How much sleep do you need?

Or if you feel you need more but because of responsibilities you can't get it. Can you give me an estimate of how much you need? Do you ever feel recooperated. Do you think it's the disease or depression. (which could be 1 in the same). There are days in a row where I could sleep for 20 out of 24 hours. In that 4 hours I'm watching t.v. or eating or somthing really worthless like that. Since I'm single and no kids at home and no job I don't really have a reason to be forced to be up unless of course I have to go shopping or the dr or somthing. Even when my health care worker comes over I have a hard time staying awake. She came over last week and colored my hair and trimmed it. than I took a shower and had to go to bed.

thanks

 

sometimes I can't get enough sleep others I can't fall asleep. I need 10-12 hours to be reasonably able to cope with the day and then I still usually end up needing a few extra hours in a nap.

Before I was diagnosed, but after I started feeling 'weird' I easily slept for 12+ hours a day and still felt like a truck hit me. I was SO surprised when my rheumy prescribed a sleeping aid -- that just seemed so awfully backwards! (Before the lupus symptoms came along, normal was 8 hours for me.) But I did as I was told, and amazingly enough I started waking naturally after about 8 hours. Still didn't feel all that great, but was awake! Took a couple of naps during the day -- would just find myself staring at something with no evidence of brain! Then as I've gotten better (spontaneous lessoning of symptoms or management by meds, who knows?) I find that I naturally sleep 8-10 hours and don't usually need a nap. During this time I've also added a good antidepressant to the med mix - it's easy to sleep too much when bored or depressed. But hand me some stress - mental, physical, or emotional - and my need for sleep goes straight up! And even with more sleep I'm pretty exhausted till whatever is going on passes... If you're sleeping that much it's a good idea to discuss with your doctor, as it could be so many things... Hope you WAKE UP soon,

Hi! Everyone,

I sleep badly on a good night, but literally must be in bed 12 hours. I shower or soak in the tub when I have joint pain increases, after a 5pm dinner, then hit my bed literally, usually too weak, tired, wobbly or dizzy to stay standing any longer. Then watch tv, make a phone call or two, take my Ambien at 7 and sleep till I wake, usually around 3am, snooze, go back to dozing with the news on, and get up when the need for coffee overpowers me. Usually after begging my schnoodle to make it for me.......

sue

Hi Everyone, I'm sorry I didn't get back to you sooner. Sundays are rough for me. By the time I shower get ready and go to church I need to come home eat somthing and take a nap.

Old Hippirebel, I'm sorry you are having such a hard time sleeping. I do have times when insomnia takes over but it's about 3 or 4 days out of a month. The rest of the time I'm sleeping.

Lynnwood, it does make since that you would respond to the sleep aid. Maybe even though you were sleeping you wern't getting a recooperative sleep. I diffinently relate to the stress thing though. and boy it doesn't seem like it takes much for my stress level to go up these days. I imagine this possible transplant has a lot to do with it. Maybe counseling would be of some help. It seem like the only people that have a clue are you guys.

Kara(hugs), I'm glad you have some place to go to talk to people. This place has been a blessing to me.

Sue lol, I try to get TACO to make my coffee too. I think it's only fair. I let him out give him food and fresh water. Apperently he just thinks it's all about him lol.

Hi Patty, bless your heart. How is the move going? are the dogs enjoying there new home? So christmas in your new place that must be exciting!

Alwaysrosie, thanks for the input. I used to get more done when i lived by myself. You're right you can get quite a bit done a little at a time. I always wanted to learn how to do knitting and stuff but I'm left handed and when people would try to teach me I just got confused. I was much younger than. Maybe I should give it another try. Or if you want you can always knit me a warm bare of sockies for this winter LOL. Just kidding.

redrose, it sounds like you are right there with the other for the most part. 10 to 12 hours with a nap. Boy this disease really stinks. How on earth do you deal with a new baby? How old is alexander now?

