Three Important Life Lessons Only Learned from Insomnia

New Bed!

New Bed!

Well, it’s 3:18 a.m. and since sleeping still isn’t in the stars, I am writing…while in a yoga stretch unkinking my back. It’s been a rough week. I didn’t sleep for a week due to pain. We figured out the likeliest culprit (since both Hubby and I have had our backs scanned, X-rayed, massaged and chiropract-ed) was The Bed of DOOM, forged in Mordor in 1994! I had NO IDEA Hubby’s bed was that old. Probably a question us gals should ask before marriage O_o.

Hey, have any ex-girlfriends or wives buried under your porch? No? Cool. Btw, how old is your BED?

Use a polygraph if you must.

Hubby and I got married, bought two cars, a house, a bajillion diapers and we were going to get to the whole “replacing the bed thing” but this past week? Let’s say we hit “critical.” I know the bed is the problem, because I slept last night. In fact, I slept AWESOME.

Want Sleep? Ah, a “Kink” in The Plan

My back was still a mess so I went to take a nap at 11 a.m. this morning…yesterday morning? Sunday morning. The plan was to sleep two hours since The Spawn had me up just after 6:00 am. I’d sleep until around lunch, then we’d eat, I’d put dinner in the crockpot and Hubby and I could play video games all day.

Anyway, just as I drifted off, my mom calls me bawling and hysterical. Her washing machine overflowed in the middle of the night and her living room was in two inches of water. She couldn’t reach my brother and had no one else and was in a panic. Even though I knew my back was still screaming, Mom just had major hernia surgery and no business moving furniture at her age. So Hubby and I went and lifted all her furniture—heavy furniture—out of the water so it wouldn’t ruin.

Kill. Me. Now.

I love that I could help my mom, but right now my back is seriously pissed I love my mother more than it.

Thing is…

Unusual Suspects

Beds are the most likely culprit for insomnia or back pain, yet we tend to think of them last (probably because they are expensive and we shop for them every decade). I’ve spent the last two years doing Bikram yoga, focusing on my core (or lack thereof), going to chiropractors, taking herbs, Ibuprophen, Voo-Doo Chicken Wing Therapy all to gain little relief. I blamed it on my old back injury (broke it in 1995), changes in weather, age, and still? Never thought of my mattress until this week when nothing else had worked.

Went to the doctor. They did X-rays, MRIs. Not once, did they ask if my bed was bought when gas was $1.09 a gallon.

My bed was as old as the OJ SIMPSON case and as dead as Tonya Harding’s career after she had her loser boyfriend kneecap a fellow skater…in 1994! Don’t get me wrong, I figured the bed was old. I just never dreamed it was from the Clinton Administration. 

Yes, I am a little flabbergasted. I figured maybe it was eight or even ten years old, but almost TWENTY? Why do guys not mention this stuff? I “get” you don’t buy new underwear until nothing is left but an elastic waistband, but the mattress? Was I supposed to sleep it to the springs before we considered replacing?

What I’ve Learned About Being Up All Night

#1 DO NOT get on Web MD.

In fact, they should just not allow people to log into that site after midnight. It took me less than twenty minutes to diagnose myself with:

Prostate cancer? Wait, do I have a prostate?

DWARFISM! I KNEW IT! NO WONDER I CAN’T BUY PANTS THAT FIT!

And the holistic medicine sites aren’t any better. Took less than ten minutes to determine I needed to be dewormed. Should I do the cats at the same time? *scratches head* Crap! Do I have fleas?

#2 Social media friends ARE REAL friends.

I couldn’t have made it through this rough patch if kind people hadn’t kept me laughing and offered advice and even help. People I have never met in person. You guys have put up with my whining for a week and made me smile and that’s why I love my followers so much. I’ve met some of the best people, people on the other side of the world who I wouldn’t call “friend” if I hadn’t been up with back pain.

I SO apologize I am still whining :(. I totally didn’t see the “Moving Mom’s Furniture And Lifting It Out of Water Curve Ball.”

