Oh man - I tell ya - over the course of the last 15 years, I am pretty sure I have had bouts of all of the most common sleeping issues known to Man.
1. Insomnia
Being unable to sleep was often caused by pain, stomach cramping, and several overnight trips to the washroom. Add in a few cycles of Prednisone, and for months on end I would maybe sleep 20-30 minutes each night.
This was great during University - I was able to utilize 8 extra hours each day than the average person.
2. Nightmares
Prednisone also has a tendency to cause realistic and horrible nightmares. These nightmares felt so real that, for years, I was terrified of even falling asleep. I would sit up and purposely watch an entire series (before the age of Netflix) just so that I didn't have to sleep. The nightmares were always violent, descriptive, shocking, and always ended with a loved one dying. It also included tons of dreams of me getting stabbed (likely from my brain trying to rationalize the pain that I experience). This did not help with problem #1.
It did prepare me for marathon Netflix nights.
3. Hallucinations
It's one thing to have a realistic nightmare, it's an entirely different thing when you are not even asleep, with the lights on and on no hallucinogenic medication, to see zombies and intruders and ex-boyfriends in your actual apartment. It's even worse when you are out and about in the day and see people who are not there... And have conversations with people who are not there.
I wish someone had recorded one of those episodes... Me talking to dead air would have been great footage! I could have been a youtube sensation with that stuff!
4. Sleep-Talking
Yeah.. We all do this now and again. I have actually been told that this often turns into sleep-singing. And sometimes I'm not only speaking gibberish, but sometimes I speak in gibberish AND in different languages. Odd.
5. Sleep-Walking
Yet another common sleep disorder. I would wake up on the living room floor or the kitchen floor. I sometimes woke up to notes (gibberish) or items out of place (like putting a jar of peanut butter into the microwave instead of back into the pantry).
I have to admit, waking up to a clean kitchen and not being able to remember cleaning it isn't exactly a bad thing.
6. Teeth Grinding
I still grind my teeth at night every now and again. It usually coincides with high levels of stress and/or increased pain from flare-ups.
It does indicate that my body is fighting harder and, therefore, notifies me when I need to take a few days to recuperate.
7. Sleep Apnea
Nothing like waking up in an absolute panic gasping for air. For whatever reason, my brain's communication system breaks down and simply stops telling my lungs to breathe. I wind up in a comatose state where my oxygen intake levels go below 60% for up to an hour. I often wake up feverish and with increased nausea.
At least this kind of sleep apnea doesn't result in foghorn-type snoring!
8. Sleep Paralysis
This is also usually experienced by just about everyone at some point. Basically, you wake up in the middle of REM sleep when your body is essentially paralyzed. The vast majority of these instances (for everyone) occur during nightmares and bad dreams... not good dreams. So then, you wake up still IN the nightmare but cannot move a muscle. It is one of the most terrifying sleep disturbances that I have ever had, and I often experience these episodes when I am extra ill and already feeling helpless. Great.
9. Excessive Sleep
My body is fighting itself 24/7. My immune system attacks a whole bunch of my own organs and systems. If you are constantly battling - with no break - of course you're going to be exhausted. My body tends to take way too long to recuperate, and requires an excessive amount of sleep. After a busy day or a busy night, it is often that I will sleep 30-40 hours within a 48 hour period for the following days. In this example, I really am sleeping - not just resting. I will go to bed around 11pm one night and not fully wake up until 7pm the next night, apart from drowsy trips to take care of Decker and to take my medication when my med alarm goes off. It's ridiculous. This last month has been particularly bad. With the trip to Manitoba one weekend, Screamfest another weekend, a trip to Lethbridge another weekend, and a couple of date nights the weekend prior, during the week I am finding that (overall) I am only awake for about 4-5 hours each day. I am literally sleeping my life away - and not by choice.
10. Odd Wakeup Times
Many of my medications that help with pain only last for four hours at a time. This means that when I am finally able to fall asleep, four hours later when my medications wear off, I am woken up with excruciating pain and nausea and requiring another dose. (Hence why many of my blog posts are written at 3 in the morning and other odd times of the night). I often cannot get back to sleep until that next dose kicks in :(.
And let's not forget how my body wakes me up to go to the washroom up to 6 times in a normal 8 hour night. Ugh.
11. Restlessness
With a constant flow of important medical appointments, pain medications that leave my entire body itchy, hip and shoulder pain that forces me to toss and turn, and drastic temperature changes, it's tough to get my body completely relaxed. And if I DO manage to dull the pain enough to sleep, THAT's when I come up with great ideas AND when I want to finish chores I haven't been able to finish because of pain.
12. Temperature Changes
Seriously - this is beyond frustrating. I can go to bed utterly freezing cold, slip under the covers with an extra fleece throw, and two minutes later I am sweating through my pajamas and desperate to turn on a fan for some cool air. It is bad enough during the day where I can be driving and go from full-blast heat to windows open during a blizzard, but worse when I am just trying to get comfortable. My temperature regulation system is fubarred.
13. Night Sweats
This sometimes has nothing to do with temperature changes. It is often associated with thyroid imbalances, nightmares, or for no particular reason at all. These can get so bad that I actually need to change the bedding in the middle of the night. Because who DOESN'T want to do laundry at 4 in the morning?
At least now I have in-suite laundry!
Let's face it, when I was in an apartment with no laundry, I would just throw the sheets in the hamper or on the floor to deal with the following day, and sleep on an extra blanket instead.
14. Snooze-Button Sleep
Yes. I am one of those super annoying people who press the snooze button several times before actually getting up. Every once in a while it is from sheer laziness. Other times, I will wake up with the alarm and assess the state of my body - do I think I can actually stay awake if I get up now? How much pain am I in? Will extra sleep help? How much time do I NEED to get ready? Have I taken my pills?
The weirdest experience is when the 'snooze-sleep' is actually more solid than the previous 10 hours asleep in bed. For whatever reason, that 9 minutes of snooze-sleep is sometimes dramatically more restful than the entire night before my alarm. It is strange how I can be woken up by my alarm and be 'out cold' literally within five seconds.
So, from my body needing sleep, to being terrified to fall asleep, I have an understandable love-hate relationship with sleeping. And although it may SOUND like bliss to sleep for days on end, or 20 hours out of each day, it's not as luxurious as it sounds... and it is often riddled with all sorts of physical and psychological discomforts.
The most frustrating part is not knowing from one day to the next what kind of night I will have. The odd time I can predict what may happen, but that is pretty rare.
All of these fairly unpredictable patterns of sleep is one of the many reasons why I didn't ever really want any roommates - apart from whoever I spend the rest of my life with. How do you explain being able to go several days with virtually NO sleep to then sleeping constantly for weeks on end. Pretty unreasonable to ask a random person or friend to put up with that kind of a convoluted schedule. Whoever eventually lives with me will have to truly love me, and basically be a saint, to deal with my sleep issues.