My name is renaud, i'm a french guy, so please be nice with me because my messages will have some mistakes! (you know frenchies are not really good on studying other languages )
Just on a quick description, i'm 29 years old and i have lyme / mercury intoxication from 5 years (surely a lot more, but it was on this time i became worst). I have just registered today on the forum, but i was reading you for 2 years now, and i really want to thank you, everyone for giving so much help and hope to others. I've already read a lot of books, website, news, on lyme and begin to undestand some intersting things about my disease and how to heal me, but today i have one question that i really wanted to ask...maybe someone here will have a better understanding than I about this thing!
Let me explain my situation...i'm always tired, and i know that it's a very usual situation for all the people here, so i seek for solutions to have better nights as i know that it's very hard to recover until we don't sleep. So i tried a lot of things: herbs, amino acid, hormones, detox, treating the bugs and co-infection, reduce my electro-magnetic pollution, ... with or without some results, but i still sleep very bad (awaking a lot of times each night and not sleeping deeply) Some days ago i begun to interest more deeply on neurotransmetters and their effect on sleep and i decided to try things that could help me to increase dopamine mainly (serotonin / acetycholin after). I have tied for the moment 3 different things:
1) ginkgo biloba (mainly for brain blood, allowing more neurotransmetter to be created)
2) Vinpocetine (like ginkgo)
3) mucuna pruriens (L-dopa for dopamine synthesis)
With each attempt, i have had the same effect: instead of being more alert / focus / energized , i feel exhausted, much more sleepy. On the night following, i sleep very deeping (sometime i don't wake up to go to pee), and in the morning when i must wake up to go working, i am very sleepy again. During all the next day, i still feel sleepy and with more ache than usual. That's very surprising to me, because i've always thought if i could sleep deeply, i will feel more energized and better the next day, but in fact actually it's just the opposite! In fact actually i feel really more awaken and nice when i have a bad sleep night than a long and deeply...really bad to understand. Is there someone here which is experimenting the same situation?
I'm asking myself if it's because my body is trying to repair himself when he has some more blood circulation or neurotransmetter in the brain? (like herx reaction?). I've also thought about a "sleep debt" that i must repay for some night before my body begin to feel better...?
Everyone who have an idea, please share it with me!
Take care of yourselves. In love,
Renaud
Posted by KimDC (Member # 20699) on :
Welcome, Renaud. Profound fatigue has always been my worst symptom. The only thing that has helped me is LOTS of sleep. If I can sleep 11 hours every night, I feel close to normal. Under 10 hours and I can't function.
I haven't tried supplements for sleep, but I think your new supplements are giving you a "hangover" effect. Maybe you should take only one at a time for a week (then add one at a time)to determine which one is causing the most fatigue.
Kim
Posted by un_ptit_gars (Member # 24307) on :
Thanks for your answer kim! Yeah you're probably right, i will take one by one and just a few in order to understand better how my body react to it. The sleep is something very complex, but i think it's one of the main key to overcome our disease. Your are ill since long time? How old are you kim?
Thank you for your help! And if anyone else has an idea, please share!!
Renaud
Posted by DeniseNM (Member # 11182) on :
How do you know you're sleeping deeply? A friend of mine's husband sleeps for many (up to 14) hours a night and is exhausted all the time because he isn't getting to the deepest stage of sleep. They're doing sleep studies, etc., on him to try and help.
I take Lunesta to help me sleep and it works like a charm! Along with the B vitamins during the day, I don't have to take a nap every day anymore. And if I do, it's a short snooze...
Posted by Hoosiers51 (Member # 15759) on :
It could be that the dosages are too high.
I think Kim had good advice, to take them out individually to see which one is causing this....
...But I also think that once you find out what is causing the tired feeling the next day, you should take only half or 1/4 of that dose. Keep cutting the dose back until you have just enough to be tired through the night, but not so much that you will still be tired in the morning.
If I had to guess, I would say your problem is the mucuna pruriens. Though I have never heard of that specific supplement. I would reduce the dose.
The fact that you are sleeping through the night seems like a good thing to me, so it's probably just "too much of a good thing."
You may eventually just need to add another supplement in the morning to balance your brain back to the "awake" stage.
Maybe there is another neurotransmitter you can add in the morning?
Then you could try the L-Tyrosine in the morning.
Posted by merrygirl (Member # 12041) on :
I suggest you get a sleep study to determine your level of sleep. I think I deep sleeply, but it turns out I have sleep apnea!! He said every 5-6 minutes I have an event.
good luck on your quest
Posted by un_ptit_gars (Member # 24307) on :
Thank you everyone for these good advices! You seem to be very nice people here, and it's great to share with you all.
I order to answer you hoosiers, i've already tried 5-htp and L-theanine, but they did'nt give me this sleepy feeling. in fact nothing i've tried already gave me such sleep, and as you told me: it's a good thing to sleep so i just have to understand the right dose to just sleep in the night and be alert in the day!
In fact what was really strange to me was: why increase dopamine would make me sleep better and being sleepy? If i would have increased serotonin, i would be "normal" to be sleepy, but dopamine is related to energy, feeling awaken and alert, is'nt it?? That's strange!
![[Wink]](wink.gif)
)![[Frown]](frown.gif)
In fact actually i feel really more awaken and nice when i have a bad sleep night than a long and deeply...really bad to understand. Is there someone here which is experimenting the same situation?![[Smile]](smile.gif)