Saturday, May 14, 2011
Your brain may be dozing off without your knowledge....
Had read this study recently about sleep deprivation and wondered if it might pertain to fibromyalgia. And then I got this link from one of my trusty Facebook fibromyalgia pages about that very subject:
Brain Fog & Sleeping Brains in Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
If this is really what is occurring, it would explain quite a lot about "fibro fog". The scary part is how often and in what circumstances I go completely blank. You would think being in the middle of a lively conversation would not allow one's brain to shut down, or while doing something that requires presence of mind such as driving or cooking. Talk about feeling like I'm not all there.
Brain Fog & Sleeping Brains in Fibromyalgia & Chronic Fatigue Syndrome
If this is really what is occurring, it would explain quite a lot about "fibro fog". The scary part is how often and in what circumstances I go completely blank. You would think being in the middle of a lively conversation would not allow one's brain to shut down, or while doing something that requires presence of mind such as driving or cooking. Talk about feeling like I'm not all there.
Comments:
When I went to the Hunter-Hopkins Center in NC (Drs. Lapp and Black/CFS specialty clinic), they talked about this some--as I recall (if I understood correctly), often the wrong brain waves are active when you're asleep (hence the unsatisfying sleep) and then doze off when you're awake. They suggested Provigil, which is used to treat narcolepsy. The pharmacy blurb that came with the medication said something like, "We have no idea why this works, but it seems to affect brain waves." Not encouraging, but the effect was AMAZING. I felt more alert than I had in years--no memory problems, no fog. But it hasn't been approved for long term use, it's not approved by insurance for CFS/FM and is wicked expensive ($7 per pill), and I ended up going off it after a couple of years. Dr. Black said to be careful w/ it, b/c it wasn't a cure--you'd feel good enough that you'd forget you were sick, push too hard and then crash big time, and that did seem to be true. Still, now that I've been off it for a couple of years, I'd consider going back on.
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