Tried to go back to bed last night after I wrote my blog hoping that would wind me down enough, but it didn't work. I had a rough night trying to sleep. I was up and down I don't know how many times to pee, tossing and turning. When I finally did sleep it wasn't for long before I was awake again.
Multiple sclerosis messes with my sleep bad. I had a sleep study done last year because of it. I got absolutely no REM sleep, and woke up hundreds of times throughout the night. i wish that was an exaggeration. While I have no sleep apnea or anything of that sort, sometimes my brain just doesn't want to sleep. There's a ton of things that happen that let your body sleep, chemical changes, etc. Because of where my lesions are on my brain things don't always happen properly, and then I don't get to sleep very well. Everyone's MS is different. Hell, sometimes I think mine changes day by day. One thing that remains the same though is that it loves to mess with my ability to sleep.
Sleep is further complicated for me by my rheumatoid arthritis. Long periods of time in one position (like when you're sleeping) allow joints to get stiff, swollen, and more painful than they usually are. It can be hard to find a comfortable position, and keep it when you do find it. My joints are often pretty grumpy after I sleep and it takes a good hour plus for them to loosen up enough to be able to go about the day. When I do manage to fall asleep, I am quite often woken up by pain. Whether the pain's a result of MS or RA just depends on the moment. A number of factors go into a good sleep enviroment for me, but unfortunately both of those diseases enjoy the exact opposite of the temperature spectrum. You can't really make them both happy.
I've tried sleep aids like Ambien. In lower doses it does nothing for me except make me even tireder as I lay there struggling to sleep. The higher doses do manage to knock me out, but then I wind up doing all types of crazy crap in my sleep. I sleep walk with it, have conversations I don't remember, hell I even punched my husband! Needless to say, I don't take it.
Sure enough, I had an irritated husband this morning. We went to bed around 10pm. He's been working first shift at work. Neither of us are morning people, our dog isn't even a morning person. She grumbles about getting out of bed to go out and pee that early. I got up and blogged for awhile, went back to bed, and then got up another dozen times to pee, etc.
When I was single this wasn't an issue. The only person's sleep schedule I had to worry about was my own. If I couldn't sleep, laying in bed all night watching Netflix wasn't a big deal. I'd sleep when I could sleep. Sometimes I'd be deliriously tired by that point, but at least the only person it was hurting was me. And it's not that my husband's insensitive to my situation, he knows I can't help for it. But he also knows he has a ten hour day at work ahead of him and he can sleep.
Tysabri has pretty well kept my MS related insomnia in-check, but I did just get my infusion. I'm hoping this is an issue that passes in a few days time. I'm sure the recent increase of steroids is adding insult to injury as well. It's too chilly right now not to be snuggled up in bed with my husband at night, but his work day is too long to be tossing and turning, and getting up to pee constantly; keeping him awake all night.
It's a problem. Now today I'm so tired and all I want to do while he's at work is sleep, but that will set me up for failure again tonight. I'll probably wind up giving in though. I doubt today will be very productive at all.
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