Difficulty Sleeping

[lindaolson65]

I've noticed a number of people commenting about their trouble sleeping after surgery. I'm now 5 months postop and had your same problems of waking every hour or so with pain (trying to straighten out or flex the knee after it was in one position while asleep). My doc put me on Ambien as a way to help me sleep (I was also on Darvocet for pain as I can't take heavy narcotics due to vomiting), and I was on 10 mg for over a month. BIG WARNING! If you're on Ambien (or its equivalent) for more than a couple of weeks, you need to WEAN OFF IT GRADUALLY! I didn't want to stay on Ambien any longer than necessary, but I forgot about weaning off and stopped cold turkey. In the middle of the night I woke up feeling terrible - heart racing, BP soaring....all sorts of nasty symptoms that were quite concerning. THEN I remembered that you have to gradually taper off the dosage. So the next night I cut the pill in half, and stayed on that for a week, then cut it into fourths for another week, finally stopping altogether. No withdrawal symptoms whatsoever going that route. So keep that on mind if you're on a prescriptive sleep aid for more than a couple of weeks.

I think I've mentioned this before, but I'm currently on Excedrin PM and either timed release melatonin or a product called Herbal Slumber (valarian and melatonin), which really helps tremendously. Of course, my nighttime positional pain has improved with time - not as excruciating as it was the first few months, so I don't require as strong pain meds.

Hope this helps you avoid my mistakes.

Linda

 

[caz]

Hi it was so nice to read this, I had op 5 weeks ago and I was getting worried until I read this and realised I was not on my own

 

[MissB]

I've always tended towards insomnia anyway, and my personal trick is to listen to a recorded book. Nothing too intense - Garrison Keilor and PG Wodehouse are great, Tale of Two Cities was a mistake. It stops the hampsters from racing round the mental cage and I drift off. If I wake up, I start it over, maybe skip forward a bit first. It can take days (nights) to hear the whole tape or cd. It essentially cured my life-time insomnia, I only occasionally can't sleep. (Assuming I go to bed....) After the surgery, it still helped, and at least entertained me while I was awake, which helped distract me from the pain and worry and probably helped the depression.