Insomnia.. scared that im gonna die

[luckyme]

Hello everyone!

Hello Everyone!

I'm 30 years old and I have been suffering with insomnia for over 5 years. Lately, however my insomnia is really bad. I recently lost my apartment and ended my relationship of 11 years so to say that i'm stressed is an understatement. For the past year I've experienced the worst insomnia I have ever been through. I'm taking 10mg of Ambien and its not working. Sometimes I fall asleep ok and sleep 6 hours and on other days I sleep 3 hours. My biggest problem is actually falling asleep. I'm so worried about sleeping that i'm not sleeping. sometimes I even feel like I didn't sleep and I did. I have jerks at night and my heart sometimes feels like its beating uncontrollably. I'm worried that I have fatal insomnia and that i'll never sleep again. I know this is an irrational fear but its driving me crazy. Please help.

[Crystalhiggs]

Do you know I never check the health boards, in fact I'm not on here much the last few weeks but something made me check this tonight and here I am, your guardian angel.

Firstly: you are not going to die.
Secondly: you will always sleep eventually.

Now 6 months ago I had never had insomnia in my life. Then one day, boom, couldn't sleep. The next night, a few hours, the nxt nothing. I was terrified!!! After a few days I went to the doctor who prescribed me Zopiclone. I took it for 5 weeks and got around 3 hours sleep most nights, 6 on a good night. Came off it cold Turkey as it is massively addictive. They also put me on trazodone. For 5 months I was like an anxious zombie on it, sometimes sleeping sometimes not but feeling just awful because of the side effects of the drug. I came off it almost 3 weeks ago and am sleeping just fine, naturally.

Niw you can choose to go on meds but I would advise against it after my personal experience - others may beg to differ.
I read every sleep book going. I cut out coffee, didn't nap, went to bed and got up at the same time each day. Did all the right things. But do you know what has finally made me sleep? Accepting it. Relaxing about it. A bit of Cbt and daily exercise too. But mainly, I stopped worrying. And I slept!

So my advice to you is go with it. If you sleep, you sleep. If you don't, you will tge next night. Your body knows what to do. There is no Magic cure other than this.

Sorry it's a long post but it's so close to my heart I just had to reply !!!

[Greenman50]

This is worth a try , it works for me but not in minutes as stated in the link ......

https://sleephabits.net/binaural-beats


I listen to the ones on you tube on my phone very low volume and you do drop off to sleep , it gives me something to listen to and i drift on and off .

Been doing it for years when you feel all agitated and my brain wont turn off .

Its not an instant fix but plenty of info out there on wiki etc...

Would appreciate any feed back if you try it

[luckyme]

Thank you so much for your reply! I have wanted to go without meds for so long but I have been taking them for years so ive developed a dependency. I have taken melatonin, xanax, over the counter meds anything really to sleep. When I'm going through it I don't care which is not good and I know that. I think because I read about "Fatal insomnia" I'm dead sure I have it. I have muscle twitching and everything. I slept 3 hours last night and maybe 4 the night before. I feel so helpless and frustrated all i feel like doing is bursting into tears.

[GoWhiteSox]

I am talking to my psych doc tomorrow about tapering off my sleep meds which i have been on for 2 months..dont want to become more dependent on them than i already am...millions of millions of people have insomnia it is certainly a drag but as an above poster stated it wont kill you and eventually you will sleep..alot of it is "performance anxiety" over sleep..

[MyNameIsTerry]

Try to remember that you are getting into rare disorders here. You wouldn't even know what the symptoms of Fatal Insomnia were unless you read them or that it even existed. From there the anxious mind of someone with obsessive issues about health can start to "fit" their symptoms to the disorder and not look at all the other disorders, including anxiety, that also exhibit the same symptoms. Honestly, everything you have described I can tell you I've had myself and many other people on here will be the same and there are certainly plenty of threads demonstrating that.

Insomnia tends to be a symptom of something else such as an anxiety disorder. So, it can be useful to talk to a doctor to rule out any possibles like hormonal issues and I'm sure that doctor would tell you just how rare your feared condition is when compared to the many more common ones that you have skipped over.

[luckyme]

Thank you for the reply!

I was out of it yesterday due to my sleep deprivation. I took 1mg of xanax and I slept 8 hours straight and I feel like a new person today. I woke up this morning and was like "you slept 8 hours Amy, you're not dying" unfortunately when i'm in a panic state and my anxiety is just out of control, I tend to think the worst. I've had insomnia for so long that I know I would have been dead already if I did have that rare condition, not to mention that I do sleep most of the time on meds. I really would love to sleep without taking anything but I'm dependent on them since I have been taking them for so long. Thank you again. Its nice to know that there are people pout there in the world who feel all the troubles I do. It makes me feel a little less crazy.