Sleep

[miguel81]

I usually go to bed at 8 pm and sleep until 8 am. When I say 'sleep' there is usually one, maybe two, hour(s) when I am awake. I walk a lot in the day, I use crutches to get around, but it involves trips with my dogs 3 times a day in the campo, and at least one other walk into the village for shopping etc. By 7.30 pm I am truly knackered with a capital Knack and am ready for my bed. My dreams are mostly highly coloured, Technicolor doesn't even come close, and I remember them down to the final 'T'. They alternate between extremely pleasant and highly frightening. Many times, after a short waking period, I can go back to sleep and carry on where I left off. Unfortunately this usually happens in the dreams that I want to forget, rarely in the dreams where I wake up just as the most fulfilling part (need I go on?) is about to manifest itself. I can wake myself up if a dream is really unpleasant and frightening. My most recurring dream is driving somewhere, parking my car and when I go back it is no longer there. It is at this point that I wake up, grin and go back to sleep.

 

[Amigo]

It's actually quite reassuring to read these accounts because I realise it's not just me after all!

I absolutely agree with Robin's dreams about desperately looking for a toilet and everyone being inaccessible or unusable for a variety of totally mad reasons! Still if they were 'usable', I might end up using them in my sleep! Eeek! 😱

 

[Robin]

That's what always worried me! Then one day I did dream I'd found a useable one, but fortunately woke up and found I hadn't used it in reality, Phew!

 

[Flower]

Glad to read it's not just me who lies awake watching the clock tick by! I wake up at 1.30 am give or take a couple of minutes either way then listen to the radio until about 3 am when I generally fall asleep until 5 am. The pain from my broken bones wakes me if my legs end up in the wrong position and my pump alarm wakes me if me I'm going hypo, the alarms don't give up until I've acknowledged them.

Dream wise I do have really vivid, scary ones especially when I'm using morphine patches for pain, I can see why the Victorians wrote bonkers poetry whilst addicted to morphine! It's weird that I dream in colour but can't see colours in daylight due to sight loss

Oh to be tucked up early and not wake until morning.

 

[Mark T]

For me it depends how worn out I've been by the little one. Normally I'll go about 5 or so hours before I completely wake up. As long as I don't drink too much after 7pm I'll generally go through the night without a break. But if I've been completely worn out I can easily go longer.

If I'm not in my own bed (i.e, a hotel), I'll probably wake every few hours and it takes ages to get to sleep

My dreams are very lucid and I often remember them (which suggests I come at least to a lighter state of sleep fairly often). I've been known to sleepwalk (OK, 15 years back last time).

 

[Mark T]

It's actually quite reassuring to read these accounts because I realise it's not just me after all!

I absolutely agree with Robin's dreams about desperately looking for a toilet and everyone being inaccessible or unusable for a variety of totally mad reasons! Still if they were 'usable', I might end up using them in my sleep! Eeek! 😱

I've actually dreamed about using the toilet once or twice before. Fortunately when I've woken up I've found that I haven't done anything in reality.

 

[Matt Cycle]

My sleep patterns are pretty good and I rarely wake during the night. (Unless I forget my Levemir, blood sugar's high and I therefore need to go to the bog ).

My problem seems to be during the day with loads of things spinning round in my head. Trying to do one thing and thinking about the multitude of other things that also need doing. I need the rest at night.

It's quite rare that I remember my dreams now.

Agree with what was said about hotel beds as I've just got back from a work visit away and hardly got any sleep in the hotel bed.

 

[Rosiecarmel]

I could sleep for England. For example last night I went to bed at 9:30, probably drifted off about 10 and my alarm went off at 6:15. I think I only woke up once to go to the loo. Some days I wake up 3-4 times for the toilet but other days I don't wake up at all (til my alarm goes off then I'm running to the bathroom!!)

Some days I'm so exhausted that I have to nap when I get home and I still go to bed early and sleep. No matter how much sleep I get though, I never feel refreshed. I never feel like I've had enough sleep even if I've slept for 10 hours!

 

[jusme]

I have always slept really well since babyhood, I only get disturbing dreams that wake me up when I am going hypo, although I must admit if I have a big worry about something I usually sleep really well until about 3am then wake and start to worry so I get up and go on the PC and play spider solitaire because that takes my mind completely off my worries.

jusme

 

[Robin]

It's funny about the 3am thing. I woke at 3am this morning, which is my normal time for either going hypo or starting to worry, (only I was 5.0 when I tested, and I've not got anything particular worrying me at the moment).
But i don't feel I've adjusted to the clock change yet, so would have expected to wake at 2am, new time, if it was based on body biorhythms. I've altered my insulin to new time, so maybe what wakes me is insulin based.

