Friday, November 28, 2008

The nature of insomnia

Late at night, after sleeping a few hours, I wake. I toss and turn, toss and turn. Most every night it seems as if my body has forgotten how to sleep. If I do manage to get back to sleep, I just can't get past dreaming to the good sleep. The one where your brain leaves you alone, where your muscles heal, where you prepare to make a new start in the morning.
The waking happens even if I take my prescribed sleeping pill, even if I consumed no caffeine that day, even if I have had a super stress-free day. "Why!", I cry, corny as it is. "What have I done to deserve this?"
The info says this insomnia comes with the fibromyalgia, but I think it CAUSES the fibromyalgia. The less you sleep, the less healing your muscles get, even from normal life, and as they are more stressed from being unable to heal at night, the more pain and less sleep and even less healing and even more pain, etc, etc.
But I remember being in the grip of insomnia when I had active Crohn's Disease too, only nobody ever said anything about fibromyalgia. There was enough pain from the the Crohn's to mask the muscle pain from anything else. So, which came first?
Sometimes that seems to be the only thing to be grateful for. What? Fibromyalgia is better than active Crohn's Disease, that's what.

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