#3 We can’t control circumstances, only our attitude.

I am in terrible pain right now. In fact, if the Air Force hadn’t goofed up our insurance (found that out when I caved and tried to see a doctor Friday) I might be in an all-night-Doc-in-the-box instead of here. But, I take my mind off it. I laugh, have fun and know “This, too, shall pass.”

***And FYI, I’m very ADD, so Benadryl, alcohol, Tylenol PM and all the crap that normally knocks people out? WIRES ME FOR SOUND. I can’t take any pain medication known to Man because they all make me itch. I’ve taken Valerian, B Complex and D and been doing yoga since 1:00 a.m. and nothing is working.

Yeah, sometimes it seriously sux to be me.

But tomorrow is a new day on a new bed with new friends…

…wait that sounded wrong. Y’all know what I meant O_o.

Anyway, so I focus on the good stuff because life is all a choice in perspective. It’s now 4:15 a.m. Hmmm. Maybe I should check back with Web M.D. I’m seeing glowing spots. Wait. Whew! False alarm. That’s the modem.

Going to try the “sleep thing” again and forgive any typos. I’ll fix them later. Got ice and a heating pad. In the meantime, check your mattress and see if maybe it’s the problem. Don’t wait like I did, because now I am paying for it. What are your thoughts? Mattress horror stories? Do you just find your bliss when you can’t sleep or do you discover your “previously undiagnosed” case of Malaria per advice from Web MD? 😀 Have you met any cool people on social media you might not know otherwise if you hadn’t been up all night?

I LOVE hearing from you!

To prove it and show my love, for the month of August, everyone who leaves a comment I will put your name in a hat. If you comment and link back to my blog on your blog, you get your name in the hat twice. What do you win? The unvarnished truth from yours truly. I will pick a winner once a month and it will be a critique of the first 20 pages of your novelor your query letter, or your synopsis (5 pages or less).

ANNOUNCEMENTS: I have a class coming up August 21st, I am running a Your First Five Pages webinar. Bronze is $40 and Gold is $55 (I look at your first five pages) and use WANA15 for 15% off.

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    • moxeyns on August 19, 2013 at 4:35 am
    • Reply

    Sympathy! I hope all your troubles float away on that new mattress tomorrow night – NOT literally, like your Mom’s furniture!

  1. agrh sounds full on! thanks for the post

  2. I think you’re DNA sisters with my daughter. She spent about six months on Web MD after a bad break up. She diagnosed herself with something new every night. (Anything but heartbreak, she was too tough for that!) Feel better soon 🙂

  3. Oh dear! Sorry your hurting, but happy that you can laugh about it! 🙂 I’m up extra early because of my oldest’s first day of Kindergarten. Nope, didn’t have to get up early, but the moment I woke at 4:30, my brain started thinking of all the things I have to do before heading out the door. So I’ve been writing too. 😀

    As far as beds go, I’ll never forget when I stayed in a bed and breakfast in Holyhead, Wales. The bed was a queen size, and when I laid down, I rolled to the middle. Maybe that bed had seen Churchill days? Good thing I don’t have a bad back. lol

  4. Mattress horror stories? I’ve got a few. Like the time we moved and DH & I had to sleep on a fold-out couch for a month. After the third night I had to start sleeping on the floor because I was in so much pain.

    I totally *get* your joy at the thought of a new mattress. May your nights be full of sweet dreams from now on rather than scary Internet web-sites.

  5. Sad for you that you are hurting 🙁 Praying for you!
    I don’t have a mattress horror story (and really hope I can live to an old age without one…) but I have met lots of wonderful friends on social media.

    I met one of my best friends on facebook, well, on Rummikub on facebook actually. I live in Australia and Mindy lives in OK, our Rummikub times collided as I used to (pre-writing era) play Rummikub while eating tea, and she used to play when she finished work at 2am. 🙂 We started chatting, friended each other on fb, found out we are both Christians 🙂 I called her on the phone and chatted semi-regularly….

