sleep problems and using a weighted blanket.

[JayCS]

I’d like to try it, how do you do it from home? Do you have the put the contraption on your head and stick wires on you? Do you take the machine home or something?did the dr refer you or private? It’s interesting I find brainwaves and brainwave levels interesting anyway but more so fibro ones

The nurse drives around in the evening, puts it on people in their homes, then collects it from them in the morning - I took it off myself (put it in a shoebox). You are very weirdly wired up on head and chest, I had to take a photo. My GP referred me when I asked him to. I'm on semi-private, but it can be done on the "state" insurance here, and doing it at home may be cheaper for them (altho in the sleep lab they can probably monitor many people at the same time and no one has to drive around).

 

[Auriel]

Quirky, did they suspect sleep apnea then or something?

 

[JayCS]

suspect sleep apnea

No, not really, actually they like you were interested mainly in my brain waves... ;-) As the so-called "assistant", my fave, said in the summer (a year after the tests), it may be a mingle-mangle of a bit of several things (he was thinking of RLS and brain wave stuff...)

 

[Auriel]

Ooh, yeah I just find stuff like that interesting , I got books on different brain level states for visualisation and things, I like unusual things

 

[Auriel]

Were they suspecting a dopamine imbalance then? (Just wondering cos of the rls thing) can they check chemical imbalances through a brain wave test?

 

[JayCS]

Were they suspecting a dopamine imbalance then? (Just wondering cos of the rls thing) can they check chemical imbalances through a brain wave test?

Well, they weren't suspecting anything in particular, just wanting to help me find out why I'd suddenly started getting wide awake a lot of the time every night. If they had specifically been suspecting RLS, they wdve done an in-lab-test, there they can measure how much the body/legs are moving around ("periodic leg movement", PLM). In the home test they can only try to infer that from the kinds of waking time. What is done to confirm the suspicion is to give something that increases dopamine, e.g. L-dopa, like I was then eventually also given, and if that helps then it will probably've been due to RLS, so the treatment trial is part of the diagnosis. In my case it was after I'd started balancing out my serotonin and dopamine with GABA, glutamine & theanine. That and the lower back unrest was the reason why he thought I shd try the L-dopa.

Once again the lower back unrest was a case of trigger hunting tho - finding out by thinking & testing that it only happened when lying on my back. I thought it was mainly in bed, but then I realized that when I was lying on my back during acupressure I was tightening my backside. I'd always thought it was due to the treatment, but then I realized when I consciously forced it to stay relaxed, my SIJ started paining. Then testing in bed I realized that I could stop it from hurting by not lying on my back, experimented that by wrapping my duvet round, sparing out the SIJ, I could lengthen the time I could stay on my back by a few minutes, and taught myself to become sensitive to the point of no return, which is about 4 minutes. Meaning if I did it a few minutes longer it could take hours or a cold shower to stop it and be able to sleep again....

 

[Auriel]

Interesting, thanks @JayCS could talk about things like this for ages but it might take up the entire thread! I’m the same as you were waking up all time (think it’s common with fibro) sometimes I wake up between 2 + 3 fully alert like a button like its morning + then other times Ive woke up and I can’t move (bit like locked in syndrome) I hate that, anyway, thanks, I’ll just like the posts for the rest of it.

 

[JayCS]

Interesting, thanks @JayCS could talk about things like this for ages but it might take up the entire thread! I’m the same as you were waking up all time (think it’s common with fibro) sometimes I wake up between 2 + 3 fully alert like a button like its morning + then other times Ive woke up and I can’t move (bit like locked in syndrome)

Why not - what could be more on topic? What is a thread without posts...

Yup that's it: fully alert like its morning. 'cept not only between 2+3: without doubled passiflora it 'd start 90' after falling asleep (only after a cold shower), in rhythm with the sleep cycles, every 60-120'. I was doing autogenic training instead, a good workaround, but now I expect my supps to do the job, and if they don't I actually get up when my body says and work out patterns.

Not being able to move sounds worrying at first, but I just research-searched that it's sleep paralysis, common, due to your body being asleep and your mind still or already being awake, so a bit out of sync when going on to the first or next sleep cycle, and doesn't normally need to be treated (e.g. webmd), so similar feeling to locked-in, but nothing like as serious. (Or is it?)
I think I'd just practice being happy that I am lucky enough to be aware that my body is sleeping.
Reminds me I occasionally get a focal seizure when falling asleep as the brain waves get more susceptible to it then.

 

[wiserlady]

I found the proper weighted blanket is too heavy for me, find it hard to sleep where I feel I cannot move about and toss and turn. But I sleep with lots of very warm thick blankets on me, so it's heavyish, and if the blankets are pulled up around my face all night it helps me sleep a lot, but they must be fleece blankets which are very soft and warm to the touch.

 

[JayCS]

My wife wished for one for Christmas that's on sale at our Aldi at the moment. I wasn't sure if 6kg or 9kg, taken the lighter one now, thinking

the proper weighted blanket is too heavy

for her too... Let's see... Now I may as well try this proper one myself, too, if she lets me ;-)

 

[wiserlady]

I got mine on amazon, and found they are just as good and cheap as lidl with more choice. Very often I've seen so called bargains at lidl and looked on amazon and found the exact same thing cheaper there.