Hyperfocus vs. Perseverance?

[Geoduck]

Have no idea how that posted twice.

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[billd]

Not sleep apnea – breathing is ok and uninterrupted. I go into REM state within minutes. For a normal human, it’s after 90 minutes of a refreshing deeper sleep. I never achieve that.

A sleep study (21 hours worth) showed that if I lay down to take a nap that’s only 15 minutes long, I fall asleep fairly quickly, and go almost immediately into dream state. NOT normal. Plus, at some points, say a long boring lecture, class, whatever, I literally go into both states- dream and wakefulness. I have dreams while awake (resulting in a bit of confusion at times) and switch back and forth between states in seconds. When I get the urge for a nap on weekends, it’s literally like having to breath – I can’t resist. I fall asleep if someone else is driving, or in a boring meeting or class. Doesn’t matter how many hours I sleep (as their sleep study showed) I never refresh.

No sign of apnea or heavy snoring, etc.

So – we’ll see. Hope to hear from the ADHD specialist, and hope to iron out the meds. Bummer that the lady last week was GOING to prescribe to treat the ADHD, but now can’t because of the stuff to treat the “daytime sleepiness” issue. 3rd day on the nuvigil, and it’s not “apparently” impacting the ADHD.

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[Geoduck]

So Bill, is the ADHD creating the sleep issue or is the sleep issue creating the ADHD? Part of my problem is that I suffer (as do many, many women) from hormonal insomnia. During parts of my cycle, where estrogen levels rise or drop, (ovulation and menstruation), I spend a few days getting no sleep. My ADD is drastically affected by this. I just need my sleep.

However, in some people I know, when they have ADD, sleep becomes a huge issue, and going on meds helps with this. My brother says the little voice inside his head (you can only say this to ADD people, right? LOL!) won’t shut up and he just can’t sleep. So he thinks the ADD is causing him to be awake, when he should be falling asleep.

Not getting enough deep sleep would mean your body is not truly resting as it should. I’m under the impression this could severely affect ADHD, or even create the symptoms. However, being ADHD may be causing it by not allowing you to go into a deep sleep.

On the other hand, it could all be coincidental, I suppose. Let us know what you find out. Good luck!

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[billd]

Will do. You pretty much echo my questions last week………….

I have no issues falling asleep. Just the opposite.

Grandfather ADD, mother ADD, son ADD so I guess I’d be odd-one-out if not me.

Voices in his head? More like constant arguing.

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[caper]

another study suggesting a “benign form” of ADD.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17171657

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[billd]

Huh? IS that written in Canadian or something? Can someone translate to English for me? I don’t get it – sorry.

What’s this mean “benign” form???

Anyway…… Had that sleep study done. they found no sign of apnea or narcolepsy (according to a nurse – they still will not reveal to me the study results!) That doc put me on nuvigil. I started taking it the day I saw the whatever she was for the ADHD. At that appointment, she was going to discuss ADHD, and prescribe meds. HOWEVER, when I said the sleep doc put me on nuvigil to see how that worked or helped, then she backed up and said no meds since the sleep doc beat them to it. HOWEVER, after 3 days, on the 4th, the nuvigil did nothing for my sleepiness. I started right back into falling asleep in a class- literally dreaming while looking at the computer screen and having trouble not yawning and trouble sitting still and staying awake enough to get anything out of it.

Later days were similar – I got the nuvigil headache, and the feeling of being high on over the counter cold meds (feeling “light”) but no benefit that I could feel or tell. Further, on the 7th day, my heart started beating fast, I felt really weak and “funny”, really light.

So the sleep doc said stop taking it and let the ADHD person treat me. Now that person won’t………… said I need to see ANOTHER person, a phd or something. I told the nurse no, wait just a cotton-picking moment – the whole purpose of my visit there was to GET meds and be treated for the aDHD, the follow-up with the phd was just to learn more, learn sub-types, etc. I argued with the nurse on the phone and said no, the whole point of my visit there was they they ADMITTED or KNEW I had ADHD, the point was to get treatment, start something to see what might work. And that was thwarted by the sleep doc. So now the sleep doc is not involved with meds – what’s up?

I’m SO PI@#$%$# off I could scream at them over the phone. The nurse said “no, we have to make sure you see the phd dfirst to make sure it’s no anxiety or something. WHAT THE#$%? 54 years of anxiety? I had no anxiety until they started changing gears and stories. These people just can’t compare notes or stick to their original stories, can they. They said “that’s up to your primary care doctor to coordinate things” then tossed out a name – I said that is NOT my primary, that’s a PA I saw only because MY doctor wasn’t in that day and they failed to contact me about a canceled appointment because he was gone – so they had me see a PA……..

Now I’m getting irate.

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