Staying asleep

I keep waking up after 3-4 hours of sleep to go to the bathroom, and I find it extremely hard to go back to sleep. My legs get restless, and I wind up getting out of bed, like now. Is there some way to get the full night's sleep that I need?

Well, I've read that if you can't sleep, it's best to get up and leave the room. Perhaps watch t.v. for awhile, read, have a glass of warm milk. I went through this for months. I was so tired. It may have been because I was stressing about it, too. You'll get better! Try exercising in the mornings and no caffeine! Maybe even no liquids right before bed so you don't wake up in the middle of the night with the urge to go.

Thanks for the advice. That sounds workable to me, and pretty much what I do. the TV would keep my wife awake, but I can get on my computer for awhile, which is what I usually do. I'm trying to get off of Ativan, which was given to me as a sleep aid. Since my dose gets cut in half today, I may experience more of the sleep interruption for awhile. I find that I can usually go back to bed after a bit, and force myself to lay there until I fall asleep again, as long as my legs behave. I've had terrible dry mouth, which doesn't help with not drinking anything after 8 PM. Maybe the lower dosage of Ativan will help with that too.

We do exercise, usually in the morning, and that is going to get even more severe starting tomorrow. We joined up at the local senior center, and they have a nice exercise room with some equipment including Nautilus machines, bikes, free weights, etc. That will be used on some days, and we'll do mall walking on other days. Yesterday we mall walked more than we were really up to, so we took today off.

Carlo,

Have you ever been checked for diabetes. The need to urinate more often than normal is one symptom. I also know diabetics who have restless leg syndrom. I don't beleive there have been any studies saying RLS is a symptom of diabetics. But if you are urinating a lot and are restless and not sleeping you may want to check your blood sugar, you may have too much glucose in your system that is causing this. Obviously, I am not a professional, I do however suggest you speak with your doctor. Even if what you are experiencing is not diabetes, there are meds for RLS.

CC

The physician told me that I was borderline diabetic, but that was before we started on our weight loss program. That is going very well, the pounds are coming off, down 13 pounds, and drinking water is one of the things that helps. When my dose of Ativan was increased to 1MG I started getting a very dry mouth, and that makes me drink more water. Now that my dose is back to 0.5MG, as of last night, perhaps the dry mouth will subside, but I suspect it won't be overnight. In fact, this morning it's still dry. My blood sugar hasn't been checked lately.

I won't even consider any supplements not specifically prescribed by my physician. Looking at the side effects of Valerian and St. John's Wort shows that there can be some very nasty times in store for some folks, particularly if they're on the same drugs that I am.

I woke up to go to the bathroom a couple of times last night. The first time, I went back to sleep easy enough. The second time I had to get up for awhile, then went back to bed and back to sleep. One of the issues with this Ativan is being constantly tired, the 1MG does really hit me hard, and I'm hoping that the new lower dose will get me back to being more normal in that regard, but I imagine it will take a few days for my system to become adjusted to the lower dose. Even at the lower dose I had weakness and fatigue, just not as severe as the larger dose. It will be great to get off of it, and not have those feelings, but I know that outcome is down the road aways. My pharmacist tells me that it takes a couple of weeks to get Ativan out of your body, once you stop taking it.