[livingwith]

I’ve been a night owl since the womb. My mother claims I would keep her awake all night. Sunrise is often my signal to go to bed. I was lucky enough to always have jobs where I worked the late shift at least one day a week. Then I got a job teaching at the night school. My class ended about 10:50 –I was in 7th heaven.
If I have to catch an early plane the only way I can make it is to not go to bed and sleep on the plane. Funny, when I used to come out here to AZ to visit, after I wa...Read the full article

[Michael688]

Wow... so amazing to read the stories of others dealing with this. Your post was almost an echo of my own story. My mother told me I never slept at night when I was in the womb, but once the sun came up I would settle down. How I knew when it was light out is beyond me, but it's nice to know I'm not a werewolf or such!

The stories of "just go to bed earlier" that others tell are so familar... all you can do is thank the 'sleepers' for their suggestion and walk away in envy of their ability to sleep, and disgust at their ignorance.

I've tried melatonin with no results at all. I tried 5-HTP and it seemed to help a little (very little) for a few nights, then horribly backfired and I went almost a week without sleeping at all.

Rohypnol worked great until it was banned, but the memory loss bit was scarey... same with Halcyon and even Ambien to a lesser degree.

I can't see light therapy as being viable since they recommend 2 hours of it each morning... I'm lucky to get to get 2 minutes free since I'm usually late for work already!!! not sure they thought that one through!

Does anyone else notice any patterns? it seems to come in waves with me, sometimes I'll sleep well (for me) for several weeks, other times I'll have two weeks of utter hell...

According to Wikipedia between 0.13% - 0.17% of the populace deal with this, so it's not that common (especially in adults).

it's nice to know I'm not alone in this...

[mask55]

I, too, have been a night owl since early childhood. We had huge fights at bedtime.

If I went to bed at bedtime, I would lie awake for hours and hours, tossing and turning, miserably...sometimes I would wait until my parents were asleep and get up and read or play.
I was the last one asleep at a slumber party, and by the time I was in 2nd or 3rd grade, I would have several days a year, especially in the summer, when I would just stay awake all night and all day the next day.

For a NUMBER of years now, I have taken Xanax 1mg to sleep. Now, it usually works, but not always. When it starts not working I will add Ambian, and sometimes that does not work.

I feel sure being on the medications this long has had a negative effect on my concentration and memory, but not being able to sleep is the worst torture in the world. People will say, "You will sleep when you get tired enough", but that is just not true. Instead, I will not be able to sleep until close to daylight, sleep an hour or less and have to get up for work, and each night it gets worse, because of increasing tiredness (NOT sleepiness) and increased anxiety about not being able to sleep.

I bought an Apollo BluWave Go Lite a week ago, but am not using it correctly because it tells me to start my first treatment at 7 am, and I am sleeping pretty well by 7am!

I am on a short leave of absence from work, and would like to see some improvement by the time I HAVE to get up at 5:30 am!

Michael, you wrote:
"I can't see light therapy as being viable since they recommend 2 hours of it each morning... I'm lucky to get to get 2 minutes free since I'm usually late for work already!!! not sure they thought that one through!"

Actually, with the new lights, check to see how many lumens they put out and get one that has 10,000 lumens. Then you only need 30 minutes.
I am trying the Blue wave light because it was cheaper than the light boxes, but I just read that if you have a SEVERE circadian delay, you might need to stronger light box...but the light box is $300.00.

I also have ADD and chronic depression.

Complicating my usage of light therapy is the fact that I also have a tendency to misplace this light as it is not very big, and gray...disorderliness is one of my trademarks too, unfortunately.

It’s hard for me to tell if I have any sleep disturbance patterns, because the medications usually make me sleep, HOWEVER, I do notice that once I start having trouble with the meds not letting me sleep, I start waking up after only 3 hours of sleep and increasing the dose of meds will not work.

What do they do if you go to a sleep clinic and you just DON"T go to sleep?

I will be eager to hear of other's experiences.
(I am 52 years old and an elementary school teacher, so shift work is not a possibility for me!)

[mask55]

You need to look for 10,000 LUX, NOT 10,000 lumens as I wrote, when you look for light boxes for light therapy.

I guess it is okay to add URLS of products on this forum.

I AM not any kind of expert, here, I just bought the Go Lite and haven't used it enough to recommend it or not, but the link is
http://www.apollolight.com/light_therapy_products.html

That shows the traditional light box, the BriteLite and the new Bluewave version. They work for Seasonal Affective Disorder, jet lag, shift changes and delayed cicadian sleep rhythm.

They are so expensive, but if they work they would probably eliminate the need for my Xanax as well as my antidepressents!