Category: Health and Wellness
Hey guys. So for as long as I can remember, I've always had some sort of trouble with sleeping. Over the years it's gone back and forth between sleeping too much and not being able to sleep anywhere near enough. I was dealing with some severe depression a few years back so assumed the majority of these problems stemmed from that. More recently, within the last year or so, the problems have been getting worse despite my having worked through the depression since then. There are nights when I'm lucky to get more than an hour or two a night for sometimes weeks at a time, or I'll get some time of consistent good night's sleep but still go through the day drowsy. Both my therapist and primary physician have suggested I try melatonin, explaining to me that this is a common issue with the blind, and I'd like to hear others' opinions and experiences with it. Did it work? How effective was it? I know the importance of staying on a set schedule is necessary for taking it, so how have you managed this? Sleep routine ideas? One concern I have is that my major often requires me to go to evening events on campus at my university which is pretty far from my home, and this would keep me out later than what would be the set routine I would have for my normal schedule. Has anyone had a similar situation like this and how did you deal with it? Any input would be appreciated and thanks in advance.
Well, I've tried taking melatonine for some time and it definitely helps. However nothing tops having a set sleep schedule to ensure good sleep but as a yong person that can be quite difficult. In extreme cases when I can't sleep I will try to go the night and the next day and than try to go early to bed and wake up fresh in the morning. When I have to stay up later the normally I think the most important thing for me is to still wake up at the same time as normal even if it means I'm going to be tired for the day. There are a few topics on sleep and the blind on this site here most of them under health and wellness that I'd advice you to look over, but ultimately you have to find out how it's best for you to manage your sleep yourself. I don't think there is a trick that works for everyone but there are a lot of suggested ways to improve sleep so some of them gotta work.
Melatonin oly gives me three to four hours of sleep max if I am lucky, sometimes maybe only 45 minutes, but if you are only getting an hour a night, 3 to 4 would be a significant improvement.
Have you discussed the whole non 24 thing with either of them? From what I understand, you can't have any light perception for that diagnosis to fit.
Good luck.
Melatonin doesn't do anything whatsoever for me. to top it off, non-24 is such a rare diagnosis, that many physicians don't even know about it, not to mention the fact that, outside of Melatonin, there's currently no known treatment for this.
Melatonin didn't work for me either.
If you're going to do this, you're a lot better off getting a really small amount
like a few hundred mg rather than like 1 to 5 g of this stuff.
the trick is buying the pills that are time released, so your system doesn't get
flooded, but gets enough to keep you feeling sleepy for more than a few hours.
Taking too much of this is just as bad as not taking any, actually. I find it worse
if I take this stuff, in the typical form, because I wake up feeling sick and foggy.
It was the therapist who suggested non 24 after doing some research, then my physician suggested the melatonin to try to deal with it. He started me on 10 milligrams and said we'd adjust it from there if needed. I don't know if the ones I have are time released, but I'll look into that. Thanks. So far I haven't noticed much of a difference, except maybe that it's easier to fall back to sleep when I wake up in the middle of the night. I've noticed that it does take me longer to feel completely awake in the morning though. To the previous poster, do you mean the time released pills changed this? Sorry, not sure what you meant by the typical form.
Yep, I was thinking the normal was non time release. and also, meant
micrograms vs milligrams.
what seems to work best for me, is a few hundred micrograms with time
release.
I was considering the non-24, since I have frequent insomnia. A really close friend of mine at work is looking to this also because she has the same thing, but neither of us are a real fan of nightmares, which I understand can be a side-effect. Anyone had experience with this new med?
All right guys, here's a different perspective.
First, I've found this to get worse as I get older. I have been blind all my life, work a job, occasionally chew out my college aged daughter after paying for yet something else I should have known about sooner, and a zillion other things us average middle age masses deal with.
Another thing I too often do, as one who works in the office, has been to get too little sun. Maybe you're at the gym working out, but you don't get any sun. You can't see the sunlight through the window, and even sighted people don't really benefit from that the way they would if out in it. Our ancestors got a hell of a lot more sun, for most of human eveolution.
Whether they call this non-24 or what have you, it's real. The bio clock is a little more than 24 hours long, which is why you have a good sleep schedule for awhile and it gradually goes askew.
Actually all clocks by definition go adrift, even atomic clocks, and are constantly being reset to what we call accurate time, something that is extremely modern in human development.
A sighted person's clock gets reset by sunlight.
Humans aren't the only ones who deal with this. The most pronounced animals I have ever seen deal with this are birds. Birds are so photosensitive you turn off the lights and they go to sleep in relatively short order. Lots of bird rescue places actually have to fix their sleep problems, related to lighting.
If you are like me, and live in a climate where it rains most of the year, get as much sun as you can. That may not fix your non-24, but it will help your well-being. You can physically work out in a gym, but you're not getting most the benefits you evolved to get from exercise, mentally and physically. And remember, all clocks, and compases, drift.
Only, we don't have light to recalibrate ours. I am a firm believer the older we get, the more it affects us.
I know, science has to come along and ruin everything for people with all the trite answers and apologetic.
But humans with this problem have my empathy.
I've had sleep issues for as long as I can remember. I don't believe I can have Non 24, because I have light perception. But I've tried Melatonin, and all it did was give me really strange and vivid dreams.
interesting about the nightmares. I have them frequently, but never attributed it to the sleep disorder.
Nightmares, and it screws up my already bad hearing even more. So, no more melatonin for me.