[raducu]

Do you happen to know what good sleep means?

I've done polysomnography and they told me nothing except I don't have sleep apnea, and got a lot of microawakenings -- to me it felt I didn't sleep at all with all the wires and noise by other patients in other rooms snoring, nurse re-attaching wires, nurse walking on hallways to check on other patients and so on.

My smartwatch tells me I spend 60% in light sleep, 20% in REM and 20% in deep sleep, but I get very little continous deep sleep.

[doggodaddo78]

I just had a sleep study with EEG and visual/audio recording. They said sleep efficiency of 95%, yet I almost always wake-up very tired, with a dull/stabbing headache, and sweating around the neck.

I also have physiological anxiety, treatment-resistant depression, attention/concentration/alertness/consciousness/memory deficits, tachycardia >100, rapid shallow breathing, high blood pressure (diastolic), veinous insufficiency, cold hands (but normal perfusion), almost no sensation anywhere, excessive sweating w exertion, lower blood volume, swelling neck/fingers/toes, and flushed forehead/ears/cheeks.

I wonder if it's a lack of exercise, chronic blood-vessel narrowing, and/or chronic low blood volume.

[atatatat]

Live in a different environment for a few days to a week to rule that out.

[disabled]

That sounds exactly like dysautonomia (autonomic nervous system dysfunction/disorder), and specifically POTS (postural orthostatic tachycardia syndrome).

I have a rare form of dysautonomia. It is a very rare immune-mediated neurological disease affecting my peripheral nervous system, called autoimmune autonomic ganglionopathy. It is in pharmaceutical remission, which means that it hopefully stays in remission, as long as I take medicine for it, for life.

Anyways, I can help you out with all of this, and really show you the way. I literally have all of the above symptoms. Check out my profile for my email. I will respond to you with advice.

You may want to start here: DYNA (Dysautonomia Youth Network of America) is an awesome organization, and they have a phone line that they answer during the day. You may want to call them first for advice. Adults call the line all the time. I mean, I am a member of it, and participate there regularly, and I am in my early 30s. Anyways, the DYNA office phone number is: 301-705-6995

I strongly encourage you to call them. Also, please contact me. I also promise that I will help you.

Here are some good references:

Dysautonomia Symptoms: http://dynainc.org/dysautonomia/symptoms

About Dysautonomia: http://dynainc.org/dysautonomia

Living With Dysautonomia: http://dynainc.org/living

Finding the Right Doctor: http://dynainc.org/living/finding-right-doctor

For Newly Diagnosed Patients: http://dynainc.org/living/new-patients

There is now a special board certification/subspecialty in neurology in the United States for Autonomic Disorders (my neurologist has this board subspecialty certification also has an autonomic disorder--so I am tremendously lucky to have him). A handful (about 50) doctors in the US are certified in this subspecialty. But, you really need to get an EMG test, since you are having sensory issues. A neurologist does this test. You really need to be seeing a neurologist regularly if you are having these types of symptoms.

Anyways, to find a neurologist with the Autonomic Disorders subspecialty (you need, at minimum, both a neurologist [most important] and a cardiologist/electrophysiologist who deals with autonomic disorders regularly) go to this website: https://www.ucns.org/Online/Online/Diplomate_Directory.aspx

Under "Please choose a subspecialty" (drop-down menu), select "Autonomic Disorders" and press the blue button "Find"

If you want to get better and stay healthy: do not go to Reddit/Social Media/etc. It is a really toxic place with respect to this illness. People on there are extremely dramatic. Also, avoid the organization Dysautonomia International. The people who run it (primarily women--and I am female myself) are drama queens. They also post inaccurate information on their official Facebook feeds all the time. Also, don't read stuff posted to random blogs. Content that is not moderated about dysautonomia tends to really get wild and can be quite harmful. Trust me on this. If you want to get better with this illness, you have to be careful about what you expose yourself to on the internet.

I hope this helps and I hope to hear from you.

[Broken_Hippo]

Kind of.

In general, getting good sleep means that you fall asleep fairly quickly (30 minutes or less), don't wake up often (once or twice), and you get around the average sleep for your age (even if it varies a bit). You should feel pretty well-rested through the day, and not overly tired if you are in good health.

I'd wager that you don't get good sleep, and you are suffering from us not really being able to "fix" sleep very well - in no small part because we are really in the infancy of sleep science. The sleep study, for you, really just ruled out some things, but couldn't provide answers.

[raducu]

> you are suffering from us not really being able to "fix" sleep very well

Yes, the only drug that made me feel like a baby waking up in the morning was trazodone.

But it also made me wake up with painful boners in the middle of the night, so that's out. I'm so envious of a female acquaintance who swears by trazodone.

[mywittyname]

Perhaps she's pairing the trazodone with something else and not telling you. Like a Magic Wand.

[dec0dedab0de]

Good sleep means waking up without an alarm refreshed and ready to face the world. Good sleep means waking up with less physical pain then when you lied down. Good sleep usually means there was a vivid, but unimportant, dream. Good sleep means I stayed on my back the whole night, and woke up in the same position I went to sleep in.

YMMV Of course

[raducu]

I can't sleep on my back and I usually toss and turn all night and when I wake up, I feel like I need just 3 more hours of sleep.

My mileage does value indeed :))

[dec0dedab0de]

When I was younger I forced myself to learn to sleep on my back. I can only do it with a contour pillow, not necessarily the brand name one, but any with that contour in it. I can't always do it, but when I do my sleep quality is significantly better.

[seedboot]

TIL I don't get good sleep

[blandvegetables]

"waking up without an alarm refreshed and ready to face the world"

Does that actually happen outside of stories?

[ImprovedSilence]

I dont use an alarm. Haven’t it years. Whether or not I’m refreshed depends on how late I went to bed.

[corroclaro]

Yep, it is the rule rather than the exception for many who are "natural" deep sleepers. I used to be one of those until I got overweight.

[dec0dedab0de]

yes, it happens to me most days. Except the ready to face the world part, It's usually more like waking up without an alarm refreshed, and ready to browse HN and watch youtube.

edit: the waking up part didn't happen until I started working from home. I was always over-sleeping when I had to get showered, dressed, and commute every morning.

[n4r9]

Hey, it happened plenty for me during the holidays between school and university terms.

[ehnto]

I struggle a bit with perception of how much I've slept. It can often feel like I've been awake the entire night, aware, thinking, I swear I must dream of lying in bed awake.

[tiku]

Plus not sleeping in your own bed/room also has an effect..