Morning pain, stiffness and recovery time

[SBee]

Hello @ckahern welcome

Its difficult when insomnia hits hard, affecting us both physically and mentally \emotionally. For me, even on a night of really poor sleep I always get up out of bed and go extra slowly and carefully in the day. Occasionally I have a nap later in the day - not intentionally but more because simply cant keep my eyes open a second longer.

I always have a regime leading up to bed time. No i pad\tv\music for 2 hours before bed. No caffeine after 2pm ( if at all, I try to avoid caffeine ) a few gentle stretches to loosen up. Totally dark bedroom and earplugs ( I have sensory problems ) and window open for air. Finding a good regime prior to bed can help with sleep, almost like the body falls into a known pattern?

Incidentally I do take amitriptyline and mirtazapine meds in evening and at night for pain and as an AD. One extra benefit tontheir original purpose is they really do help me sleep.
I'm not advocating using medications to aid sleep, just being honest about my own sleep patterns. I hope you can improve your own much needed sleep.

 

[sunkacola]

I'm right there with you, except I have insomnia so a lot of days I wakeup and try to read for awhile until my eyes are so fatigued that I can't see clearly. I end up back in bed after stretching.

I am not a person who usually recommends medications, but if you have severe insomnia you might look into medication to help you sleep because if you don't get enough sleep nothing else will work right.

I had severe insomnia from birth. Yes, that really can happen.
For the first 30 years of my life I was chronically sleep deprived. I never, ever had enough sleep. Then I started taking medication to help me sleep, prescribed by doctors. it took years and many failures to find the right medication for me, but I have been taking it nightly ever since and now the majority of the time I sleep enough and deeply enough.

Not sleeping for so many years literally made me crazy, and it took a long time to recover once I started sleeping. I think those years of sleep deprivation, along with other things that happened to me, contributed to the fact that I have fibromyalgia, although of course there is no way to know for sure or to prove that.

If you only have occasional insomnia, then don't take drugs for it. But if it is chronic....if 5 or more nights out of the week you do not get enough sleep, and this has gone on for a long time, then talk to a doctor about trying medication. Lack of sleep will lead not only to mental instability but also to many physical issues.

 

[Roch123]

I have same; feel immobilized when I first wake up & takes me a few hours to shower, dress, etc but have been forcing myself to walk several miles a day for exercise even on days I hurt all over. Been on cymbalta for 2 yrs; not sure it’s helping anymore.

 

[sunkacola]

I have same; feel immobilized when I first wake up & takes me a few hours to shower, dress, etc but have been forcing myself to walk several miles a day for exercise even on days I hurt all over. Been on cymbalta for 2 yrs; not sure it’s helping anymore.

Very good that you are continuing to walk. Walking is excellent exercise, and you can do it at the pace that suits you that day.

If the cymbalta is no longer helping you, maybe it's time to talk to your doctor about trying something else.

My experience is that medications will sometimes work for a while and then stop working. for some people, there's nothing that works well over the long term.

But if you keep walking, keep eating a healthy diet, and work on other things that will help you, you will be doing your best to manage this.

 

[Grace3]

@Grace3 .......try not to be too hard on yourself. Treat yourself with kindness.
Yes, you are only hurting yourself. You say you are punishing yourself.
Now, I'm wondering........for what are you punishing yourself? I am not asking you to answer this, as it is clearly none of my business. But it might be a good question to ask yourself. Something maybe just to sit with, not even demanding an answer from yourself, but just asking the question, and see what comes to you.

Sometimes just sitting with a question will bring some interesting insights.

If you feel guilty or bad about things you do or have done, try kindness to yourself. Do something that you know is good for you. throw out all the chocolate and other harmful things in your house. Go out and buy your favorite kind of fruit, no matter how expensive it is, and eat that instead.

Be firm with yourself, but be gentle at the same time.
When I am training a dog, I do not let the dog just get away with a bad behavior. But I never, ever punish a dog either. I don't hit or yell or scold. I just gently make it easy for the dog to do what I want, and hard for the dog to do what I don't want. I do everything I can to set the dog up for success, never for failure.

This means, I never put the dog into a position in which the dog will feel he or she needs to do, or is overly tempted to do the thing I don't want. Instead, I create situations in which it's easy for the dog to choose the right thing to do, and then I praise and reward the dog. I always focus on the dog's success, and let go immediately of the times they fail to do what I want.

