Sleeping with CRPS

Well today is a new day and my head still hasn't cleared. As you may remember from yesterday's post my head was in a bit of a fog. Well today it is still as bad as yesterday however I'm going to try to post another blog. I just want to tell everyone that if you start reading sentences over again its not your eyes its just my inability to think straight!!!

It doesn't help that last night I got next to no sleep, and now this morning I'm trying to deal with two wild and crazy kids. Actually the kids are being really good and making me very proud. If you are a person reading this that suffers from CRPS then you are no stranger to a lack of sleep. Many of us that have CRPS have real problems sleeping for various reasons. My reason is that my movements at night cause me pain and ever time I move into a different position I wake up because of the pain. When I do manage to get any sleep it's usually very broken waking up ever half hour or so.

This pattern of broken sleep continues until my body finally says that it needs some sleep and I get a half decent nights sleep because I'm so worn down. I could use sleeping pills however it's hard trying to get excited about taking another pill. If it really came down to it, I would if I had to. The problem with taking them is that I end up feeling really groggy more often then not and so it becomes a trade off because on one side of the coin I don't get any sleep, on the other side I spend more time feeling groggy!! You can't seem to win!!

There are nights however that I get a good nights rest and those are like winning the lottery. It's pretty pathetic when all you wish for is a really good nights sleep. On the other hand my family gets a happier dad to deal with the next day. So in many ways they are the ones that have won the lottery. For a while now my kids have been calling me "Daddy Bear" hhmmmmmm maybe there's a reason for this!!!! Could dad act like a bear sometimes??

With my sleep being the way that it is I've been starting to take rests in the afternoon when I'm not in therapy, so I can get that extra little bit of rest that my body needs. Naps are important and I strongly recommend that you try them if you can. I know how hard that it can be to get comfortable enough to sleep for any length of time. So what I try to do is take little bits and pieces when I can. This makes up for the long nights that I don't get any sleep at all.

Nights can be really difficult when I'm not having a good night. It would be OK if I was able to read a book because at least I would be able to pass the time. However that is hard to do isn't it when your head isn't clear. Sometimes the nights can really seem to drag out. What makes things harder is that during the course of the night you get teased with these little mini naps only to be woken up in pain. Then of course just when your getting tired enough that you feel like you could sleep, it's time to get up and start the day all over again.

My purpose for writing about sleep is that I wanted people to understand that CRPS is something that we live with 24/7. This is what makes it so hard living with this condition, you never seem to be able escape the pain.