Sleeping with the Enemy

We hear an awful lot about how important sleep is lately, something those of us past 50 probably all know. I slept like a trouper most of my life, oblivious to anything except the slightest sound from a child, when I was on my feet and moving before I knew what I was doing. Funny that - Silver Fox never did hear them.

But that is another story. I want to talk about menopause and night sweats. Hundreds of them daily for years, or at least it seemed that way. The best broken sleep I could get from age 50 to 55 was perhaps four hours totaled, and I was beginning to be waked by aches and pains as well. Some nights it felt like no sleep at all, and I am sure that I am not the only one. My own body had become my worst enemy.

Eventually I broke down and went to my doctor for Ambien, a way to stay asleep through the discomfort. She gave me the prescription, but at my next checkup I noticed that one of the symptoms they listed in my records was insomnia. Now, I never in my life was unable to fall asleep as soon as my head hit the pillow - two or three minutes max. (This perhaps from a lifetime of deadline work and the all-nighters that come with it, especially for procrastinators such as myself.) A little put out, I brought it up with the Doc, and she said I had told her I had insomnia when I asked for the Ambien. I replied that I had not, that I have never had insomnia, that I went to sleep only to be waked over and over by discomfort. This surprised her. In fact, she said she had not considered this condition and asked if I thought it was common with menopausal women. YES I said. YES YES YES!!

This made me wonder about the endless sleep studies, especially surveys, that I had been reading about how older women can't sleep any more. There is obviously confusion about why we don't sleep. I read deeper, looking directly at the studies instead of the journalists' interpretations and I came up with some very useful information about the aches and pains I was developing.

Human growth hormone (HGH) is a natural pain killer that we make in our bodies. It turns out that we secrete this after a rousing bout of exercise AND at the end of each sleep cycle. Well, damn, I had not had a complete sleep cycle for years! No wonder any joint or muscle I used screamed at me, particularly when I was not distracted by daytime activity. I used the Ambien to enable a slightly longer and uninterrupted sleep, and gradually over time, the aches and pains diminished. (To be fair, I also worked through a little yoga stretching.) Once the flashing stopped, I stopped the supplement and tried to make sure I had a complete cycle just before I woke, timing myself by waking between cycles to look at the clock. It took several years to retrain myself to a deeper sleep where I don't wake between each cycle, and I don't wake hardly ever for random aches and pains, and I have only one instance of flashing a night. I am almost back to myself after only 10 years of effort and attention on this front. Anyone can do it:)  Human growth hormone - Google it.