I have started falling asleep during the day. I can be talking with you and keep right on talking. Your only hint is when I start saying "The quick green cow drives a tv show" or something nonsensical like that.

I read up on Narcolepsy (WedMD) and of the four main criteria, I don't have any. If I get up and walk around I usually do better. When I sit, I fall asleep. This is really hard to do when my Service Dog is watching for that. I don't sleep long before she "alerts" and jumps up on me to wake me up. (See Congenital Central Hypoventilation Syndrome or CCHS)

I have every form of Sleep Apnea you can imagine. Sent to the National Jewish Hospital in Denver and was gone almost 6 weeks. I sleep on the SV unit, with oxygen. It has breathed for me as long as 40 minutes at a stretch, pressure was 30 cmH2O the whole time per Encore Pro software. EDIT: One other thing, since I detoxed off Morphine/Oxycodone in 2008/2009 I now wake up around 4-5am nearly every day. I average 4-5 hours sleep per night. Not enough. Last night I took 3mg of Lunesta, 7.5mg of Oxycodone (stop coughing from my Bronchitis), a valium and a flexeril muscle relaxer. I was determined I was going to get a full 8 hour sleep. I was up at 5am.

I apologize for the long post, but some of you would have asked me if I have sleep apnea.

I don't have cataplexy, hallucinations, or sleep paralysis. I am not sleepy 90% of the time either. zero out of four, yet I still fall asleep when sitting. Not while driving though. Hmmm. Guess my brain is busy driving the car??

I asked my PCP and he gave me Provigil. It does not work. Even two of them don't work.

Any other ideas? Any help appreciated.

What about putting you on Ritalin?? i've been falling asleep during the day too, cause I'm on Methadone and it makes me sleepy. Doc put me on Ritalin twice a day. I just started it 2 days ago, so I don't know how good it works yet, but he thinks it will solve my problem. We'll see.

I hope something works for you. I know how troublesome this is. I can be sitting here typing, and if I'm the least bit tired, I fall asleep typing. LOL

Best of luck and God bless. Hugs, Lee

dllflo,

A sleep study should help determine the cause and suggest treatment.

Excessive sleepiness also deserves a thorough neurological, endocrinological and nutritive work-up. It can be symptomatic of conditions ranging from MS to thyroid problems to allergies to viral infections and so much more.

Here is another resource: http://www.talkaboutsleep.com

You might want to try LIGHT therapy. This is done with blue/green light to shift your sleep patterns. If for some reason your body is making and releasing melatonin at the wrong time, then you fall asleep at the wrong times.

One of the sites I researched a couple of years ago had a test to take, to evaluate you to help choose when to expose to the light to shift your sleep times.

If you want, post here, and I'll try to find the site with the test again. I used a light visor for winter depression very effectively years ago when I had winter oversleeping and napping issues.

When I improved my Vit D levels, that SAD stopped, so this year I haven't needed to use the light visor at all!

Hey dilfo, you have a service dog too? My Chloe is licensed and may be the smallest service dog out there (but she is the smartest, I think).

Have you tried Provigul, I have been on 200mg for 6+months, doesn't help me but maybe it would help you. I saw a pulmonary dr today for my apnea, I am getting a cpap machine, they said 10 was my setting (whatever 10 is).

400mg Provigul is what I see as the standard, maybe that would help you?

I dont knw if Im doing this properly. I do something like that...I found out from my neurologist that not only do I have to regular epilepsy type seizures (grandmal etc) I also have these petite mal seizures that I just blink out. I can be starring at you,grinning like a monkey etc, and no one ever knows that the lights arent on in the house for that small period of time. And this can happen up to a hundred times a day for me and no one even knows. Its slowed down now that they adjusted my dilaten levels. But its really crazy weird. Do you go to a neurologist? They can do EEGs etc to ck many things nowadays. I do know how it is to have trouble with sleep. I still struggle with that. I wake up almost on the hour every hour. I have alot of what they call racing thoughts that I cant shut off, so I leave my tv on something boring and random that im not interested in and it has really helped with that. I tend to go off to sleep listening . Suprisingly, it worked , sleep without drugs, except the occasional natural melatonin tablet. You can get them over the counter and I take about 10 to 15 mg.It worked for me. It is natural and not going to knock you out , so dont expect that. Oh, and Im not a docter, I want to make sure anyone who reads knows this. Im only telling you what worked for me. I hope someone has the info that can help you. God bless

What a great bunch of people we have on here. Seizures? I never thought of that. I will contact my Neurologist.

Service dogs? Tolly is a 45 pound Portuguese Water Dog who is smarter than two of our kids. She is about 3 feet to my right at this moment, laying there watching me. I got about 2 hours sleep last night and she can tell I am not functioning 100%. BTW, she is licensed as a ... what did they call it ... assistance dog? Calif. has a different name than Service Dog. My wife trained her and registered her, etc. She has saved my life more than once when I quit breathing.

mrsD, I will check into those lights. IF you have the link handy, great, otherwise I will Google it. (Did you know if you type Google with a small g, it shows up as a misspelled word...odd).

I am taking Vit D.

The company who made the light box (Apollo) sold it to Phillips since I saw it last. Phillips does not have it on their website.

So I am sorry, the test appears to be gone.

I used a visor:
http://www.feelbrightlight.com/
I haven't needed it since I normalized my Vit D levels.

mrsD, my wife and I are researching it on this end, trying to see if someone else bought the patents, etc. If we find anything useful we will let you know. It is 4:25am now, I have been up since 1:30am. I woke up, needed to use the facilities and now I am wide awake. I will try to take a nap this afternoon. I took an 8mg Rozerem too, seems it does not work on me.

Thanks again........

Rozerem is just a fancy form of melatonin.


It is important when shifting sleeping cycles, that you do NOT expose yourself to light. There are melatonin receptors in the retinas and they signal a turn off of melatonin when light hits them.

This article explains it:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Melatonin

Melatonin does not work like "drugs" do. It is a slow process, and you have to help it along. Exposure only to yellow light is one thing you can do when you get up at night.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Delayed...phase_syndrome