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

I was wondering about the 3am thing - is it based on summer time, winter time, or our bodies' own times? Is it 3am for everyone, or is it just assumed that 3am is roughly in the middle of the night for most people? If the latter, it's probably 5-6am as far as I'm concerned, which seems likely, as the rare nights I do wake up hypo it is usually between 5-6.

 

[Northerner]

I wrote a poem on the subject (with a topical Hallowe'n slant 🙂) of Three AM, with reference to parents testing their children during the night...😱

The Three A.M. Club


Low blood sugar can occur at any time of day or night, but it can be the night-time ones that are the most troubling, as often the symptoms do not awaken a sleeping person so that the hypo can be treated. It can be especially worrying for parents of a diabetic child, as you might imagine. For this reason, it is often suggested that blood sugar levels should be tested during the night to ensure that levels are not dropping too low. Generally speaking, three in the morning is when levels are likely to be at their lowest, so this is the most appropriate time for testing – what fun! Imagine all those bleary-eyed adults and sleepy children being pinged with a finger-pricker just at the time when you’re all comfy and snug and dreaming your favourite dream – oh what fun to be a member of the Three a.m. club!

At dead of night when all are sleeping,
Shadows through the room come creeping,
Seeking blood from those who slumber,
Hoping for a perfect number.

What beasts are these, with hair so wild,
Who would disturb a sleeping child?
What brings them at this witching hour?
What misbegotten, ghostly power?

Some phantom from the nether lands
With sharpened lancets in their hands?
A ghoulish, half-lit apparition,
Intent on some demonic mission…

In other houses, adults sleep –
For them, their slumber is so deep
Alarms will wake them with a shock…
Synchronised at Three O’ Clock!

Three is not a time for resting!
Three’s the time for glucose testing!
Join us till we sleep again,
The club that meets at Three A.M….! 😱

 

[Amigo]

That's brilliant northerner and humourously captures just how disruptive and scary it must be for kids and parents alike.

I had no real idea of what my friend went through with her Type 1 young daughter until I joined this site.

 

[Ted Hayman]

I usually fall asleep in front of the tv and wake about two or two thirty, whereupon I get undressed, crawl into bed, fall asleep within about fifteen minutes and don't wake until seven thirty or eight o'clock. I have been known to sleep longer than that!

 

[stephen bowman]

I am glad its not just me. My usual night consists of about 6 hours in total with a trip to the toilet about every 2 hours, with the vivid dreams that I do sometimes return to when I get back in to bed. I have also had very similar dreams over several nights - I blame the statins that the doc put me on even though my cholesterol wasn't that high. my dreams also verge on being nightmare-ish at times since starting the statins. I hope yours are not too bad !

 

[Northerner]

I am glad its not just me. My usual night consists of about 6 hours in total with a trip to the toilet about every 2 hours, with the vivid dreams that I do sometimes return to when I get back in to bed. I have also had very similar dreams over several nights - I blame the statins that the doc put me on even though my cholesterol wasn't that high. my dreams also verge on being nightmare-ish at times since starting the statins. I hope yours are not too bad !

Stephen, you don't have to take the statins if your cholesterol is reasonable, there is quite a debate about their efficacy.

 

[trophywench]

Ah ... if you ask junior doctors on night shifts in A& E departments, around 3am is actually known as 'Suicide Hour'. Sobering thought. However - dunno if they still make money from this, but has always made me laugh - they used to have a system where all the £25 payments for the second sigs on Death Certificates for cremation, was placed in a kitty and shared out once a year at Xmas. Called the Ash Cash !

 

[Bloden]

It's a funny old game, isn't it! 🙄 Lately, I've been getting up 2-3 times a night to pee: more or less exactly at 1am, 3am and 6am. I put it down to getting older, or because I've been drinking a tad more water during the day (to fix a slight dietary problem I was having). Funnily enuff, when my BG's in the teens I get a full night's sleep with no bladdery disturbance. 😉

 

[Annette]

I was wondering about the 3am thing - is it based on summer time, winter time, or our bodies' own times? Is it 3am for everyone, or is it just assumed that 3am is roughly in the middle of the night for most people? If the latter, it's probably 5-6am as far as I'm concerned, which seems likely, as the rare nights I do wake up hypo it is usually between 5-6.

I was told, some time ago, that I would definitely have a 3am drop, that everyone had one at that time. I pointed out that actually, I had a 4am drop. She (DSN) didn't believe me until I showed her my results and basal profile, at which point she changed the subject and it was never mentioned again...

 

[TheClockworkDodo]

Thanks, Annette - sounds as though they are just assuming 3am is the middle of the night then. Sometimes I haven't even got to bed by 3am, and my BGL is showing no signs of dipping then, and no signs of anything peculiar the next morning either.