    Fast forward 2yrs and I booked a trip to the US to attend a writing conference, with a research trip to CO planned afterwards. Mindy flew to CO and we spent a week of cruising around sightseeing, shopping, laughing at crazy jokes and staying up waaaaaaay past any normal bedtime talking. BEST TRIP EVER!!!

    I no longer play Rummikub (sucks too much writing time), but I have a sweet, genuine friendship with a zany friend and my life is all the more richer because of it. 🙂

    Who says God doesn’t have a sense of humour? Or that he isn’t watching what we do on fb… lol

    All the best, Kristen, I hope you are feeling better soon!
    Lucy

  6. I’m the last person to advice people about good sleep (what a terrible sleeper I am, damnit), but I know the torture of backpain and mattress-madness.
    By the way Voodoo and faith healing are way overrated!
    BUT the secret that gives me relief: hot bath with Dead Sea salt.
    I would be delighted to know, if you gave it a try and if it worked with you, too.
    Get well soon, dear!

  7. Sorry to hear about your insomnia and back problems. As one who suffers from both, I feel your pain, and hope you’re feeling better soon. I hate sleepless nights, though the silver lining is that I seem to some of my best work then. The house is quiet, dog and husband are in bed, few incoming emails to distract me….

    • Jenny on August 19, 2013 at 5:46 am
    • Reply

    Ha. Ha. Kristen you made me laugh. Which was a little painful due to my sore neck. The neck pain is not from my bed (well my mattress is only a few years old, so I don’t think it’s from that) but rather from sitting at my computer at work, and then adding to that pain when I am at home writing. So I sympathize with you wholeheartedly and hope that soon all back pain and heat pads and ice pads will be a distant memory from the past and that you are blissfully sleeping through the night.

  8. Oy, feel better! I know what you mean about mattresses of doom, and back pain. I write this as a slouch over my keyboard after sleeping in a funny position. Again.

  9. WEBMD is a site you should never look at, period. I always end up with cancer of the head or something. I hope you’ll get more sleep tonight.

    1. haha, yes this is so true.

  10. I have felt your pain. The answer was a Sleep Number bed. Even as it ages, you can still change the firmness to match your back condition. Sheer heaven.

  11. You are causing pain in my lower back…from laughing so hard. You are hilarious, but I worry that it is a delirious kind of hilarious. I’m with ya sister on both counts; no sleep & bad back. Evil back.

    • Kali Anthony on August 19, 2013 at 7:26 am
    • Reply

    OMG! We SO need a new mattress. Ours is 14 years old and we’re sore and creaky each morning! Thanks for the tip. Not being able to take painkillers sucks. I had a disc bulge last year and only got through chewing painkillers like Mentos. Hope you are better soon, the mattress works and you get some sleep and pain relief ASAP.

  12. You’re so awesome, Kristen. Started my morning laughing. 😉 Hope your back heals up soon. Heat works better than ice, I think. Loosens the muscles. 😉

  13. When I was single I bought a king sized bed. The room I lived in was small and the house was old, but cute, so I only had room for a small bookshelf, a small nightstand, and a bed the size of Texas. So, I ended up sleeping on one small side of the bed while the rest of it became my pseudo-dresser.

    Best. Sleeps. Ever.

  14. I can sympathize with your bed! I have a bad back normally, so I have to get a new bed regularly otherwise you don’t want to be around me when I don’t get enough sleep. NOT PRETTY!

    Glad to hear you were able to get some sleep with the new bed.

    If I can’t sleep I’m usually reading not on social media because that’s the only time (other than at the hairdressers) that I can made a dent in my reading list. 🙂

  15. My husband and I replaced our mattress in November. Our previous mattress wasn’t from 1994, but 1997 and fell off a truck. It was seriously awful. Now, we have a nice big king sized pillow top. Absolute bliss! It’s doesn’t help my insomnia though, only prescriptions do that unfortunately, however, I don’t wake up in pain anymore. 😀 Thanks for the laugh this morning! And I totally sympathize with you!

