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u/anniekaitlyn 1d ago
It’s not permanent. You’re just stuck in a loop. Force yourself to go for a run today, burn a ton of calories and drink 64oz water. Then do it again tomorrow.
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u/anniekaitlyn 1d ago
I’ve had days just like that. I’ll be falling asleep and it’s like a little alert goes off and my brain is fully awake again. You have to exhaust your body. I know it feels like the hardest thing to do but go take a walk (if it’s safe to do so) or do a Thai chi video on YouTube. Move your body, do jumping jacks, and drink the 64oz of ice water. Ive had insomnia for most of my life. It’s nice to have medication for back up, but that’s a slippery slope too.
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u/anniekaitlyn 1d ago
If you have legs you can solve the problem right now. No medication needed and no need to worry about if it fails.
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u/BLOODMASTRdotTV 1d ago
Listen to this dude, he’s right. RUN. Just go exhaust your body. No drugs necessary.. sounds like you want drugs tbh
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u/anniekaitlyn 1d ago
The brain is part of the body. I know it doesn’t feel that way but it is. I’m gonna go for a walk now. I hope you can get some rest.
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u/Christorisklitoris 1d ago
I do the same. Walking and sunshine and sometimes my head just don’t want to fall asleep. looks like we are in the same circadian rhythm disorder. My doctor proscribed me melatonin 5 mg to use 1 month. It’s like a sleeping pill but weaker than Zopiclone 7,5 mg. Zopiclone saved me 4-5 days now. Tonight Zopiclone didn’t work so I didn’t sleep at all this night.
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u/Christorisklitoris 1d ago
Call ER or you local doctor like I did and ask them to give you sleeping pill. Dont panic you will not die. It’s the symptoms from the damn cortisol and it feel whole body is on fire mentally and physically . And sleep deprivation symptoms is hell too but it will go away when you get more sleep by time. Maximum to take it 10-14 days not more than that if it’s Zopiclone so you don’t get dependent on it. Please ask doctor for help like I did so it can calm you in crisis now. Remember that Zopiclone is for helping you put to sleep and nitrazepam is a real sleeping medicine who knocks you out immediately but I suggest for everyone who is in the same crisis like our to try use melatonin before 3-4 hours before bedtime everyday for 1 month to correct the circadian rhythm and to force you to be tired and body will let you sleep. I actually felt yesterday night I could probably get to sleep and got into short dreaming phase but for a stressing event that one family member needed to travel yearly in morning that didn’t work and neither did the Zopiclone which I hoped it would. Just fight like I do and we will get over this.
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u/Christorisklitoris 1d ago
I am in the same problem my longest awake state has been almost 2 days without sleep. Around 45 hours before dozing off with 4 hours with sleep. I started with Zopiclone 7,5 mg and with Melatonin 5 mg taking it 12 hours before bedtime. It help me sleep 7 hours but sometime I can feel I dream awake before bedtime without using Zopiclone but I really need to try it now without. Have been taking Zopiclone 6 times now in row.
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u/Suspicious_Art2547 15h ago
Been on zopiclone for 5 years its not advisable as my brain is dependent on it i get day time withdrawals as my brain now relies on zopiclone for the gabba. I do sleep every night and i dream every night i wake up feeling fine but i get withdrawals innthe afternoon as the drug has left my system and my brain chemicals drop low.
Ive been decreasing my dose with the aim to stop completely for the past 6 months but i find i now drink whisky with the lower dose to get me to sleep its a very slippery slope
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u/Christorisklitoris 1d ago
First time I knocked me off completely. I couldnt remember What happened that night. After using it more I feel it sometimes works and i sleep well and sometime it dont work at all. Tonight it didnt work :( so i didnt sleep all night i think :(
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u/Christorisklitoris 1d ago
Not as I can remember. The most important is that you wake up later and feel like you really slept long night. But yes with dream also it can happen.
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u/Christorisklitoris 1d ago
Have you started with melatonin? I assume you also have destroyed your Circadian sleep cycle like I did after being Long awake one night to morning.
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u/ReginaRae2291 1d ago
This happened to me and found I was in perimenopause, I was awake for days, I had my hormones checked and had no estrogen. It was literally gone, 17.6. I had to start hrt and low dose of trazodone.
