Bad Dreams

Hi,

Those are some dreams😞 . Are there any medications that could be contributing?

I completely get the maze part..its a confusing disease..

Also ..one that unless you have it , or some of the ones like it..it is very misunderstood by those around us..even people who try..

Have you tried any of the sleep and relaxation tapes at night? There are many online..maybe just changing the messaging going into sleep time could help?

If you are spiritual..praying into sleep is great..

I have considered hypnosis for calming the pain signals..wonder if that might help

Just some thoughts..lj

Thanks LJM
I appreciate your replying and positive thoughts and suggestions.
I have a duel problem. I also have sleep apnea. Really bad.
I don't go to sleep. I fall asleep. Like one moment awake and
the next I'm waking up in the middle of the night. Having not
put on my CPAP I don't get REM sleep. Not getting a good night's
sleep means that my fibro pain is much worse the next day. The
added pain makes it hard to get a good night's sleep... around and
around.

I came up with the idea of combining my MedCenter clock (sold
on Amazon) with my CPAP machine waking me up to remind me
verbally to turn on my CPAP machine AND put the mask on. But
I can't get CPAP manufacturers to make it. I don't want to get
into being an inventor because I don't have those skills. I just
want and need the end product.

Anyway, when I can I turn off the TV, turn off the lights, put my
CPAP on and listen to soft music to go to sleep. But at best that
is only about 25 percent of the time. I have also heard that
untreated sleep apnea has been linked to Alzheimer's disease.
I am also having memory problems. Especially short term memories.
Especially short term memories. I am also having memory problems. LOL

Anyway, I take non-opoid pain medications like Lyrica and Tramadol. I don't
know if they cause dream problems but I literally can't live without them. Without
them I am constantly miserable and can't do anything.

Thank you for your empathy. So many people read this thread and did not
comment. I appreciate you just commenting so that I don't feel so alone in
my suffering.

I am a Christian and I do pray often. If someone was ever healed from fibro.
I might have some faith that it could happen to me even though I know that
God could do it. But I realize that God has His reasons for my situation.

Please let me know if you try hypnosis. I have tried Mindfulness but it only
helps for short periods. That is a lot like self-hypnosis.

I sleep in a recliner because I have not yet found a bed that I can sleep in.
If it does not give enough my shoulders and hips and lower back hurt to the
point that I have to get up. I can't afford the beds that move into a raised
head, raised feet recliner-like position.

When I have a nightmare (weekly) I flail my arms and legs knocking objects
off of the table next to my recliner making a mess. Once the recliner fell over
backwards and I was left upside down in a position I could not get out of and
making it hard to breath. Yelling, my wife saved me. I have put a stool behind
my recliner so that that cannot happen again.

When having these dreams I also make noises and scream for help that
wakes up my wife in the other room. The effect must be scary for her and
I am glad sometimes that we don't sleep together as I might hurt her.

So any way, sleep apnea combined with fibro. is a real mess. I just wish
someone would invent the alarm clock to remind me when my CPAP is not
on and mask is not on. I also have "middle of the night insomnia which a
lot of people have.

Anyway, thanks again for your thoughts and positive suggestions!
I really, really, really, really, really appreciate it! I wish more people were
as nice as you. 42 views so far an only you were nice enough to comment.
I appreciate your being my psychiatrist for the evening.

Thankfully

Coach Patrick

Post Edited (Coach Patrick) : 8/1/2017 9:45:55 PM (GMT-6)

Dear Ljm
I don't really forget my mask. I rarely have the opportunity
to put the mask on because I fall sleep so quickly. The other
day I took a drink of water and set the jug down and before
I swallowed the water I fell asleep. No joking. I know this is
what happened because my jaw went slack and the water
came out of my mouth and fell down on my chest waking
me up. It would be funny if it was not so tragic. I don't have
narcolepsy. One funny thing that used to happen to me is
that sitting on a couch I would fall asleep and my head would
ball back and hit the wall which would wake me up for about
15 seconds when I would fall asleep again and my head would
fall backwards hitting the stucco wall waking me up again etc.

You can imagine my wife's confusion when she was in then other
room and would hear..............thud.....................thud.............
..............thud.................thud......................thud..................

