds.
What medication, and what dose, are you taking to help you sleep?
Zolpidem Tartrate 10 MG. Generic for Ambien. Most Dr's will only prescribe 5 MG but that doesn't work on me.
I also wake up during every surgery/procedure that I have ever had. Takes more than the usual person for me. If you are over 60 most dr's will not prescribe it because of fall issues. ex. getting up in the night to pee and falling. I was 41 when I started taking it and now am 68. I don't have many of the side effects that I did when I first started taking it. I guess that I have taken it so long I can function better than my husband when we have a fire alarm go off in the middle of the night or the buglar alarm (it is usually the deer eating my azaleas and rubbing their nose on the window. ) But their are some when you first start and continue for a couple of years. Within 10 minutes you will be asleep. As the years go by, you learn to adjust because it takes 2 hours to work at this point. I don't set an alarm either. I get up when I wake up - - - lucky me. 7 - 8 hours every night and rarely wake up in the night. Medicare will not pay for it because it is a controlled substance. It is cheap and I love my life therefore need to sleep. Sleeping is super important, particularly for us older folks. They have found a connection between dimentia and not sleeping but then again they found that with over-the-counter heart burn medication as well. Good luck. I know how you feel and it is super scary. Talk to your Dr. It's important to sleep. Tried Melatonin didn't work for me nor did any other all natural remedy Again, talk to your Dr. I do have an underlying issue with Cortisol.
Have you done a sleep study by a Pulomonolgist? It could be hormones, that's how mine started.