Ten years down my
Road to Recovery I seldom have trouble sleeping. Three things have helped considerably.
1) I refrain from eating any foods that I am allergic to (Dr. Dalton ordered a food allergy test on me in the spring of 2012.)
2) I take a product called CALM. It provides my body with needed magnesium. This particular product is easily absorbed into the body. It is distributed by Peter Gillham's NATURAL VITALITY.
www.petergillham.com
3) I have spent over a year (as of Oct. 2012) detoxing heavy metals and harmful chemicals using a
body soak.
For whatever reason, I began having difficulty sleeping in my mid thirties. (I was 55 when I crashed.) At first it was an occasional thing. I would awake about 3:00 a.m and I would have difficulty getting back to sleep. My remedy back then would be to spend about an hour reading my Bible. Afterwards I would be able to get back to sleep.
As time went on, however, I began to loose the battle with insomnia and I resorted to sleeping aids (over-the-counter drugs). As time went on the insomnia worsened and I went begging for prescription drugs to solve my problem. I discovered that doctors really hesitate giving prescriptions for sleeping pills. They question a person's emotional stability if they are having difficulty sleeping. And, they hesitate giving a prescription for a drug that they know is very habit forming.
I'm sorry to say that I got dependent on the sleeping pills - addicted in other words. And, because of that I had my guilty conscience to deal with. I detest being dependent on any kind of medication, but at the time I was desperate. Eventually the sleeping pills were not helping. My body was needing more than the pills could give. I knew I had to get off the pills - I had to break the habit and I knew it would have to be cold-turkey. Going cold-turkey was quite an experience - one that I'll never forget. For three nights I did not sleep a wink. The fourth night I went into withdrawals - sweating, chills and stomach cramps. I was aware of what was happening in my body and once the symptoms subsided I knew I was free of the drug.
My battle with insonmia continued, however. By the time of my
CRASH I was getting only two hours sleep each night. My naturopaths put me on a nutritional regimen and my sleep improved greatly overnight.
I discovered that many things contributed (and still contribute) to my insomnia. It, like depression, is a most complicated symptom that can have many causes.
NOTE: It is now February of 2021 (almost 20 years into my road to recovery). My sleep at night is disturbed on a regular basis because of Sjogren’s Syndrome. Sjogren’s is an autoimmune disease wherein the immune system attacks moisture producing glands in the body.
Anyone with Sjogren’s will tell you it is very easy to become dehydrated with the disease. During the day one can stay hydrated by drinking sufficient amounts of water and other liquids, but during the night that isn’t an option. I can usually get to sleep without difficulty. I can sleep for 3 to 4 hours but then I awake with my mouth and eyes very dry. (The tongue often is stuck to my gums and teeth. Occasionally an eyelid will be stuck to my eyeball.) I then know I will not be getting back to sleep until I get my body rehydrated. That usually takes anywhere from 2 to 4 hours.
Before I go to bed at night I place three to four bottles of filtered water on the desk beside my bed to accomplish that objective. The lungs and sinuses get hydrated, apparently, during this time along with rest of my body. I gauge that my body is sufficiently hydrated when I stop coughing up phlegm and my nose is no longer stuffy.
Sjogren’s is no fun, but things could be far worse.
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