Writing, Shipbuilding, and Fibromyalgia

I'm trying to eliminate my dependence on a sleep aid. So, I've increased my dosage of Lyrica at night. Last night I didn't have any trouble getting to sleep. I used 3 mg of melatonin. However, I started waking up around 3a, about 8 hours after my last dose.

After reading more about Lyrica, it is suggested that the max dosage for fibro is 450 mg. Higher dosages than that don't any greater effect. Also,when I take over 100 mg I'll be asleep in about an hour for about 2 hours. So higher dosages in the day are inconvenient.

With that in mind I'm going to try this:

50 mg at 8a
50 mg at 2p
200 mg at 8p

If I start to have a lot of pain during the day, I can increase my daytime dosages to 100 mg.

We'll see! :)

Friday, February 6, 2009

Found out that one of the reported side effects of Ambien is true - it can cause vivid nightmares.

I don't have nightmare. I might have a bad dream but nothing like what this was. What was really disturbing was that I knew I was having a nightmare and I knew it was probably caused by the Ambien but I couldn't wake myself up. I remember that somehow Aden was in danger but I couldn't help him and the same theme was repeated a number of times but in a different setting. That totally sucked!

So, I'm switching to Lunesta. I hope to be able to increase my Lyrica dosage at night to the point where it makes me drowsy enough so I don't need any sleep aid.

Sometimes it seems our weekends go by too fast - I think a 3-day weekend should be the norm. :)

Since Saturday my pain level has been a 2 or 3, which gets to be frustrating because of the amount of drugs and the resulting amount of sleep caused by the drugs. I'm still looking at different meds and regimes. Cymbalta has been approved for fibro but like Lyrica and the others it too has side affects. So for now I'm sticking with Lyrica and upping my dosages, which have been really low. Hopefully, by taking a larger dosage in the evening I won't need any sleep aids like Ambien or Lunesta.

On the writing front, I have two new school visits this spring and one in the fall. I'm a rarity in the school visit world; not many visiting authors write nonfiction. So that's my draw - I write about real things. And my sub book is coming along despite days when I can't write.

On the boat building front, metal prices have dropped dramatically and probably won't begin rising until 2010. So we'll be buying more steel and aluminium this spring while prices are low. Dad's working getting the CNC machine working so it can cut out the pieces for a large model of the boat -1inch:1foot. Big model - Aden can play in it when we're one. :)

The weekend is coming up - hooray! Not because it's time to slack off and kick back but because it's the opposite. This is our time to be constructive and productive. And Doug and I get to work along side each other - we like that. :) And we get to go out for Mexican food. We like that too.

The last few days have been great. My pain level was usually at a 1. I changed the timing and dosage of my Lyrica, which seems to have helped. It can make me drowsy so I'm trying to take more in the morning, when I'm naturally sleepy and be more awake in the afternoon and evening.