Sleepless in Seat... Michigan

Phil:

I awoke at 2:01 and read your post.  It is now three hours later and I have yet to fall back to sleep.  Too late anyway because a new day is awaiting with opportunity.  If and when i get sleepy later today then I will take a nap.

My sleep cycle disruption is primarily due to my ileostomy.  Every night I am up once to empty my bag, tonight I had to do so twice.

It is dilemma.  I need to gain weight and strength to improve my stamina.  That requires food.  When I eat my ostomy output increases and remains active almost constantly, which disrupts my sleep cycle and undermines my strength.

Currently, my daytime naps are of longer duration than my night time sleeping.  Maybe I should just do a lifestyle flip-flop and become a nocturnal creature?

May we all find peace in our afflictions.

Jim (sleepless in Tennessee)

Trubrit said:

Check

Well, I can check several of those on the list. 

I know my body needs sleep, and this past month has been allot better, and I can tell.  Just as soon as our new, little home arrives on the lot, and we are no longer living with our children, I am getting my own room (love my hubby, but his sleep noises combined with mine....) and the hopes of better nights sleep ahead. 

Soothing music helps me, but when I am paritcularly stressed, nothing helps and it is truily awful to toss and turn (I refiuse to get up for the most part) and then feel drained the rest of the day. 

Sleep tight, Phil. Its good to see you here. Same to you, Jim and Sandy. 

Tru

i swear is the secret to a good marriage! My hubby not only after a sleep study was told his snoring was the highest decibel ever recorded (no shock to me) he has now added jumping in his sleep. We have not slept in the same room in years! Still love him but it’s for both of our safety and sanity! Lol 

Sure wish there was a cure for this. Lately I'm taking Norco 10-325 and Melatonin. Calms me pretty quickly but then I am wide awake 4 hours later. I also find myself napping through the day but I should be working. So frustrating. My anxiety gets pretty high at night, but seems to be slowly improving. 

You guys all make me chuckle with the separate bedroom comments. We don't currently have a spare room but I totally understand. And I love to stretch out!

Sleeping in separate beds or separate rooms is more common for older couples than many realize.  And, as everyone has explained, it's for better sleep.  There was a time for the honeymoon and there is now a time for sleep.

One of the "take away's" that I learned in Ranger School was that sleep is much more important than food.  On those ocassions when I had to choose, I selected sleep.  We can last almost 30 days without food, but only a much shorter time without sleep.

I recall one set of my grandparents sleeping in separate rooms and as a child I wondered why.  Now I know!

Jim

Tunadog said:

I sleep in the same bed as my wife..

I’m 63 and have been with my wife for almost 40 years. She’s the love of my life.

She snores, but if I softly touch her arm she will stop and she is snoring less.

As for sex, I had problems after surgery but I have resolved it.

We have a spare bedroom but our bedroom is a large suite and no moving out of it.

I don’t think I could sleep well without my wife next to me.

I am 47 but we have been married for 29 years this may, together 32. I wasn't touching him softly when he snored and I almost pushed him  off the bed when the jumping started lol I can't sleep alone though so I take my dog up with me.  we make it work

airborne72 said:

Sleep Disruption

Phil:

I awoke at 2:01 and read your post.  It is now three hours later and I have yet to fall back to sleep.  Too late anyway because a new day is awaiting with opportunity.  If and when i get sleepy later today then I will take a nap.

My sleep cycle disruption is primarily due to my ileostomy.  Every night I am up once to empty my bag, tonight I had to do so twice.

It is dilemma.  I need to gain weight and strength to improve my stamina.  That requires food.  When I eat my ostomy output increases and remains active almost constantly, which disrupts my sleep cycle and undermines my strength.

Currently, my daytime naps are of longer duration than my night time sleeping.  Maybe I should just do a lifestyle flip-flop and become a nocturnal creature?

May we all find peace in our afflictions.

Jim (sleepless in Tennessee)

My average sleep per night the past week was 8.5 hours which is better than when I was on chemo. I figure that the chemo made me sleep less, and then later on made me sleep more. I think that the best approach is to try to finish eating as early as possible. I am not having a lot of success with that as I have been working late for the past two weeks. Part of the reason for that is I have more monitors in the office. I have big monitors at home but they are in my cold office so I work at the dining room table at home on a laptop and I'm less productive in this mode.

I'm fortunate in that I can usually fall back to sleep relatively quickly after emptying the bag and there are lots of times when I like to sleep late but have to get up for work.

The only other thing that I can recommend is to sleep when it's dark. It's too easy to stay awake when it's dark due to artificial light but it might help.

You do have a reversal coming up soon, right?

Being a mother I've always had a light sense when it came to sleeping.  I'd wake at every movement from one of my kids.  When diagnosed it was hard on me as I'd lay awake thinking and thinking and not getting any sleep and any snoring from my husband would definitely wake me.  Then after my surgery (which was 6 weeks recovery), then treatment and illeostomy and just not being comfortable he ended up sleeping in the spare room.  He has been there ever since.  He snores so bad that I'm not able to even lay with him for 1/2 the night.  Now it's a matter of getting sleep and he finds that he sleeps better without me too.  I'm up sometimes 5-7 times a night after my illeostomy reversal 8 years ago so he'd never get any sleep.  My sleep is so disrupted every night I'm not sure I'm able to get a full 5 hours as I'm waking constantly to go the bathroom or to clean up from an accident.  It's always a horrible night for me.  My days aren't much better, but I'm here 9 years later and I'm living life as best I'm able and loving every minute even though it's not always convenient.  Wishing you the best.  Also, I'm on ambien which I'll take a half pill before going to bed and wake up in the middle of the night and take the other half.  If it wasn't for that I'd never be able to sleep.  Sleep tight and sweet dreams

Kim

Mickeyclaude said:

Hi it’s two a.m.

hi all. Ever since pain and needing the bathroom woke me up every night, I am kind of prone to waking and staying up for hours on end. Because my mind does start racing, and I feel so greedy about precious time, I do not want to sleep through it. I realized recently I do not have much time alone to process what I have been through because my children are preschool aged...so I think my minds seizes the opportunity whenever it can

The waking is a real pain if you can't quickly get back to sleep. I try to schedule the two wakeups at the same time every night so that my body gets used to it along with falling back to sleep again. When I can't fall asleep? I have a bar stool in the bathroom and use it with the laptop. Time is precious, especially with young ones. As you'll never get that time back.