> 3 months out and sleep is terrible

[JMACCA]

Hi everyone,

I am looking for tips / suggestions...

I find that the zapping in the legs and restless legs of a night to keep me awake and unable to fully relax into a deep sleep. I am averaging on about 5 hours a night and I am a girl who really operates best on 8-10 hours!

I understand that my body is still doing a lot of healing and 'working itself out', but it is leaving me exhausted during the day - I try not to take a nap (as that makes it worse of course). So I am now living in this fog of sleep deprivation...really not good as I am trying to return to work in the office and am working full-time from home.

Tell me with your stories! Will it end? are there tips?

 

[TLHRTrish]

Hi Juanita,
I actually just joined the site today with the purpose of posting about the same thing (my thread is 'sleepless in recovery', but no replies there yet). I've been having the same issue for 2 - 3 weeks, and I am at 7 weeks post op, left THR. I did great the first couple weeks, healed very fast, no major issues, but the sleep troubles started afterwards, like you, I'm getting up exhausted from maybe an hour or two of quality sleep. I have little to no pain during the day, but I go to bed and the hip starts throbbing. No idea why, have tried medicating before bed, but doesn't help much. Hope we can find some answers. Good luck. Have you tried Advil PM or Tylenol PM? It helped me a little bit but not sufficiently.

 

[Jamie]

@JMACCA ... you may notice I've merged your latest thread with your original recovery thread. We prefer that members keep all the updates and questions regarding their recovery in a single thread. That makes it much easier if we need to go back and review your history before providing information or advice. So please post here when the topic is something related to your recovery. At any time if you prefer a different thread title, just post what you want and we'll get it changed for you.

As for your sleep problems, it will get better with some time. Be sure you're not trying to do too much during the day. Even at 3 1/2 months out, you are correct that you're still recovering. Try using a heating pad at the small of your back when you go to bed. It will also help if you take some type of pain medication (Extra Strength Tylenol, 1000mg is fine) at bedtime. But sometimes you just have to be patient and wait it out. It's part of why we (and surgeons) will tell you that full recovery can take up to a year or more. There are many of these little quirky aspects of recovery that come and go throughout that time.