OT: Why am I always tired?

53rd&3rd said...
I never get enough sleep with my J Pouch. 5 hours was it last night. I can't remember how it feels anymore to get a full nights sleep.

Mmmmm tell me, how long have you had your j pouch?

LivingAgain: you are right about the "having one auto-immune disorder (AID) can lead into another". It's a proven fact, and I'm living proof. I know of a few others in the same boat.
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Tired, yeah, real tired most of the time. Apparently, according to my GI team and other medical professionals I know, its VERY common in folks with AID's. Our bodies are on "high alert" and we just can't regenerate as well as those without AID's. Even when we are not flaring, our bodies "remember". Its kindof like my joint pain. Its usually always there, sometimes worse, sometimes better. It just goes along with the picture.

I'm guessing its my normal. Its kinda stinky, but I always say....It could be worse....

Hanging in there,
Mary

Provigil is a stimulant given to people with narcolepsy/hypersomnia. I will be having an office job as well once I graduate and I'm worried about it. During my internship last summer, I would have to get up and walk around or even go to the bathroom to keep myself awake!

Do you think a quick nap after work would help?

My GI says that IBD'ers shouldn't have fatigue if they're in remission; she first suggested seeing a sleep doctor and then switching anti-depressants. My PCP thinks it's Chronic Fatigue Syndrome or a sleep disorder. The sleep doctor I saw thinks it's nacrolepsy/hypersomnia, which is thought to be autoimmune in nature...

Serenity Now -- retiring and rising at the same time every day is a basic tenet of Chinese medicine, so good on you to have reached that understanding on your own!

Another thing that helps people with insomnia or wakefulness is to reserve the bed exclusively for sleeping (okay, okay, sex, too). No tv or reading or, heaven forfend, working in bed. That teaches your body that bed is the place to relax and sleep. Also, no "screens" for at least an hour before bed -- no email, no internet, no tv, no smartphone.

Also, creating the bedroom as a dark and silent place is important. I use a tempurpedic sleep mask. It's expensive but it works way better than any other sleep mask that I've tried. I'm now at a point where putting on the mask signals my body to shut down and sleep. So that takes care of light. Noise is harder. I live in the city and there are bus lines that run on my street. I have a white noise machine that helps a lot and even when there's no significant noise, if I have trouble falling asleep, the "ocean" sound on the machine can lull me into sleep pretty well.

UC caused me to quit drinking coffee and that's been a real boon for me. I wake up way more refreshed now than I used to when I depended on coffee to get me going. Sometimes I really miss it, but the drawbacks are really much greater than the benefits for me.

And, as you noted, for me, the biggest single factor in being able to sleep through the night is exercise. Really hard exercise on a regular basis does wonders for every aspect of my life. Every aspect. I feel like superwoman even when I'm the slowest person on a group run.

I got mine from Sharper Image. I bet you can find a gazillion on amazon.

I use earplugs from time to time, but I don't care for them much. I think they take a lot of getting used to. A former boyfriend snored loudly and made it worth my while. But the ones they sell at pharmacies and the like are useless. If you go the earplug route, go to the hardware store and get the kind you are supposed to wear while using a jackhammer ;-)

I like sleeping on my couch with the TV on...That's probably not good but I live alone and it makes me feel safer if there is some light on. I will try to cut out coffee and go to bed at the same time every day.

I hate working in an office. I'm not meant to sit still. I do try to get up and walk to the bathroom or break room every hour. I go home for lunch so I could try to take a quick walk then.

bookworm - I asked my nurse practitioner today about getting on a stimulant because I also cannot concentrate on anything and am doing poorly at work but she said it's illegal for her to prescribe them in Indiana (I hate this state). She told me to go to a psychiatrist, but it's a 3 month wait to get into any of the psych doctors here. So now I made an appointment with a new family doctor just for that but I don't know if she'll prescribe anything for me. I'm really sick of going to so many doctors. I'm still paying off last year's deductible.