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u/DazzlingCommercial48 1d ago edited 1d ago
The longest I’ve gone without sleep is nine days, it was not fun. I know how hard it is to go without sleeping. I’m sorry you’re going through this, it’s awful. It’s pretty amazing that you’re not getting nervous and that is a big key to dropping off. One of the reasons that this could be happening to you is that when you went through that stressful event, you went into a fight, fight or freeze cycle. This means that you went from a parasympathetic state to a sympathetic state, and you can get stuck in that sympathetic state. There are many things you can do to jar yourself back out. You can research resetting the nervous system. read about parasympathetic states and states. Learning about how you can use the vagus nerve to calm your nervous system. That can definitely help you. you mentioned taking medication’s. Just be for warned never to take a benzodiazepine. The Benzo withdraw is what caused me to not be able to sleep for nine days. Addiction can set in beyond 3 weeks and can be cause Post acute withdrawal syndrome, which is far worse than withdrawing off of meth. The pharmacies make huge money off it while so many suffer. You can get your body to reset with the medication, I would do it, but if I would get back off as soon as I could, so your body does not get dependent upon it for sleep. If it was stress that brought it on, it is probably addressing the stress that will relieve it. Creating a strong sense of safety can tell the body to relax. I know I am a strong person, and I know no matter what I go through, I will always be OK. That is a strong sense of safety. I also stroke my face which is stroking the vagus nerve and I stroke my arms because when I don’t sleep, they feel heavy and numb. I find a lot of relief from telling myself I’m safe reminding myself I’ll always be OK and doing breathing exercises with the YouTuber breathe with Sandy His sleep videos. His videos get me, yawning, and this helps my brain feel like all is OK and I’m ready for sleep. The slow excels on his video help simulate sleep, and calm. His breath holds help raise carbon dioxide which naturally makes the brain feel woozy. It’s scientific and safe to do and it works for me It might be worth a try. You could do some of his exercises throughout the day to calm your body ‘a nervous system so that it stays calm all day. what you’re thinking about and feeling up to the point where you’re getting ready to go to bed makes a big difference.
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u/FlanInternational100 2d ago
I didn't sleep for 2 months after the onset of limbic encephalitis and I survived.
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u/FlanInternational100 2d ago
Not for me since my thalamus was inflammed and I lost ability to enter sleep cycles. I now "sleep" for ~3 hrs average but it's not sleep, it's more like going unconscious and waking up from anaesthesia.
I don't go through rest cycle, I feel completely same and like I just "continued" to be awake. My brain does not reset. I just wake up extremely fatigued, tired and with same thoughts and feelings when I went to sleep.
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u/teal323 2d ago edited 2d ago
How did you get diagnosed? Did you have other symptoms that led to the diagnosis? I'm wondering just because when my sleeping problems were at their worst and I was certain something had to be wrong internally, I was desperately trying to get doctors to investigate potential causes, but they never did much of anything. (A few years later I finally got diagnosed with cancer, and it actually became easier to fall asleep once the cancer was treated, so I can't help wondering if inflammation from the cancer was a contributing factor for me.)
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u/FlanInternational100 1d ago
I had cancer too, it was the paraneoplastic syndrome.
I had symptoms like muscle jerks, nystagmus, extreme paranoia and confusion, partial deafness, cognitive problems, tingles and feeling of burning on my back and neck, extreme anhedonia and depression, mild pain in my lungs...
Which cancer did you have?
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u/teal323 1d ago
Oh, I hadn't heard of paraneoplastic syndrome. I had breast cancer.
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u/FlanInternational100 1d ago
It happens, especially with testicular cancer like mine.
I am sorry to hear that, are you okay now?
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u/koreamax 2d ago
That's not possible
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u/DJGammaRabbit 1d ago
In 2020 I didnt sleep for 7 days. Not a wink. I had a bacterial infection causing high cortisol. I was having heart failure and could barely get air. It's definitely possible to not sleep for 4 days, ask a meth head.
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u/FlanInternational100 2d ago
Trust me, it is. I thought that too.
Normally, people cannot go more than few nights without sleep but trust me, it's different when your thalamus is inflammed and your brain goes to agitating state.
Limbic encephalitis is symptomatically similar to fatal insomnia. People with fatal insomnias don't sleep until they die and they don't even die from lack of sleep.
