[specialist]

Agree with all. TIL: One way I know I'm behind on my sleep is I can't stop eating (noshing).

My insomnia journey...

I had turrible insomnia for decades, worse over time. I tried All The Things, multiple times. Which everyone should try, if only to learn more about oneself.

But if you try All The Things and still suffer, do not give up. Keep looking, keep asking.

Turns out my root cause was bone spurs on my spine. Tiny little pinches of my nerves, which prevented my mind and my body from ever relaxing.

It took years to get a proper diagnosis, separate from the insomnia concern, and then even more time to get an effective treatment.

Happily, "fixing" those bone spurs resolved most of my anxiousness and insomnia. Now I sleep like a corpse. It's glorious.

This is my personal example of an apparent phantom chronic illness. Where care providers offer what they know and then basically give up.

Which makes sense, for them, because healthcare is basically triage. A care provider does their best in moment given the knowledge and resources they have. Then they do the same for another dozen patients, every single day.

But you shouldn't give up.

If you're suffering, there's a cause. Keep asking. Keep searching. Someone out there has the answers you need.

[agos]

I love comments like yours. Modern medicine is amazing but still full of uncharted areas and hard to diagnose stuff, especially when it's not immediately life threatening. It's ultimately up to us to insist, to say "no, this is not right, I'm not functioning correctly" and to find what's going on. But it's a long, difficult path and it requires insane amounts of grit to go through it, though the rejection and the indifference and the dead ends. So it makes me super happy when someone is actually able to find out what was going on and - cherry on top! - fix it

[euph0ria]

How did they determine this and what is the fix?

[specialist]

I had weird muscle issues. Fasciculations. Something usually dismissed out of hand. But with the severity and some other stuff, I presented a bit like MS, ALS, restless leg syndrome, and some other stuff I now forget. Did tests, drugs, therapies -- nothing conclusive, nothing helped.

Eventually, finally, got some MRIs done. Was immediately obvious my nerves were impinged. Which led to surgeries.

Happily, surgery resolved most of my anxiety symptoms (which had also been treatment resistant). Of which my care providers are very skeptical. Specifically, that my physical sensation of anxiety, like clinching, induced my emotional state. Maybe not. But lacking a better theory, I'm preceding with the info that I have.