This was before I got tested for sleep apnea and got my cpap machine.

Once while driving home in the middle of the day I fell asleep and hit
the raised median in the center of the road and going about 40 miles
per hour dented the rims so hard that both left tires went flat.

Luckily I no longer drive. When I started taking my pain meds I no longer
trusted my judgment. Once I made a left hand turn onto a 4 lane road not
being sure if I could make it into the road before the approaching car got
there. Luckily there was plenty of room and I made it, but I so scarred myself
that I haven't driven since. That was about 8 years ago.

I am homebound, as I would gather many fibros are. Is it okay to use that
word as a noun? I don't mean to be mean. Anyway, I don't leave the house
because I can't stand for more than 2 minutes because the pain in my feet legs
and back is so bad I am driven to the ground or the nearest seat. I can't sit on
a hard surface for more than about 5 minutes with intense pain in my glutes forces
me painfully to stand up again. And this is with my pain medications.

The only relatively release I get is when fully reclining in Betsy (my recliner)
distributing my body weight throughout my back. Even sitting up in my soft
recliner I can only type about a paragraph before I have to recline back for a
while. So I have had to recline 7 times to write this so far.

There is a formula with my fibromyalgia. Pressure + Time = Pain or P+T=Pa
My little 25 lb. dog can't sit between my legs when I am reclined and rest his
little head on my leg for more than 30 seconds before I have to shake my leg
and make him raise his cute little head.

This may help someone. I have to moan or say ouch when lightning bolts of pain
run down my legs or I am stabbed by an imaginary needle...anywhere. This happens
about every 10-20 minutes or so. My loving wife says, (when I first got fibro.) "Do you
have to make that noise?" And I would reply, "Yes, if someone stabbed you with a long
needle wouldn't you have to say "ouch" every time?"

Well I recognized that I needed to know that she cared whether or not I am in pain. My
yelling or moaning in pain can get on her nerves to. Well we came up with something.
Our love name for each other when falling in love was "Boo Boo" as in Yogi Bear and his
buddy Boo Boo. I can do a fair imitation of Yogi. She would laugh. Anyway when I make
an "ouch" or I moan she (not EVERY time) says "Oh, poor Boo Boo." This makes me feel
loved and not ignored. She gets to express her love without always having to feel empathy.
Feeling empathy all the time can be emotionally tiring. Sometimes she says it with little
expression which I still appreciate and when it REALLY hurts she says it with more meaning.
I think this alone can save a marriage.

Anyway, I am hurting and my arms hurt from typing so bye for now. ;)

Coach Patrick ( I bet you will never guess what I coached!)

Hi Susie
Thanks for the well wishes. One challenge with having both fibro and sleep apnea is that as some have suggested to me you can't just put on your cpap before the time you might fall asleep because remember pressure + time = pain even the pressure of a cpap mask on the facial muscles. I have many times put on my mask but after about 15 minutes I have to take it off because my face hurts so bad and then I fall asleep.

My best guess for these dreams are due to the fact that if you don't get REM sleep for a few days that your brain makes up for it by having very vivid ones which seem during the dream to go on and on. Combine that with your brains need to make sense out of the pain messages that are coming in result in the very bad nightmares (VBN's)

I have a couple of questions. Does anyone else have what I call "painful wakeups" where it feels like your skin is on fire or you have a bad sunburn all over your body? This lasts for about 1/2 hour.

The second thing is I just saw another ad for this Quell device. Is it worth the investment?

Thanks all

Coach Patrick

Hi Sherrine
I do move. The most I can do is walk back and forth from one end of the house until another for about 2 minutes until the pain is so great that HAVE to sit down. No option. I try to walk more steps every day but with the limited time it is impossible.

I have heard of people who live fairy normal lives and that makes me think that there is a wide range of fibromyalgia. Assuming that it is caused by attacking and damaging nerves so as to make them more sensitive, mine have been damaged to a greater extent than others. It is not the same for everyone. If you can stand for more than two minutes without being forced to the ground then you don't have what I have.

I do see a rheumatologist who treats fibromyalgia. That is how I know I have fibro. I see my doctor 4 times a year, so I do get checked out. I will run the medications past my Dr. and see what she says. I will check out the websites. Thanks for your help!

