A Good Night’s Sleep

It’s been two weeks now since I’ve started on my bio-identical hormones and I have to admit that I am feeling better. For the first time in over a year I don’t feel like I am slogging through mud. Although I was keenly aware of how badly I’d been feeling, the confirmation has come in the contrast of how much better I am feeling now. I am still a bit tired and I expect that it will take some time for me to replenish my sleep given the deficit I have been in.

I am sleeping through the night and I just can’t believe what a difference it is making in my overall outlook. I used to go to bed at 10 or 11 pm and by about 3am, I’d be awake. If I was lucky, I’d get back to sleep within an hour or so. But often  I’d lay there, staring into the darkness and listening to my husband snore. The more that I tried to will myself to sleep the worse things seemed to get. I’d get even more agitated each time I looked at my clock and saw the night slipping by. Sometimes I’d take Benadryl because I knew that I had a busy day and needed to sleep. Other times I toughed it out and just dealt with the consequences the next day. My gyn’s solution was Ambien, but I found that made me groggy the following day if I did not allow for a full 8 hours of sleep, so couldn’t always take it.

Dr. Edgerton, the doctor treating my hormone imbalances,  first gave me magnesium capsules to take one hour before bed. I could take up to 4. They did the trick, but I often felt weird in the morning, sometimes had a bit of a headache and a weird taste in my mouth. But I would sleep most of the night and if I did wake up, I would fall back to sleep in less than an hour. But the best thing has been prescription Melatonin. The Melatonin capsules are 10mg and I began by taking one a night, then another and another until I slept through the night. Initially it took 6 capsules for me to sleep through the night. While on vacation last week I was able to drop back to 4 and just last night I actually slept through the night with no medication at all! It has been months since I’ve slept a full night, without interruption and without medication. I hope this is the start of my body resetting itself and being able to sleep on its own.

I still have pangs of anxiety but I realize that much of it is stress. Having a family, a home and a business to run are stressful. It’s been tough on all fronts and many has been the night when I’ve awakened and my mind begins whirling with all manner of thoughts about the kids, work, bills…That is slowing down. I don’t know whether to contribute the improvement to the thyroid replacement or to the DHEA but I am inclined to think the DHEA. I started taking the thyroid medication one week before the DHEA and now have been on both for a week. I honestly don’t recall not having the “mind whirling” before this week, so it must be due to the DHEA which I just started taking.

I have a follow up appointment in 2 weeks when I’ll see how really fried my adrenals are when I get the result of my cortisol saliva tests. You know it ain’t good when they tell you that you have to come in for the results. But I’m not concerned. If Dr. Edgerton can figure out what is going on with me and make me feel better, it’s all good.

Add a comment August 14, 2009