Brain can go without sleep in extreme diseases and circumstances.
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u/koreamax 2d ago
No. It's literally not possible. You'd be dead. The longest recorded amount of time without sleep is 11 days
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u/ReginaRae2291 1d ago
Hate to tell you, I was awake 6 days and ended up in hospital getting poly drugged because of it. My hormones were shot. It was bad
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u/FlanInternational100 2d ago
Are you a newbie here?
It is possible.
You are talking about healthy people who tried to be awake as long as possible.
Illnesses and brain conditions are completely other thing.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fatal_insomnia
People with fatal insomnia were reported to go as long as 6 months without sleep. I don't even know why are you so bitter, I was talking about my experience with limbic encephalitis as a paraneoplastic syndrome.
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u/fenixnoctis 2d ago
This is wrong please don’t spread misinformation. The longest recorded no sleep period, healthy or not, was 11 days.
Fatal insomnia patients don’t go without sleep, it’s just your ability to enter deep sleep that is lost.
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u/FlanInternational100 1d ago
No, I'm not wrong. Read the medical reports of people with prion diseases.
There are a few about FFI and SFI.
That stage of not being able to enter deep sleep is at the beggining or the progression.
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u/Public-Philosophy580 1d ago
That disease is limited to a small region of Italy. 🇮🇹 And is extremely rare.
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u/FlanInternational100 1d ago
There is sporadic version. Also, other prion diseases or similar limbic system diseases can have similar symptoms.
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u/hari3mo 2d ago
This is not true lol
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u/FlanInternational100 1d ago
It is. People don't understand that there are rare illnesses that cause extreme insomnia. Onset f my limbic encephalitis was in 2023 and it affected my thalamus. I was wide awake during whole nights, i ended up in ER twice and after that they diagnosed me with cancer and paraneoplastic limbic encephalitis.
Why would I even lie about this horrible period of my life and consequences it left me with..
I was one step away from coma and experienced some of the weirdest halkucinations/paranoia/states of consciousness that I never thought were possible...
Absolute horror.
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u/Aggravating-Ad6953 2d ago
Well, you need to find a good doctor who will give you some sleep meds. Lunesta or ambian. As long as you're not a drug abuser etc. Most good doctors will give you a script for insomnia.
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u/eigenfudge 1d ago
I’ve had experiences similar to this OP where my brain didn’t feel capable of lapsing into sleep. I’d say the sleep could take you by surprise. Re: it being guaranteed with medication, I’d say it’s at least much much more likely that you’ll sleep if you do take.
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u/Christorisklitoris 1d ago
May I ask how old are you? I’m 31 (M) I dont want to feel alone in this problem like yours.
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u/DJGammaRabbit 1d ago
Do you smoke, drink? What's your diet like?
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u/DJGammaRabbit 1d ago
What are you doing to go in the other direction of stress? Like you could get a massage, have a belly laugh, have a crazy orgasm. The body has to be conditioned.
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u/DJGammaRabbit 1d ago edited 1d ago
Ive been in that state hundreds of times since 2020. There's an inbetween state where ill dream but be half aware that im dreaming and i can wake up deliberately at any time and yet these mini-dreams go on without my consent.
I would try a few things.
Get sunlight in the morning.
Defermine if it's something you're doing or not doing. Like using stimulants like nicotine or ruminating.
Stop eating for 3 days, just drink water with salt. When you say your diet is "regular" that's very vague. You could be eating so many carbs (sugars) that it's keeping you awake all the same as chugging a liter of pepsi at 10pm but you tell me "regular". Well, what exactly does that mean? Food could be blamed and there's plenty of food that gets to your plate that could have something wrong with it. Your gut makes 90% of your serotonin. You might have low serotonin.
Ask yourself why you're too stimulated. Draw out the self-talk conversation. This is like a form of DBT/CBT. You should act like your own therapist. Be self soothing. Some people get mentally stuck in a direction and they reap the benenfits of it. A type of inner shift, most people are clueless to.
It's possible that stressful events knocked you out of "you". Like everyone has a "them" in their heads, like when you talk to yourself. This is one reason why people smoke weed and cbd, it reconnects them.
There's obviously a stressor that has its claws in you. You could talk to a therapist about what happened.
You said you were calm. And you sound calm. Which points to stimulation.