I have a feeling that at least part of your exhaustion is due to you not getting good rest. Make sure you go to bed (*bed*) at a time that allows you 20 minutes to fall asleep and then your 9 hours of sleep. Before you go to bed, take tylenol or aspirin, whatever you can tolerate, and lie down in at least semi-darkness with no tv or other noise. Make sure you have no caffeine after about 2 in the afternoon. To help yourself get to sleep, you can repeat a mantra which can be anything that has no charge on it for you. If you pray, use a short prayer, no more than one or two lines, and repeat it over and over to yourself silently. If you don't pray, you can wish yourself well over and over ("may I be peaceful; may I be happy; may I sleep well"), or you can count your breaths from one to five and then start over (also start over whenever you lose count which you'll do a surprising amount between one and five LOL). When you find your mind wandering in any of these methods, don't worry about it or judge yourself for it, just go back to your mantra. When you notice that you're telling yourself stories or reliving past moments or thinking about what you'll wear tomorrow, just go back to the mantra.

It's worth a try. Even if you don't have actual sleep apnea (which, by the way, causes headaches and confusion, as well as daytime sleepiness), it sounds like you might effectively be inducing it in yourself.

Maybe the tiredness can be linked to the ortho tricyclen. I'm taking the same and had some extreme tiredness, but this only lasted the first couple of weeks. Course, I've only recently started (3 weeks ago) after not having used any hormonal stuff for about 6 years, so it could be that once I start the second pack, it happens again (in other words, maybe it's the hormones provided in the first two weeks that are causing the fatigue). Hope not. Anyway, A LOT of women complain of tiredness on bcp, so if that's it for you, maybe switching would be a solution??

That's really interesting, janey! Thanks for all your help!

Sara. My mom, 79 yo, is also on allergy meds such as yours and was feeling tired all of the time as well. I gave her a shot of my energy drink with Taurine in it and it helped her immensely. Taurine is an amino acid which helps break down the energy your body already has in store. Taken occasionally in small doses it takes away that tired feeling and allows you to feel normal. It's not even necessary to take it daily since your body only needs a trace.
I learned of this from my own studies when I was feeling excessively drowsy after eating carbs many years ago. I wasn't anemic, but I had a deficiency of the amino acids used to break down the compound in my blood that stored my iron. I had plenty of it, just couldn't access it for usage. The use of energy to digestion of the carbs left no enrgy for me to function, therefore the drowsiness and need to sleep. (They didn't have the energy drinks or suppliments for it then, LOL, I had to eat a few pieces of cat chow to get the Taurine I needed, but it worked.)
Also, pick an energy drink high in B vitamins, not just B12, (And, consider a GOOD B-Complex food suppliment which helps the body with any form of stress. Also, B vitamins taken out of proportion with each other can cause other deficiencies and throw you all off.), low or no caffeine and sugar (it just causes a crash later). Actually, Aldi's has a decent one for 99 cents to give it a try.
Good luck.
Friend of

WIMOMOFTHREE - Yes, I have horrible brain fog too and can barely concentrate at all. That's too bad your doctor said the stimulant would affect your UC. I've been trying to research information about that but really didn't find much. I take all my allergy medicine except the nasal spray at night too.

Thanks for the info., statusquo. I have stayed away from energy drinks since college. They are chocked full of caffeine which I don't think is very good for you. Interestingly, whenever I used to drink the Rockstar brand, they would make my headaches go away, but no other brand worked. Eww to the cat chow! lol. I take a vegan multivitamin which has high doses of all the B vitamins, so I think I'm covered there. Thanks for all your advice.

Yes. I don't think there are any others to switch to. If I don't take singulair, I can't breathe.

You're so lucky you don't have to work, Serenity Now. I hate working.

Ouch! Let me hasten to point out I am far from "rich". However I am much older than Sara. I would never have been able to not work at her age. We get by on one income through a reduction in expenses (we have only one car, I don't have a cell phone, stuff like that). We are doing fine covering the necessities but certainly not rich!! We would be doing a lot better with two incomes but for me my health (physical and mental) were the priority.