Similar problems took me to the acupuncturist recently and along with it I was given Chinese herbs. I went from waking up three dozens times a night, often with 1-2 hour interludes, to sleeping 6-7 hours a night, uninterrupted. I strongly recommend the acupuncture, which is a fairly profound technique, and often MD's chiropractors, massage therapist, and related fields have it as an addendum if you cannot find one that does it alone, and schools that teach it often offer the services for practically nothing, overseen by someone who is a master of it from China, etc. If you would like the name of the Chinese herbs, I am happy to give you the name, as many stores and practitioners (and perhaps online) have them. In the past when desperate, I would take one sleeping pill (when two were suggested in a over-the counter brand), for 3-4 nights in a row to condition my brain to a nights sleep. It worked (I may have to repeat it every few months) until thyroid and health issues increased. I agree with the hot bath comments. I have known people who do wine or beer before bed, but do not recommend it myself. Years ago I would use melatonin, which is a supplement, but it didn't keep me asleep for the night, so perhaps a timed release tablet would work if available. It worked well for years though, is inexpensive, and natural so not hard on liver/kidneys, which can be a problem with meds. They also talk about being in a pattern and not breaking it, such as going to bed every night at 10 PM, avoiding naps, and "shutting down" patterns beforehand, allowing time to do each thing so when you, put down the bobbin lace, turn off the tv, etc., your brain is responding to the pattern, knowing to shut down. If I do wake up, I have to focus on not thinking, as if my left brain begins to become active, I cannot go to sleep. Instead, I try or pretend to meditate and often fall asleep before I realize it. I also do a yoga relaxation technique which is starting with relaxing your toes, your feet, your ankles, and moving up your body slowly until they are very relaxed. Sometimes I only get past my knees and other times it takes me up to my head before I go to sleep. if my brain becomes active, or read or do sudoku. I could say more, but perhaps some of this will help. Best,Susan Reishus
--- On Tue, 7/28/09, Thurlow Weed <[email protected]> wrote: From: Thurlow Weed <[email protected]> Subject: [lace-chat] OT: thyroid question To: "lace chat" <[email protected]> Date: Tuesday, July 28, 2009, 11:37 AM Spiders, I'm becoming increasingly frustrated with a perplexing health situation, and I'm hoping that our vast knowledge base might contribute something useful (as it so often does!). For several months now, I've been dealing with chronic insomnia. It appears to have initially been brought about my colon stasis ("polite" way of saying I was plugged up for a while). That was dealt with, diet changed to be much healthier. My doc suspected my thyroid might be involved as well, and testing determined I'm mildly hypothyroid. So now I'm on medication - Armour Thyroid 30mg. After a couple of weeks, the doc re-checked TSH levels and saw that although they had gone down, he felt they hadn't gone down enough in those two weeks, so he increased the dosage to 60mg. Since then my insomnia has gotten worse (every other night I'm unable to fall asleep, even with sleeping pills). I've just spent quite some time online searching medical forums about this, and have learned that too high a dosage can cause marked insomnia. A coworker of mine who also has hypothyroidism (for many, many years) said it takes time to lower TSH levels, one has to be patient. I'm also looking up info on hypothyroid friendly diets. So I'm curious if anyone else has had similar experience to what I'm dealing with here. Any input/thoughts, etc are most welcome! Thurlow Weed Lancaster OH [email protected] To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected]. To unsubscribe send email to [email protected] containing the line: unsubscribe lace-chat [email protected]. For help, write to [email protected].
