"The Road to Hell is Paved With Good Intentions" (Author Debated)

by Shelley
(Greater Toronto Area)

Re: After most likely being tired for a good part of the day, heed your body's desire for sleep as soon as you can in the evening, before the clock-dependent alerting kicks in.

I am a 56 year old female who has tried Everything!! With regard to the above, yes, I do fall asleep for an hour and a half and then my body awakes and says "What a great nap!" Then I'd be hard pressed to fall back asleep until the sun rises.

I've gone the gammit from OTC drugs (melatonin,valerian,sleepwells) to heavy duty benzodiazapine use. I'm about to enter CamH for a detox which scares the hell out of me.

I've been down the Lyrica road as well. It had little effect and left a horrible daytime fog.

I've had this circadian rhythm disorder or delayed sleep phase (as it is called here). To date no one has come up with a solution.

Because this lack of sleep causes chronic severe pain, the doctors throw the Fibromyalgia label at me. However,the first few months of Imovane (Lunesta in the USA) finally gave me about three hours of deep sleep and a few more of REM, and I was pain free!! There is no test for Fibromyalgia, only speculation and now I see it as a 'catch all' for sleep/pain disorders. Gosh, I'd be up for a series of PET scans, if I could find a hospital to do it. I've also come across articles which refer to all of this as Adrenal Fatigue.

This has ruined my marriage, my friendships and even the respect of my adult children. My father experienced this horrific cycle and ended his life. Fibromyalgia wasn't a recognized disease then and truly what difference did it make? There was no help.

Is there an answer? Am I to spend the rest of my life with regret, anger, a feeling of uselessness?

If there is an answer, a possible solution, something I haven't tried, then with utmost appreciation, please reply.