What is it like to live with serious sleep problems in the long term? We talked to Dave, in his mid-thirties, who has been dealing with Insomnia for a decade.
Dave’s Sleep Problems
“It started due to another medical problem about 10 years ago, and I don’t know if it’s ever going to get better,” he explains. We are talking in the late afternoon – he has been awake since the previous midnight. “My problem is that once I wake up then I stay awake. I’m a very light sleeper and even the slightest thing wakes me. This tends to be quite inconvenient because I live in a flat with upstairs and downstairs neighbours.”
He has thought about moving, he says, but realistically he knows that he couldn’t afford a detached home, and he doesn’t want to live separately from his family, even though the noise they make can also be a problem.
Like many people with nocturnal awakening type insomnia, Dave is also very sensitive to changes in ambient light. “In summer I tend to wake very early, even though I have thick curtains,” he says. Sometimes he aims to go to sleep while it’s still light because this means he won’t be woken by the light getting brighter, so he has more chance of sleeping for a reasonable amount of time.
Everyday Life
Due to the severity of his problem, Dave finds that ordinary day-to-day activities can be difficult to cope with. “It affects my ability to go out and get work and to socialise,” he says. “I’m doing a distance learning degree and my sleep problem interferes with my studying. It means that I’m tired when I’m trying to work and it’s difficult to plan studying.” This means he always has to start assignments as early as possible to allow time for things going wrong.
“If I’ve been up for a long time and not had much sleep, I end up falling asleep during the day. This can mean that I can’t get to the shops to get groceries and I can’t go out to pubs with my friends if I fall asleep at six o’clock at night. It can also mean having to force myself to stay awake all through the night to get to the morning because I need to do something.”
Ways of Coping
Like most people with chronic insomnia, Dave has been offered Sleeping Pills. Unfortunately, he is one of those people for whom some of them don’t work at all, while others make him sleep for an hour and wake up feeling refreshed, but the effect doesn’t last. He hasn’t had a problem with Sleeping Pill Addiction but the only ones that do work give him severe problems with nausea.
With pills not an option, there isn’t much the doctor can do. “I’ve been offered Counselling but I don’t see much point in that. It would just be to help me feel better about it. A lot of the time I just work around my sleep problems.” He has had to accept that they may not be curable and he is determined to make the best of his life as it is.
So does he have any advice to people dealing with nocturnal awakenings for the first time?
“Give up and get up and do something productive,” he says. “Don’t just lie there.”
This has to be a special kind of hell. I have had sleep problems for over a decade, but not to the level of this fellow’s. Has he had his cortisol rhythm checked? Thyroid? Now that I am on thyroid meds (and I was barely hypothyroid, according to lab tests. They aren’t all that accurate) my sleep is deeper and more resilient. Light and noise are less of a problem. Things aren’t terrific, but they’re much better than they were. I hope this fellow finds what he needs!
I have had sleep problems for the past 2 years. my dr just took me off of ambien er and increased the trazadone this is not working. I do have bipolar disorder and he says it is defintley because of this. I do every thing right like no caffeine, no exercise at night and so on. is there something else I can do
I have had sleeping problems since I was 14 I am now 49. I need to have something I can recourse to if I don’t sleep. I find trazodone very good if I only take it 3 times a a week. Nothing has ever been so effective and I have been through the lot. Benzodiazepines…you name it. It has been my life’s nocturnal hell. I sympathize enormously when I meet another sufferer. I also suffer bouts of clinical depression, which has been my daytime demon.
Hello, fellow insomniacs – my sympathy and best wishes to you all ! I have an appointment with my GP next week, and he is going to refer me to a sleep clinic after three year plus of this hideous condition. In the meantime, I am on a short course of Zopiclone – the bliss of knowing I will sleep is wonderful. I took them three years ago, and managed to stop with only one night of rebound insomnia, hopefully it will be as easy this time. The hell of trying to drag yourself through the day after a bad night – people don’t really understand. ‘Oh you will sleep if you’re tired enough’ – no – that’s the problem ! Being so exhausted you could just cry, but not feeling drowsy, therefore no sleep. I was also thinking of trying acupuncture – has anyone had any success with this ?