insomnia comes back after 3 1/2 months
 

Hi everyone,

I got my concussion in April of last year, and by October-September was doing okay, some leftover visual issues, anxiety, and fatigue but they were all getting better slowly but surely. My sleep had finally leveled out to about 8-9 hours a night with 0-1 wake ups in the middle of the night with the help of 10mg Amitriptyline and some supplements. I was waking up most of the time refreshed. Activity/overstimulation the night before/exercise did not decrease the quality of my sleep then.

However, the past 2 weeks or so, my sleep has been very patchy. I sleep great one night, and horrible the next, and it just keeps repeating. I got sick with a minor viral illness a week and a half ago which wrecked havoc on my sleep. I am better now, but yet still find sleep elusive some nights. On the bad nights, I stay awake till the morning, getting 45 minutes of sleep at a time. My body is so tired, but refuses to ‘let go’, so to speak. This time coincides with me returning back to school, and is really making existing as a student really difficult.

I am seeing a therapist, have a daily mediation practice, and have been feeling the best I’ve felt in a while, as my vision issues/derealization are really starting to taper down, which is my worst symptom aside from sleep. I have an hour wind-down time before bed, don’t look at screens for at least 30 minutes before bed, have a cool and dark room, and am starting to get good at letting go of stress. In other words, I have decent sleep hygiene.

I have noticed that these sleepless nights usually occur following a busy day, and although I try to avoid overstimulation, it is really hard to do so in college. Furthermore, I don’t understand how I slept fine after big events during the fall semester, and now can’t seem able to. Why have I regressed? It’s all so frustrating...

The only thing I can think of in terms of the cause is my neck. It has been more sore this past week, but I’m also exercising and that might be normal. Is is worth it to go to a NUCCA practitioner soon to check my neck, or do y’all think my body is just still recovering from the illness and the stress of returning back to school? When I sleep, my mental health is really good, but when I don’t, it’s really hard to have a good day. I just want to sleep like I did last semester and get on with my life...

Your experience seem to be similar to mine. I can go two weeks sleeping OK (maybe waking briefly in the night in my case) but then get a sleepless night out of nowhere. It's very frustrating. I agree that it seems to occur after busy stimulating day. It's like I have too much energy to sleep - I'm thinking I should go for a run to burn it off. Anther explanation is underlying anxiety TBH I'm at a loss to explain it sleep is so mysterious lol. I think your sleep will settle down again, it's just a blip.

My concussion was to the front scalp area of my head, I 'm wondering whether this is indicative of causing sleep issues?