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Better Sleep with Chronic Pain?
Chronic Pain | Last Active: Mar 30, 2022 | Replies (7)Comment receiving replies
Hey there @shack76. It's been a minute since we connected. Outside of your interrupted sleep, how are you doing?
I remember miserable, sleepless nights from symptoms. I even slept in my living room, in my recliner, for the better part of 3 years. Thankfully, I've worked what I learned at Mayo Clinic's Pain Rehabilitation Center diligently and have been able to break disruptive cycles like poor sleep. I'll throw out some basic sleep strategies I learned. It's not rocket science, but can make a difference.
Sleep Strategies:
1. Same sleep/wake cycle - go to bed and wake up the time every day
2. Limit naps to 20-30 minutes (set a timer)
3. Zero electronic screens before bed (tv, phones, games)
4. Bedroom is used for sleep and intimacy only (stay out of bedroom during the day)
5. Wind down time - learn relaxation techniques like diaphragmatic breathing, meditation, mindfulness
6. Read (or listen) to a book before bed (young adult novel is recommended... brainless, no stress distraction. I actually do a word search puzzle instead)
7. Sleep in cool environment (68 degrees or less)
8. Warm bath or shower before bed
9. Manage symptoms throughout day to avoid push/crash, making nights worse
10. Stress management throughout day
11. Reduce or omit unneeded chemicals (meds) as much as possible that affect sleep
12. Don't lay in bed for more than 20-30 minutes if you cant sleep. Get up, turn lights on, go elsewhere, read and try again later
It's a lot, I know, but maybe you can start to pick and choose some ways then build on that to benefit your sleep pattern. Nothing to lose! It took me time, patience, and diligence. Good luck, my friend.
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Thanks for the reply.
These suggestion all make sense, but they fit into the category of easy to understand a lot harder to pull off. I'd say I have both some decent habits in terms of sleep and also some bad ones. (You've never heard that before.) One of my good ones is being a musician most of my life (it's one of the things I do for work. I'm very grateful for the fact I can still do some work I enjoy that doesn't take me out of the house) music is something that helps.
Bach wrote a book of variations , where supposed to be written for some 18th century Prince who was suffering from insomnia. They're called the Goldberg variations. (That's probably just historical Legend.) One of things I've started doing started doing is working on now or two of the variations on the piano I have downstairs for about twenty minutes before bed. This does seem to help.
One of things that about this is once I get to sleep the pain wakes me up. It seems to worsen when I don't move, but when I don't get enough rest it gets worse to. If I could learn how to sleep walk that might be the answer, but I don't think that is a learned skill.
Bad habits I need to work on our clearly; caffeine. It only makes things worse.
I don't know whether more physical exercise would help right now;
I've gotten started with OHSU, I've been referred to a couple of clinics. And based on the records we sent them, the referral's my primary care doctor sent , and the online health history which was taken by physician's assistant they have referred me to one of their neurology professors who also sees patients. There is a possibility I have what is called Autoimmune Mitosis; this is an umbrella term to describe a set of neuromuscular diseases which can come to the surface in a manner which my current symptoms have (surgery and vaccines can both play role), and tend to be seen in patients with my background. The symptoms often start in the nerves and spread to the muscles. (This has started to happen. There's been times where I feel like my legs are dead weight, the calfs and thighs have dull ache).
Overall it looks similar to MS (which does run in my family), in a the very least the same specialists tend to treat both
So even though exercise and movement tend to make thing's feel better. I need to be very careful, not to over do it, and find out exactly what I'm dealing with.
If this is in fact the correct diagnosis it's not that different from the sensitization disorder the neurologist in the video from Mayo you sent a few weeks ago was talking about.
Even if it doesn't fit the exact definition I believe many of the concepts still apply.
Philip