Hi all, and hello @MatthewBirch & @Sharon_B particularly…
I read both your comments and whooped a little spasm of joy that there’s people out there going through the same things as I, not in a bad way, more in a relived shared experience way.
For eleven months continuous my sleep has beed distrubted in the same pattern, I sleep like the dead for no more than three hours, wake, startlingly awake and sit for two hours actual at quite a high level of function, before grabbing another three hour bout before rolling into the morning proper and actually feeling happy that the suns come up and that I can now rightly be awake.
I’ve started to unpick mine, and yes apnea was one of the avenues, obstructive apnea would have suggested some sort of blockage and usually is accompanied by waking with gasping for air following a relapseof the tongue or pallete, Centralised apnea is again typically accompanied by the same waking by gasping for air, as the brain has fell asleep (a neurological failure to breath) and caused the same symptoms.
tbh neither of these match for me, I did and do still wake with a dry mouth, which can be attributed to either medication or much more likely a new fault of sleeping with my mouth open.
Our meds will cause us to be dehydrated so I’ve been front loading, a technique that involves drinking a large amount of water an hour before a set bed time, knowing that I need the hydration, knowing that I am going to get up for the toilet at some time, and so loading all that in to the system to come out of the system in one go, add this to only taking a small glass of water to bed with me, to literally wet my whistle should I wake with a dry mouth and this can and might start to help with hydration and over excessive toilet visits in the night.
Our meds can cause insomnia, add this to our likely suffering of PTSD and we’re all good for a crap nights sleep.
Almost every one of us here has PTSD, in the middle of our brain is our amygdala, a small alarm bell that rings our “fight or flight” mechanism and when triggered it floods our bodies with adrenalin and instructs our adrenal glands to flood with cortisol also, these chemicals heighten our senses, charge our muscles and allow us to flee or fight those pesky sabre toothed tigers.
When we had our strokes these two, our amygdala and adrenal glands went into overdrive, keeping us alive through the event, but then terrorising us post event, we were wrapped up in hospital, relatively safe and sound and yet they kept pinging, charging us over and over with a whole flood of chemicals we had no real need for and no real way of washing out either, other than drinking lots of water.
After my own stroke I suffered greatly with sensory overload, lights, noise and especially people. They sent me into a feverish clostraphobic near state of panic, I remember my three children coming to see me at home, all stood in my small kitchen with me, me trapped in the corner, my amygdala and adrenal glands were banging, I could literally feel them charging me to escape this overload and I’d never experienced anything like it. I stepped out and away but afterwards was left toxic and dibalated by the chemicals. For a long time post stroke I had super senses, I was like Spiderman to my own body, sensing and feeling every twinge and pang, living at a higher frequency in almost constant fight or flight mode.
The anxiety of having a stroke, the surviving, the trauma and stress going forward means not only did we survive a war, but for many we wake every day and feel like we’re still in a war, almost constantly under threat, almost constantly readjusting and seeking answers whilst our recovery and all the symptoms it comes with cascade through our bodies and minds.
The adrenaline that we’re loaded up with and the cortisol pumped out by our adrenal glands we ironically have no real way of getting rid of, ordinarily we would run from our threat, expending the chemicals produced to defend us, but as stroke survivors this seems highly unlikely, the best we can do is some gentle excercise, go for a walk and flush it down by dilluting them both with water.
Eventually we can end up with AFS Adrenal Fatigue Syndrome, where the gland has been pinging for so long it becomes exhausted which in turn causes another whole load of cascading transient symptoms in to our bodies for us to wonder, are they stroke related and so we go around and around and around.
Stress - Anxiety - Cortisol - AFS - Amygdala - Drugs - PTSD…
all ending up and adding to insomnia, we lose the ability to form a normal and regulated sleep pattern.
I would like to say to you both, challenge it, challenge the sleep pattern you’re accepting, I accpeted mine for a long time, but since have started to pull it apart, accepting that we have PTSD and are suffering with it, learning to dillute and switch off of amygdala and adrenal glands allowing both to recover are essential, yoga, meditation, relaxation therapy, whatever you works for you is an important part of wrestling back control and starting to feel more like our PTSD is being challenged and addressed is super important.
I front load with liquids at 8.00pm, accept that I’ll be going to the toilet at 12.00, that I’ll be going to bed at 9.00pm and so waking around 6.00am, accept that I have insomnia caused by meds, PTSD and possibly AFS but no longer accept that I’m going to wake up and stay awake for two hours.
Yes I wake up still but I now challenge that by not turning the light on, by not adding a cup of tea and a visit to a laptop or phone in with it and do stay in bed, demand that I challenge this pattern and relax and ground myself back to wanting a fuller longer nights sleep.
I figure it’ll take me a while yet to unlearn what my trauma and PTSD has given me, but I am challenging it, I will try every holistic and natural remedy and therapy I think will help and do not accept that this is just how my sleeps going to be post stroke.
I hope you both challenge your own pattern, and acknowledge that it’s normal with PTSD to struggle with sleep, we’ve lived through and may still be fighting a war inside ourselves, winning sleep is just another part of the battle.
Good luck both.
Al
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buuuut, I’m so grateful for the CPAP, I don’t care, and I’m not a vain person anyway. Once you get used to it, you don’t notice you’re wearing it, and there’s lots of different styles.
Anne 
suspect more to do with not being at work.
peeking out my eye mask I am always so happy if it’s proper time to get up, I would like to say I jump out the bed but we’ll I move as fast as I can 
ahead of us.
and furthermore those even bigger speakers next to the DJ booth in the night club. Now though I can’t tolerate the scream my Grandaughter lets out, it feels like a moth is in my brain flapping it’s wings and I feel like throwing myself to the ground like a scene from any WW2 movie.