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        New Message Board Archives >> 2004 Cluster Headache Specific Posts >> Lack of sleep
        
(Message started by: Robert_C. on Aug 8^th, 2004, 4:03pm)

Title: Lack of sleep
Post by Robert_C. on Aug 8^th, 2004, 4:03pm

Can lack of sleep trigger a cycle?

I'm my longest cycle ever right now, a little over 9 months, and I'm trying to think back to when it started.

Last October I had a minor surgery that left me with a 3-week period of pain. I wasn't in a cycle then. But during the recovery period, I slept only 3 or 4 hours at the time. Waking up at 2am in pain and going back to sleep at 5 am, etc. Sounds familiar?

It's during that time that this cycle started.

Could this time of 'disturbed sleep' be the trigger that started it?
Could the narcotic I was taking at the time start it? (we know narcs can give rebounds)

Anybody with this kind of experience?
[smiley=huh.gif] [smiley=huh.gif] [smiley=huh.gif] [smiley=huh.gif] [smiley=huh.gif]

Robert

Title: Re: Lack of sleep
Post by synergy2120 on Aug 8^th, 2004, 4:08pm

Marc sometimes doesnt even bother going to sleep - this is normally if he has had a bad night with the pain and is too restless - and if anything he has less pains in a day when he does this!

He cant do it too often though as exhaustion usually kicks in a knocks him out by 8pm that evening.

Title: Re: Lack of sleep
Post by don on Aug 8^th, 2004, 4:56pm

Absolutely and if a cycle starts it becomes a viscious cycle. (No pun intended)

Title: Re: Lack of sleep
Post by UN_SOLVED on Aug 8^th, 2004, 5:32pm

I agree ... Lack of sleep could trigger a cycle.

But I also think CH Itself causes a lack of sleep. Some of us deprive ourselves of sleep out of fear. (We know when we sleep ... he comes !! )

Go figure .... ???

Unsolved

Title: Re: Lack of sleep
Post by ex_pat_asia on Aug 8^th, 2004, 10:30pm

on 08/08/04 at 17:32:47, UN_SOLVED wrote:

I agree ... Lack of sleep could trigger a cycle.
But I also think CH Itself causes a lack of sleep. Some of us deprive ourselves of sleep out of fear. (We know when we sleep ... he comes !! )
Go figure .... ???
Unsolved

You raise a good point Unsolved. It is almost a chicken & egg riddle. However, I lean towards sleep disorder as an aggravator or trigger of cluster in Clusterheads. The distinction is simple. No one is sure about what makes a clusterhead. Not all clusterheads report sleep issues. Not all of them benefit from Melatonin for example. However, there is a lot of impressive work on the relationship between sleep and clusters, and there is much more to learn. Here is a link to one study that is interesting: http://www.sro.org/pdf/2929.pdf

In my case, sleep apnea was dramatically aggravating my clusters. Since treatment I have had dimished episodes and have had a much better life in terms of energy levels.

Title: Re: Lack of sleep
Post by Robert_C. on Aug 8^th, 2004, 10:42pm

Quote:

I lean towards sleep disorder as an aggravator or trigger of cluster in Clusterheads

I'm getting a bit lost in sementic again. But just to make sure let me put this another way (and I still have to read what you sent Un_Solved)

After this cycle (or bout) is over (and sure hope it's soon enough), could I take sleepings pills for the rest of my life to make sure I have a good sleep all the time, and hope to never have another bout?

It's a bit extreme, I admit, but would the theory be valid?

Robert

Title: Re: Lack of sleep
Post by Robert_C. on Aug 8^th, 2004, 11:41pm

Quote:

and I still have to read what you sent Un_Solved

Oooops! Sorry, Pat. As usual, I write fater then I think. :-[

Robert

Title: Re: Lack of sleep
Post by ex_pat_asia on Aug 9^th, 2004, 6:54am

on 08/08/04 at 22:42:27, Robert_C. wrote:

After this cycle (or bout) is over (and sure hope it's soon enough), could I take sleepings pills for the rest of my life to make sure I have a good sleep all the time, and hope to never have another bout?

It's a bit extreme, I admit, but would the theory be valid? Robert

I think the answer is a resounding no...at least from what I have read and experienced. In fact, sleeping pills may cause a headache before helping anything. Any sort of sleeping aid (like Tylenol PM) tends to prompt a CA for me.

Sleeping pills are usually not able to get you to Level 4 sleep, a level required for sleep to perform its restorative duties. Even REM is elusive under many of the sleeping meds prescribed.

I note on other threads a lot of folks reporting good things with melatonin. That may be something you could explore. It isn't effective for me because my apnea has more to do with the fact that I am too fat and prone to elasticity in the throat muscles (fat inside and out). Even weight loss did not completely solve the problem and I still had periods of no breathing lasting up to 68 seconds in the last sleep lab study. That is enough to bring your body to an awkened (but not alert) status and force it to attempt to cycle back to the sleep levels required. (In my case an appliance called CPAP has been the answer). Look it up if you suspect that apnea has a role in your clusters. By the way...even my best Neuro was not very familiar with sleep/cluster co-involvment. Happily I had a Internal Medicine guy who was also a sleep specialist. He was the one who sent me to the Neuro and is the one who diagnosed apnea. The two together worked things out for me and gained a much better profile on my cluster chart. They didn't make them disappear. They gave me a stand, reducing the frequency and severity by volumes. In those days I was encountering 8 month episodes and logging 6 attacks a day. I would get a couple fo months PF and then right back into the next episode. Ugly times that.

Pills seldom get you to levels of sleep required if there is another underlying reason for your sleep disruption. Pills may help you pass a long, boring flight, or allow you to get rest between combat duty in a war zone (often prescribed for soldiers in just that circumstance) or get you past a painful injury that is preventing you from entering the sleep realm and thus allow your body to carry on to reach higher levels of restorative sleep.

Cheers and PFDAN to all.

That we are not much sicker and much madder than we are is due exclusively to that most blessed and blessing of all natural graces, sleep.
-Aldous Huxley

Title: Re: Lack of sleep
Post by Robert_C. on Aug 9^th, 2004, 7:54am

Thanks ex_pat_asia. God knows I hate taking pills and don't want to take more. But it was worth asking.

8)

Robert

Title: Re: Lack of sleep
Post by thomas on Aug 9^th, 2004, 2:07pm

IMHO, this is a chicken/egg syndrome question. Is it the lack of sleep the starts the cycle, or is the lack of sleep and indicator that a cycle is looming?