Posted by medlib on January 22, 2002, at 21:03:49
In reply to Re: Feeling awful after a somewhat full night's sleep » Dinah, posted by Dinah on January 22, 2002, at 18:25:31
Hi Dinah--
I've had considerable experience, professional and personal, with the sleep situation you described.
Many people who cycle moods are exquisitely sensitive to their amount of sleep; hi sleep- >lo mood, and vice-versa. Because this relationship is inverse and linear; one is a reliable indicator/predictor/result of the other. It becomes quite important to titrate sleep carefully, find your best personal "set point" and stick to a regimen (and meds) which provide that level of sleep--no more and no less. Easier said than done, I know (says Miss Inconsistency).
To a lesser extent, this sleep/mood relationship holds for non-BP "normals" as well. After the birth of their first child, my son and his wife found their sleep plummeting from 8 to less than 5 hours/night. Son was surprised that he felt alert and upbeat at work on so little sleep, but said that he felt "closer to the wall each day". I gave them 7 nights of uninterrupted sleep for Xmas, (not necessarily contiguous). When my son awoke from the "first night of Xmas", he had a headache and felt groggy all day. He's reassessing how much sleep he really "needs". Which begs the question, "How much of the typical 'Saturday/Sunday slump" is due to accumulated work week fatigue and how much is a product of weekend oversleep?"One caveat: 2-3 hours sleep per night is not enough to allow the body to get sufficient REM (dream) sleep. The body is quite rigid about this requirement, and prolonged deprivation of REM at night *will* lead to daytime REM (hallucinations).
Your headaches are likely vascular in origin. Prolonged horizontal positioning - > dilation of cerebral arteries/afterioles. Pain receptors are triggered by large/sudden changes in size of these vessels. Rx? Caffeine or other vasoconstrictors, if you don't have migraine meds.
You might need more Depakote to optimize your overall mood level; but, once you're where you want to be with that, something like Ambien, a short-acting sleeping pill, taken only when needed, might help keep you there.
Well wishes and sweet dreams---medlib
poster:medlib
thread:17066
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/social/20020112/msgs/17086.html