Coach Patrick

It does sound like something else could be causing you pain,

Just be sure you and your dr..do not just say..oh its the fibro..

If it is fibro..some of our members have had lyrica stop working for them after a while.

Personally , i am med sensitive so i can only take 1/4 of tramadol at a time..but it does help keep the edge off my pain.

My hubby bought a quell for knee pain..he likes it..i have only tried it briefly after a fall..there are many units similar..we own most of them..i can say any of them can dial my pain back ..for example

I have the willow curve..if an area like my knee is bothering me that day ..say the pain is a seven..using it can dial my pain back to a 3 or 4 . That is a great value to me..but it cannot be used for back pain..

I like my acupressure pad ..when i feel like i am going into a bad flare ..i will lay on it and i feel my breathing deepen, it helps me relax and i sleep better using it..before bed time..it reduces pain some..

Since i cannot take lots of meds , i need other tools for pain..

I get a lot of help from topical pain relievers..soothenol x2 is the strongest..its pricey but only takes a small amount per area..
I also use pain erase..

So aside from having the doctor maybe reassess , it is possible to find ways to help ourselves also...

With fibro, we need to move..or we tighten up and become even more painful..

hope you can get better help with your pain and get those dream calmed

Coach Patrick,

I agree that fibro sufferers never get their life back. I am slowly coming to terms that the me that once was will no longer be. I am a coward when it comes to pain as well. I am not in as much pain as you are from what I am reading. But I do try to find things to work for me. I started aqua therapy this week. If nothing else, it makes me feel great to be in a pool for an hour and move with very limited pain. Talk to your doctor and see if there is a therapy program that might work for you. I know it is hard to muddle through the pain to get to that happy place. I hope that something works to get you over the extreme pain so you can have some quality of life. This is a great forum for support and advise. Everyone here means well and tries to help. Although what works for one may not work for another. I would also ask your rheumotologist if he/she feels that something else might be going on. I am sure they ran a lot of blood work. Sometimes blood work does not tell the full picture. As for dreams, definitely check on your medication. I don't recall my dreams most nights. I do have mild sleep apnea so my rheumotolist feels my exhaustion is from that. I am on my second rheumotologist and am considering finding another one. We really have to fight for good treatment.

I hope that you are able to get a better nights sleep and there are some options to help the pain.

I think sherrines story is inspiring in that , she went from not being hardly able to move..to leading a more normal life..

We all strive for that..at times we can about get there and at other times we are flaring and not as positive..

Still , we can improve from where we are, which is where she inspires with her story😊

We can all misread what is said or spoken at times

Lj

I too am a Christian and I apologize.

This is no excuse for being defensive but as a 62 year old man who has not been able to work for the last 10 years it is very frustrating for me not to have been living my life the way I had envisioned it. Feeling lonely even though I am married because I have to spend the day at home while she works really eats at someone who grew up to believe that a part of a man's worth was in the fact that he was a breadwinner is very frustrating.

So hearing about someone who is doing better than you is not as encouraging as your might think. It is a guy thing and I know that most of the people here are probably women because if I remember correctly fibro hits women more than me for some reason. I have been on disability for about 8 years, but still.

It really helps just to be able to express your emotions in a nonjudgmental environment is a great help, so thank you all.

I coached chess.

Chronic illness is very frustrating..

We all get in that place at times.

I never learned chess..not sure why..but i am good at games so i would do ok with it over time..

Today is busy, wish me luck

Coach's email is in his profile if you want to do this

We don't put email addresses in our posts because anyone in the world that has a computer can see it. But email addresses in the profile are fine because only HealingWell members can see it.

I do play chess and it's a great game of strategy. My husband and I used to play it all of the time.

Sherrine

Thank you for the lovely invitation, Patrick! Unfortunately, I have too much on my plate right now. Even if I did improve at chess, I couldn't play against my husband. Remember...he died of a massive heart attack. It will be 20 years in October. I would have to teach my dog how to play chess. 😂😂😂

But you said you coach people in chess. Why don't you get a student to read part of your transcript and see if there is an improvement in their chess game. This would give you a good indication if your explanation of how to play chess is as easy as you anticipate it to be. I bet you will be happy with the results.

Sherrine