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Fresh Mud

A blog about living with FSH muscular dystrophy. Questions?

Post 25 of 46

Insomnia

Thursday 9th December, 2021

If these entries had a timestamp then this one would read 2:31am.

It feels like forever, but is actually around three months, since I have been able to get a decent nights sleep. A normal night for me at the moment consists of settling down between midnight and 1 o’clock, usually being able to doze off, only to wake 20 to 30 minutes later. I lie awake for an hour or so (my record is around four hours), and then, half the time, I can get back to sleep; the other half of the time, my painkillers wear off and my right hip makes its presence felt. I ask the nurse for some Oramorph and the dose I have, 250ml, isn’t really enough to ease the pain, but it does seem to be able to knock me out.

Having trouble sleeping is a symptom of anxiety and depression, of which I have both, with the added irony of having anxiety over not being able to sleep.

It has been suggested several times that I ask the doctor to prescribe something to help me sleep, but for some reason I am reluctant to do so and would rather try to overcome this myself. Prior to sleep, I always play some relaxing music, have a light snack and a cup of tea, usually rooibos or, my new favourite, rooibos and honey.

Luckily for me, I rarely have to get up early, so I can set my alarm for 10 o’clock and have a lie-in. This doesn’t stop the bags under my eyes appearing, and people commenting: “Wow, you look tired!”