People and dogs are really not all that different. People need to be set up for success, too. that means if they need to change a behavior they need to remove the temptation to do the behavior they want to change, and they need to make it easy for themselves to do the thing they want to choose instead. They need to reward themselves (not by then doing the unwanted behavior! But with something else) when they succeed in choosing the right thing. They need to focus on their successes, never their failures, because there will always be both. Focusing on and striving for the successes leads to more successes.

Thanks for your reply,i just feel their is something trying to destroy me i was always criticised when i was young told i was useless. And would never going to amount to much. My dad hated me he told me he wasnt my dad as my mother was unfaithful to him so he never beleived i was his. I was brought up in homes as he couldnt bear the site of me.i got out one of the last homes i married the first person who loved me. Just to get away from my parents. My life went downhill ever after that. I got married at 16 had a child 11 months later. 3 years later my husband died i never married again,i went down the wrong road. Im still trying to get back on track iv never really decided to give up but iv thought about it. Im still here. I got up yesterday after i replied to your post and did my 40 minute exercise routine. I will do it again today. Thanks for your nice reply. Xxx

 

[SBee]

I realise my previous post may sound like I do not agree with using medications as a sleeping aid - when I clearly reap the sleeping benefits of to meds I take for other purposes.
i should have been more clear, in that in some case reviewing our habits prior to going to bed may be enough to kick start a better sleep pattern.

However, i believe very strongly it is a persons individual right to choose take meds, or not to as the case may be.

A lack of refreshing sleep is hugely detrimental to a body which is struggling with varying symptoms and we need to find the best way to help ourselves. Meds can help hugely in some cases. I am trialling amitriptyline for just that purpose, especially as I am in a long flare from inflammatory arthritis which has knocked onto th fibromyalgia symptoms.

a Dr recently listened to me when i said I wanted to reduce certain meds, and she clearly stated that although it is my choice, by reducing or stopping some medication, it may actually leave my body less supported and risk an intensity of flares. Again, for me its back to finding the best balance I can. The meds I am on right now I see as essential to my wellbeing.

 

[sunkacola]

Thanks for your reply,i just feel their is something trying to destroy me i was always criticised when i was young told i was useless. And would never going to amount to much. My dad hated me he told me he wasnt my dad as my mother was unfaithful to him so he never beleived i was his. I was brought up in homes as he couldnt bear the site of me.i got out one of the last homes i married the first person who loved me. Just to get away from my parents. My life went downhill ever after that. I got married at 16 had a child 11 months later. 3 years later my husband died i never married again,i went down the wrong road. Im still trying to get back on track iv never really decided to give up but iv thought about it. Im still here. I got up yesterday after i replied to your post and did my 40 minute exercise routine. I will do it again today. Thanks for your nice reply. Xxx

Being told that you are worthless, or being treated as useless or being in powerless situations when you are very young will have a strong effect on people's lives. This is something well known.

I have some familiarity with this myself.

The problem is that it is up to that individual person to make the necessary changes in their lives, circumstances, attitudes, and so on. And the ability to make those changes is precisely what has been taken away or damaged by the early experiences that person has had.

Unless that person has other experiences that reinforce their worth, people to help, and so on, it's pretty hard to overcome that early conditioning and to think differently about ourselves.

But it's not impossible.

Sometimes it will take that person's whole life. But I know that this conditioning can be overcome. Maybe not 100%, but enough that a person can stop punishing herself, stop feeling worthless, stop being self-destructive. I know, because I have been there and am in a different place now. Unfortunately, and sadly, I cannot draw a map for anyone else to do the same. And I would never say that I am 100% without those influences. But they do not inform my daily activity and I do not engage in self-defeating activities or self-destructive behavior any more.

All I can say to you is don't give up. Refuse to give up. Keep chipping away at it. The smallest little bit that you can do to be kind to yourself and take care of yourself can make a difference and it all adds up eventually.

You got up and did exercises. Make a point of telling yourself what a good job that is. Praise yourself as if you were telling a kid what a good job they did.

Sounds silly? Maybe....but no one will hear you if you do it in your head, and it genuinely can help.
Give yourself credit for every little thing. I mean it.
You eat a piece of fruit instead of chocolate? Praise yourself, tell yourself what a hard thing you just did and what a good job that was.

Every time you do this it will counter the bad (and incorrect) voices in your head that are telling you you are worthless. Do it enough, tell those voices to shut the heck up enough times, and eventually they will. This is one of the many things I did for myself and I can attest that it's worth doing.