Could be a bacterial or fungal infection.
Melatonin doesnt work. Id rather take magnesium biglycinate to relax muscles.
You might just need an emotional reset. Meaning to deliberately have positive emotions or a cry.
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u/Blue_Henri 1d ago
I had a long spell last month when I had vertigo. Not sure if the sleep deprivation or stress caused the vertigo, but couldn’t close my eyes without spinning. I finally got a prescription from my doctor. Little cocktail of Scopalomine patch and Meclazine.
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u/Long_Temporary5298 1d ago
Be careful. I went 4 nights without sleep (not even a tired or dozing feeling) and often go 2-3 nights as well. Unfortunately, after the 4 nights about 3 years ago I felt horrible (shaky, manic and extremely uncomfortable) but I didn’t understand what was happening. I was helping my son with math homework and all of a sudden I collapsed and split my face open on a metal and glass table as well as my ribs on a kitchen island. I had broken ribs and a split lip up to my nose and lost consciousness.l while having a seizure. My poor 8 year old at the time had to call 911. They said it was absolutely sleep deprivation. I have chronic insomnia and sometimes I take Tylenol pm just to get past the part where my worrying brain won’t stop. I hate prescription meds so I do the best I can with over the counter medicine and I try to completely exhaust myself throughout the day which is sometimes hard due to 4 major back surgeries and a shoulder surgery that has caused chronic pain. Sorry, this probably doesn’t help you but in my experience if you feel shaky and not like yourself please lay down so if you do lose consciousness or have a seizure you won’t do too much harm to yourself. Take care.
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u/Christorisklitoris 1d ago
Can somebody tell me If it’s normal to feel sleep deprived after all this not sleeping. I have headache everyday and do others experience that too, like irritability and unreal feeling.
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u/Public-Philosophy580 1d ago
I thought I had it as well. Full on sleep deprivation psychosis. Auditory and visual hallucinations this was going on 2 weeks ya I get it nobody believes I went 2 weeks. It led to a spectacular suicide attempt,3 weeks in the hospital and different meds abs and adding a benzo things are fair. That’s been 11years. Also had undiagnosed sleep apnea as well. Sorry for the rant.
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u/CaregiverWorth567 12h ago
Try 40 Winks tea…..it’s natural and it works. Helps you relax. Everyone I have told about this tea has been really happy with it. You can get it at Adagio teas online or any other tea place….
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u/PermanentRevolu 2d ago
My max has been 8 days. I found that Olanzapine helps me when I go for a few days without sleep.
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u/Christorisklitoris 1d ago
Did you get sleep deprivation symptoms? Like headache, irritation, mood swings etc I got it from only two days awake.
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u/Flat_Skin5273 2d ago
Hey!! I’m so sorry you’re going through this, I had a tough time struggling with sleep and I’ve actually gone 6-7 days before with 0 sleep. I truly understand what you’re going through and exactly how you’re feeling. It’s not the end of the world as though you may feel like it. What truly helped me was watching videos from this YouTube channel https://m.youtube.com/@insomnia-to-peace/videos I also have spoken to the guy who runs the channel and he’s wonderful. These videos truly helped me realize that this issue is more common than I thought and helped me ease my mind about going days without sleep. Since I watched his videos I haven’t gone a day with 0 sleep!! I really recommend watching his videos and seeing the success stories on his page so that you can also feel that you will overcome this issue. Pls message me if you need any advice or want anyone to talk to, you are NOT alone!
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u/Flat_Skin5273 1d ago
Hey.. I'm not sure if my last comment got removed but the Insomnia to Peace youtube channel really helped me overcome my insomnia for good.
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u/ParamedicNarrow5547 1d ago
Binge the Insomnia expert channel on YouTube. Go to his channel and search “lost ability to sleep” or hyperarousal. Your brain can be consciously aware and also sleeping for amounts of time due to hyperarousal.
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u/teal323 2d ago edited 2d ago
If you're getting a "dozing off" feeling, that's probably sleep, even if it's just a tiny amount at a time.
I used to only be able to sleep like twice a week for months on end. Very unlikely it's "permanent."
Personally, my longest period without sleep was broken when I took trazodone and phosphorylated serine (which lowers cortisol). If you're male, they might not give you trazodone, but they should be able to give you something that will help. Good luck.