Life in our Shoes

I think I have just the thing to kick start my butt into blogging. Trying to cure insomnia. That’s right, folks! The cure keeps me up later than the insomnia itself.

I haven’t been able to sleep for pretty much as long as I can remember. I have been on Ambien for oh…about… eight years, at least. My dose is now only a quarter of what it was, but I still need it. Some nights, it doesn’t work very well, but if I don’t take it, I will lay in bed until the sun comes up.

I finally decided to seek the help of a sleep specialist. I just can’t see myself needing to take this drug, which is not approved for long term use, for the rest of my life. I was prepared for a whole smattering of sleep studies and tests. But, then, I suppose one needs to sleep to actually have a sleep study done. She told me, in simple terms, I somehow reset my internal clock to think I should be awake at night. Now, it needs to be reset.

The fix? Instead of going to bed when I think I *should* and laying there for hours getting frustrated (and keeping myself awake longer), I should go to bed when my body thinks I should. Which is 3AM. Then I get up at 10AM. No naps. After a week and a half, I am to stop the Ambien. The hope is I will be “trained” to think it’s normal and fall asleep unmedicated. Once that happens, we’ll slowly start pushing the time back to get a normal sleep routine.

Will it work? I don’t know. But, in the meantime, I can blog to fill my night time hours. Early morning hours?

PS- I have already taken my Ambien. No, I’m not proofreading this. If it makes no sense, you know why.