Thanks again everyone, I hope you get a good night sleep.

carol 

I'm doing this crazy, sudden "jump" awake thingy. It feels like my heart does one big pond and my jumps and wakes me up. Anybody ever do that? My body is having a time adjusting to dialysis. Before I got sick, I could go on very little sleep. Now, i'm all over the map! Judy

Yes, I do have apnea and I recently have had a couple surgeries. Maybe it's a combination of all the stress my body has been through lately. Thanx, Judy

Hey Carol. I really like this thread. I've taken ambien for years, but now that I'm retired (yes, there's tired and re-tired) I've been thinking of asking my shrink about discontinuing the ambien. I know my sleep pattern would be abnormal, but all the rest of you lupies are dealing with it. Besides, the ambien just doesn't work well any more. Anyway, I take anti-depressants that keep me a happy lupie. I've had to switch anti-d's over the years, but I know I must take em. I've come to accept it. You may really need all the sleep you're getting 'cause of all your health problems, but anti-d's might help. I love you! Keep us posted. Butterflake

Carol,
My first answer was my old motto "as much as you can get". But really, I found it has to do with my asthma and sleep apnea. I am told I snore loudly, though I believe this to be a viscious lie, but I'm sure that my sleep would be better if I could get the breath right strips to stay on with my avocado green face puddin' night cream, tee hee.

Actually, my pulmonologist told me that because of my hypoxia and apnea I was not getting restorative sleep andhe had me use my inhaler and Flonase nasal spray to open my nasal passages as wide as possibe, right before I went to sleep, so I could get the max amountof air in and out when I breathed. I'm sure you are on much stronger, and different things, but I would mention it to the doc to see if there is something along those lines that they can do. My ex hubbie used a bipap/cpap machine.

I take my pain meds a good while before I decide to sleep at supper time because the hydrocodone /opiates, effect the respiratory center, they suppress it, and that causes my apnea to get worse.

I'm glad I'm not the only recliner junkie. I had a ministe come over and try to recruit me for his church and he started getting really nasty with me about how I couldn't be a good Christian and servant of God sitting there like a lump in a recliner. I tried to explain I had lupus and he just rolled his eyes. After all, "you don't look that sick."

I now force myself to sleep most nights and to wake up early, even if I did't sleep much the night before.The schedule I used to hate, is helping me alot now.

ANother thingabout sleeping is your matress, the amount of humidity (not too dry) and darkness and quiet. one of my favorite tricks is to listen to a book on tape with headphones as I fall asleep.

Usually, if I get adequate nutrition, oxygen, and have good blood counts and am not in bad pain or sick, I should need 8 hours, but have slept up to18 and even 20 hours before when not doing well. Oddly, the longer I slept after the 8 hour mark, the harder it was to stay awake and initially awaken and I fell into a bad sleep pattern. It ended up with me taking medicine to get me back on track. When my sleep was so off, I ended up using a medicine called provigil, which is like a cross between a stimulant and an antidepressant. My rheumatologist has many patients on it. I think it helped me because it felt like it had a bronchodilator type action due to the stimulant side. I guess a lot of people with lupus that he has are on it and really like it as an alternative to steroids to fight fatigue when the bloodwork isn't real bad. And it gets you backon schedule. Some other drugs are useful for that too, if you get real off.

I hope all is well with you. I've been having home issues, with those people I call family, but it's okay. Just life. Know I'm prayin' for you.

I need 7-8 hours to feel "refreshed" when I'm doing okay. However, there have been times, while in flares, that I've almost slept all day, like 14-16 hours and still felt like I needed to sleep more.

Right now I'm not in a flare, but I do have spine problems for which I take several meds. Those meds make me fall asleep pretty quickly and I sleep about 7 1/2 hours during the week. I usually feel okay when I wake up. If I do something, like trying to walk around somewhere (store or something), because it aggravates my spine problems, I do get exhausted. Then I usually fall asleep early and feel blah for several days.

But like I said, I've had flares in the past where I was completely exhausted and sleepy all the time. My Rheum gave me Provigil to try one time. I took it for a couple days..and had to stop them. They caused me not to be able to sleep almost at all. I was lucky to get a couple hours of broken sleep thru the night. And the worst thing was that med caused my heart to race and pound, it got scary. So I quit taking them & told my Rheum I would NEVER take them again. Then he gave me Elavil, which did nothing for any of my pains, however, it did make me fall asleep within an hour of taking it at night. And I did feel pretty refreshed in the morning.

Live in the moment.

Love ya,

Ginny

Really good advice Ginny.

Hester