AD | I totally envy people that can be fast asleep within a few minutes of their head hitting the pillow. The people who then stay asleep all night and wake up refreshed and energised the next morning. Sadly I am not one of those people. My sleep has been pretty bad for years. I had really bad insomnia for over 5 years. Sometimes I would go 2 or 3 days without any sleep at all.
Depression
Suffering from severe clinical depression has also affected my sleep too. I would not be able to sleep all night and then would be exhausted all day. You either get too much sleep or just none at all.
Uncomfortable Mattress
Most of my struggles with sleep though are down to being in a lot of pain and not being able to get remotely comfortable. I have nerve damage in my right leg and degenerative disc disease. So the pain some nights can be just awful. My mattress is an orthopaedic one but it has seen better days. So I bought a new memory foam mattress topper quite recently to see if that helped any. It didn’t. Whilst it is somewhat better it still hasn’t really helped all that much.
Losing sleep due to an uncomfortable mattress is fairly common as according to beds.net ‘34% of respondents are failing to get their recommended eight hours, due to their uncomfortable bed or mattress’.
Snoring
Another culprit for my lack of sleep is my partner’s snoring. I kid you not, it’s like his head hits the pillow and he’s flat out in 2 minutes or less. Then the snoring starts. I get so angry I just want to punch him! It’s one sound that really pushes my buttons and all in the wrong way. He sounds like a truck. One of my son’s works till 2 am and he said he could hear him from outside when he comes home. It really is that loud. I’ve even suggested to him that he should get checked by the doctor because sometimes the noises he makes sounds like he’s struggling to breathe. Will he though? No, he won’t!
I’m sure I’m not alone in having a partner that snores loudly. It’s funny to some people when you tell them but honestly, not so fun when it’s disturbing your sleep most nights.
Who Needs Sleep Anyway!
When you add all this up I am lucky to get any sleep at all. I have had to have extra medication to help with my sleeping issues. It’s called Nortriptyline and it is a tricyclic antidepressant. In my case, it was prescribed for nerve pain that keeps me awake at night and as an addition to my antidepressant, Fluoxetine. It has actually been helping me to fall asleep; some nights I can fall asleep in just a few minutes. The only trouble is I don’t stay asleep all night. I wake numerous times. So I never get any restorative sleep. Such is the life of a chronic pain sufferer, eh!
Do you have trouble sleeping? If so, what prevents you from getting a good night’s sleep?
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