Being Alice: The Science Of Sleep

[brightlotusmoon]

I decided it would be best to see the neurologist today. I got a same day appointment by explaining that I've had several seizures close together. Adam, who didn't work today, drove me in. Dr. Friedman and I had a nice, long talk. He checked my chart and said that in April 2007, when I last saw him, I'd been averaging four complex partial seizures a month. Beween April of last year and January of this year, my seizure frequency had gone down to two per month or less. He told me it was common to have a long period where my frequency will go up and down, like a wave. So, having four seizures in a month isn't cause for alarm for me, it's just a spike. We talked about the possible triggers and factors and came to the conclusion that I haven't been sleeping well at all. The chronic pain and fatigue have been huge triggers. I can get eight or nine hours of sleep just fine, but if the quality of the sleep is poor -- if I wake up feeling as if I've been hit by a truck -- that causes major problems. The stress can take an unexpected toll, which builds up and builds up, until I am back at the high end of my frequency pattern.
The doctor didn't say much needed to be done aside from me working on my sleep schedule and sleep patterns. I told him I'd been taking specific nutraceutical supplements to help me sleep but hadn't been taking them lately. He said it was a good idea to start again and let them build up in my system. I also need to put together a complete seizure log of the past year and mail him a summary. This is easy to do. I have recorded every seizure in LiveJournal or paper journals.

In the end it's about sleep.
Sleep is very important.

Comments

[azhure.livejournal.com]

I really hope you can balance things to get the seizures under control - I can only imagine how damn frightening it all must be.

What have you been taking to help with sleep? I've tried valerian in the past, but it's never done much for me.

And on a semi-random note, please to be filling out the random shinies survey over at my LJ :)

[sidheblessed.livejournal.com]

Sleep has beenshown to be one of the most vital things for our health -thehavoc not having sleep wreaks on the body is incredible. *hugs* I hope you'll be ok.