Get advice from smart people on medical procedures

[Seabiscuit36]

My coworker swears by some Vitamin supplement he has with Melatonin. 

[PhillyPhreak54]

Melatonin or Tylenol PM

[Tomahawk]

Tequila

[Dillen]

Melatonin's the same deal, if you wake up you're farged. They had different dosage levels of Melatonin that are supposed to do different things, one dosage helps you fall asleep, one helps you stay asleep, etc. It's bullshtein. I used to have really bad sleeping problems and Unisom fixed that right up. If you use it every night your body is bound to get immune to it eventually, regardless of brand. I've tried 5 different brands or so and Unisom was by far the best.

[Geowhizzer]

I used Tylenol PM for awhile (never more than once a week to get myself back on schedule), but I think I became immune to it as well.

So, even though I don't drink because of bad genetics, I'd say Tomahawk may be right...

Tequila

[hbionic]

Masturbation. Seriously. At least two sessions before you sleep and warm milk, and maybe turn a fan on so you have some consistent white noise in the room all night. No exercise or television before you sleep. And get rid of the native american relic you have under your bed.

[SD]

Gonna give unisom and melatonin a try and see which one works best.

[Tomahawk]

Might want to try a couple different varieties of unisom too:

What are the active ingredients and dosage for Unisom products?
The active ingredient in each Unisom SleepTab is 25 mg of doxylamine succinate.

The active ingredient in each Unisom SleepGel is 50 mg of diphenhydramine HCl.

The active ingredient in each Unisom SleepMelt tablet is 25 mg (50 mg per dose) of diphenhydramine HCl.

The active ingredients in each Unisom PM Pain caplet is 325 mg of acetaminophen (pain reliever) and 50 mg of diphenhydramine HCl (sleep aid).

http://www.unisom.com/faq.html

[Seabiscuit36]

Unisom always left me groggy in the morning.  You can check with your doc for Ambien/lunesta if its a real issue. 

[hbionic]

Maybe one less burrito before bed?

[Tomahawk]

Ironic that a mexican would suggest that

[Susquehanna Birder]

The fan noise thing is a good suggestion. Easy and it doesn't farg with your body chemistry.

It's a rare thing for me to have problems getting to sleep, either initially or after waking up during the night. I have done some TM type of meditative techniques to help sometimes, but usually it's just lights out.

[Eagaholic]

Anyone have any recommendations on a good over the counter sleep aid? I use Valerian but I think I'm becoming immune to it. My problem isn't getting to sleep, it's that I wake up at 1 or 2 AM and can't get back to sleep. It's a nightly problem. I've cut caffeine out completely but it hasn't helped. Some people told me Melatonin works.

The best thing to take depends on what  the cause is and there are a lot. Although it could definitely be something else, an ongoing insomnia problem with being able to fall asleep but waking up a few hours later, and not being able to get back to sleep is a classic symptom of low cortisol. Usually, though not always, this comes from having a good amount of stress of one type or another for a prolonged period of time (it doesn't have to be emotional stress, even something like a chronic infection is enough to stress the immune system).

If you wanted to test this:

Eat a high carb meal not too long before bed (complex carbs like pasta, not simple carbs or something with a higher glycemic index like rice that can have the opposite effect). If you sleep at least 2-3 hour longer there's a good chance it's a low cortisol problem. This is because cortisol is responsible for converting stored sugar (glycogen) into blood sugar (fuel) when in a fasting state, which we are in during sleep. If cortisol is low and can't do this, the alternate system that takes over that function is adrenalin, which has a tendency to make you wake up and keep you up. Sometimes it is accompanied by other adrenalin type symptoms such as racing thoughts and such, sometimes not.

If the carb load test doesn't work it is likely something else. Cutting out caffeine is good and doing the same with sugar also important. I used to have the same sleep problem and found it was from eating ice cream before bed. The reason I'm writing all this up is because if it is a cortisol problem it can lead to serious problems down the road and it is important to get to the cause rather than just take a pill to cover it up, which you would likely become dependent on if the underlying problem isn't addressed. Btw, I don't know if you've noticed or not, but valerian could have an effect on mental function and especially memory/recall ability, which isn't ideal when learning a new job.

[SD]

Thanks holic...I'm gonna give the carb load idea a try. Since it's my last week at my current position they have me training the new class meaning I have a lot of time on my hands. Been reading a lot about sleep problems and the carb loading before bed idea seems to work for a lot of people. My diet consists of lean meats and veggies so I don't take in a lot of carbs which could be part of the problem. I don't want to depend on a pill which makes me groggy like I am today.

I usually get up between 2-4 and that's it. Can't get back to sleep no matter how hard I try. When I was underway on a ship and was trying to wind down from a long day I'd slow my breathing down which would always knock me out. I try doing that now but I have trouble slowing my breathing rate down. 4 hours of sleep has become the norm and I'm usually fine but lately it''s been getting harder and harder to get that 4 hours in. Like a month ago I slept from 11-530 and I felt unbelievable for that day.

[Eagaholic]

The thing to remember about the carb load is that it is meant to help pinpoint the cause but doing it every night for sleep isn't meant to be a good treatment and can get you fat and more unhealthy in the long run.

Hopefully the cure might be as simple as incorporating more carbs in the diet to build some glycogen reserves for sleep. If not, the problem is there are probably about a dozen common causes of this pattern and often takes someone who works in the field with the expertise to figure it out.

Unfortunately many docs aren't trained in that area. They are good at treating diabetes but not pre-diabetes, hypertension but not pre-hypertension. Good diet and exercise is usually the extent of the advice they can offer until things become full blown medical conditions, since that is what their training consists of. All but the most inexcusably ignorant docs will say you have to cut out gluten if you hope to treat celiac disease for example, though a generation ago that idea would have been considered a bunch of hogwash. But generally this hasn't yet extended to other conditions like migraines, cancer,  arthritis or insomnia. Insomnia btw is almost epidemic. Cutting edge models (e.g. check out the neuroendocrine immune axis if you like reading about this stuff) are starting to recognize that there actually are in a sense pre-cancer and pre-arthritis stages just like there is pre-hypertension, which can be nipped in the bud. This is changing slowly though, and there still aren't a lot of MDs competent in truly preventative medicine. More often one needs to look elsewhere for someone with expertise if you can't get a fix it yourself.

Imo the breathing part can be really helpful to relax if you can stick with it and stop the mind from thinking (if you do it lying down, you can try sitting at first to help keep from drifting off and losing concentration).

If you hit a wall trying to figure it out and want more info on the types of people who work well with these approaches, let me know if you want some recommendations on what to look for. There are some pretty solid practitioners out there but also a lot of well meaning but incompetent and even kookie folks as well (some of whom actually have valid credentials and licenses).