Follow up/Updates From Older Posts #1

To keep things easier to read I'm just going to follow up on 1 post per post.


Update on Can't sleep & don't remember my password:

I did make it to the sleep doctor and they did a miny physical before I spoke with the doctor.  I was surprised to learn that I had gained kind of a lot of weight since I stopped working at Sea World but I was still healthy.  After asking me several questions about my ability/likelihood to fall asleep in different situations (which I later realized on my follow up visit I had answered incorrectly but it probably wouldn't have made much of a difference if I had) she told me that I had a mild tendency for depression and that my sleep issues were most likely caused by this and were also stress related, or it could be the other way around.  I definitely have a tendency to over analyze everything which then causes me to get stressed out and often depressed because I start to dwell on all the worst possible outcomes of situations. 

She suggested I see a psychologist and gave me a prescription for Trazadone for half the daily lowest recommended dose for depressed people.  This made me feel in-a-way relieved because I had always worried about being depressed and not being able to control my emotions.  For several months I had started to feel out of control and as Marley can tell you I spent a lot of time crying.  She also gave me some tips for developing better sleep hygiene and advised me to read a book written by a man who helps people sleep.  I can't now remember the book even though I did read it.  I at first really liked the book because it gave advice for sleeping better and had exercises that were supposed to be completed in at least 6 weeks to get you sleeping like a normal sleeper.  The 2nd half of the book however, which had most of the exercises in it, made me decreasingly dissatisfied with the book because it not only contradicted some of the things the sleep doctor had told me but he also started to contradict himself and it made me feel like he didn't think his readers would be intelligent enough to notice. 

Most of the exercises I learned were for things like: stop smoking, don't drink caffeine, don't take naps, don't exercise before bed.  Which were all things I already didn't do.  On top of that one of the sleep journal things he has you do is to estimate how many times you wake up at night which just made me even more anxious about how little sleep I was getting.  I had to make myself unlearn several of the lessons so that I would stop stressing out so much about sleep and eventually I disregarded all of the lessons as not worth it.  Now days after retraining myself to not focus on how many times I woke up, I usually don't remember waking up at night even though I know/can tell that I did which is nice because then I can just tell myself that it wasn't enough to be worried about and I can just assume I got a full night's sleep.

A year after the visit I still take the Trazadone which I love because I feel so much less ADD.  When I take it at night it allows my brain to focus on 2-3 things more clearly rather than my brain running off with every possibility at once.  Which then keeps me from over thinking about stressful situations and allows my brain to be quiet enough to fall asleep.  I still haven't been to see a psychologist.  I'm pretty sure the church offers free or discounted services but after the initial call when I wasn't able to reach someone and they closed before I got out of work I lost the drive to pursue that option.  I'm working up the courage to call again now that I have different hours, we will see how that goes.  The good news is that I had previously read a sleep book that I like much better and if I ever remember to finish reading it has it's own tips for better sleep at the end of the book.  This book is called "The Promise of Sleep" and I highly recommend it.

Getting better sleep has definitely made me feel better about my situation and I rarely ever cry anymore which is always nice for me as I really hate crying. I did get my teeth fixed finally by my dentist back home but I have since had even more dentist woes.  I ended up getting another root canal and 2 crowns put in and a filling redone at a dentist here in San Antonio.  The dentist was very nice and they did a good job but even though we have dental insurance that was supposed to be full coverage it was very expensive for us and in fact I just got another bill in the mail from them today saying I owe more money even though the last time I went in was over a month ago...I don't have the energy yet to deal with that one further.  I'll probably call them next week.

As for the stomach pains they have disappeared. I think they were being caused by a combination of the birth control and stress.  Since taking the Trazadone they have gone away mostly due to the fact that I take them at the same time of day (at night) as the birth control and with those I have to eat food.  Sometimes I don't have enough food in my stomach to feel comfortable taking the Trazadone because I may not have felt well that day but I still have a small snack with the birth control and that has fixed the problem.  The nausea has come back a few times and twice I went to the doctor about it, both times they said nothing was wrong with me.  I don't feel like it's worth it to pay money to have someone not care enough to find out what's really going on.  For the past month I've been on a new birth control, hopefully this one will be nicer on my body.

As far as my brother, he and his wife are officially getting a divorce.  It makes me angry, sad, worried, but also hopeful.  My brother seems to be doing really well considering and so do the kids.  Matthew is looking forward to the future.