Trouble Sleeping With Parkinson's

Trouble Sleeping With Parkinson's

Recently I've had trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep. This is a problem I've rarely ever had until just recently. I get into bed and I can't find a comfortable position so I toss and turn trying one position after another until I give up and get out of bed. I sit at the computer for a while, then watch middle of the night TV. I start to feel panicky and worry that I'll never sleep again.

When I am exhausted I return to the bedroom. I get back into bed but after a few minutes I feel like I have to pee, so I'm out of bed again and so on through the hours.

Until I got Parkinson's disease I was always comfortable sleeping on my back, my side, either side, being able to roll my way through the night. With Parkinson that doesn't work any more because I have lost strength and flexibility in my left arm and cannot turn over without waking up completely to focus on that task. Trying to sleep on my back seems strange and almost scary.

I don't want to take sleeping pills because of side effects or interactions with my Parkinson's treatment. I need to relax and then take a couple of aspirin to ease the pain I have from increased exercising. I'll see what happens. I'm also considering a Valerian based herbal sleep aid from the health food store.

So here is my plan: 45 minutes before bed I'll take a Natural Factors Sleep Relax Formula capsule. I'll make sure I don't go to bed until I'm sleepy. I'll try to breathe deeply, stay calm and comfortable when I settle into one position.

My wife reminded me that I used to want the TV off when I went to sleep. Recently I've found the light and sound comforting. I do recall telling her that I had read that light can actually interfere with sleep. So perhaps the bedroom TV will have to be turned off earlier. Or I can watch it in the bedroom and ask her to turn it off when I am asleep.

The cats no longer climb on my legs to sleep since they can now climb all over my wife so that should help as well. Perhaps I can learn to appreciate the mattress pre-warming of Harry and not be bothered by having to advise him sternly to remove himself from my sleeping space.

I'll stick to this for three days and then report my results.

ACCEPTING PARKINSON'S

In the beginning when I got the diagnosis that it was Parkinson’s I didn’t feel anything.
Those were just sounds that made words. They didn’t even echo in the examination room.

Then after a moment, my doctor put his arm around me and with that gesture, I realized that my life had just changed forever.

I was proactive in my treatment throughout. I started reading everything I could find about PD. I joined online communities like BrainTalk and Ask the Doctor. I became excited about every drug development that was announced. I was almost obsessive about searching for PD information, although that might have been exaggerated by the Mirapex I was taking. But despite all this, somewhere in my head a little voice was telling me, “your life is over.”

That was what I really believed. And of course there was that other voice asking, “why me?” Most of the time in the last four years since the diagnoses was official, I’ve felt depressed and angry and braindead about my situation, even though I kept on reading and posting and looking for new breakthroughs.

When the news about Isradipine came out a year ago I broke down in tears of joy thinking I was saved. I've realized recently that I was putting my life on emotional hold, waiting to not be dying.
I had stopped exercising regularly, my wife took a better job but out of state, I got fired and I now realize these things happened not because I have PD but because I stopped living my life in my doctor’s office 4 years ago.

Now I’ve got a goal to learn how to be alive again. This blog is one of my first steps. Here I will discuss ways of living with PD, new alternative treatments and I’ll report how I’m doing and what’s going on in my world and the world of PD.

I hope some readers will have suggestions for me also and maybe we can debate and laugh like there’s no tomorrow.

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BREATHING TECHNIQUES FOR PARKINSON’S
July 3, 2008 at 8:36 pm · Filed under Alternative Treatments ·Tagged Alternative Therapy, Alternative Treatments