  16. I replaced my bed recently. Thought I had bought the old one a “few years ago”. Time flies. It was 12 years old.
    FYI, I found End Pain in a natural med store. Main ingredients are Sweet Cherry, Boswella Serrate Gum Resin Extract, and White Willow Bark extract. If you’re not allergic to any of those, you might try it. It’s for muscle pain due to overuse. 🙂

  17. I had the oddest stretch of insomnia once. I slept outside in a tent for nine weeks like a baby. Then, when I went inside, my bedroom was so quiet and “indoors,” for lack of a better modifier, that I couldn’t sleep. I flung open the window and slept next to it.

    Best of luck with your bed and so forth. I wish you success on your quest for sleep and sanity.

  18. When my hubby and I were working on our master’s degrees in 1970 at UT-Austin, we were so poor that I slept on a single mattress and he slept on the box spring. What a trouper he was.

  19. Feel better soon. Back pain is the worst because you can’t get away from it. Let us all know when you are better.

  20. I am so sorry! Hope you feel better soon.

  21. I had to move to the sofa to convince my dear hubby we needed a new bed. It didn’t take him long to come to that conclusion. After we got the new one he said how much better he was sleeping. Hum, come to think of it that was probably at least 15 years ago. Maybe it’s time to think about getting a new one. 😉

  22. Our mattress is twenty years old, too, and I’ve been “reminding” my husband for the past five years that we need to get a new one. When he comes home for lunch, I’m going to show him your post and say, “Do you want this to be me? DO YOU?” 😉

  23. This post cracked me up because I have SO been there. Back when my husband (then boyfriend) and I moved to this town for the work, I started having some pretty bad back pain. I was only 24 or so at the time, so I thought it must be something I’m doing at work or some kind of genetic deformity or something, because 24-year-olds do NOT have bad backs. It took MONTHS for me to consider the fact that my bed (a hand-me-down from my parents that was, in fact, OVER 20 years old) might be the culprit. I tried to deny it because we didn’t really have the money for such an expenditure, but eventually I convinced my hubs that this was something that had to happen or I was going to end up crippled. The first night in that new bed I think I slept 14 straight hours. lol

  24. I’m a definite night-owl and do most of our networking in the wee hours of the morning. Inion’s an eight hour a night girl or she’s unmanageable the next day, but I’m not one for much sleep and have been like that for most of my life. It’s good to hear I’m not the only one dealing with insomnia, though it seems that I’ve had a lifelong case of it. LOL Great post Kristen.

    • Diana Stevan on August 19, 2013 at 9:13 am
    • Reply

    Sorry to hear of your back pain, Kristen. I’ve been there for a different reason. Now have a great bed. Icing five minutes at a time helps plus Robax product to relax the muscles. I also went to massage therapists (didn’t help), three different chiropracters (no) and then hit on great physio., who’d been the one who worked with our Canadian Olympic wrestling team. I ended up seeing him only a couple times. He gave me specific back exercises for my type of injury and hooked me up to a machine for electrical stimulation, to get those endorphins working to stimulate recovery. So, don’t give up on getting that back in shape. I’d recommend some physio. in sports medicine in your area. I can’t tell you how much it helped!

  25. You are too funny Kristen. I hope your back gets better soon. Sleep is soooo awesome when it comes. I got rid of the bed when I got rid of the ex! So I sleep better all around…lol

  26. After our second one was born my wife complained a lot of back pain & a new mattress did help her. My insomnia is driven hyper-active thoughts mainly work related. To pacify my thoughts as a distraction I tune into TV and I learned a lot watching those shows!

  27. Yikes, Kristen! I wouldn’t nearly be as funny or witty as you under similar circumstances. Back pain is the worst – it affects every part of your body, and there’s no way to get comfortable (I threw out my back once, and I’d never want to go through that again). Hope you’re better soon!

    And now that you mention it, our mattress is 20 years old. It’s probably time, don’t ya think? A while back, I read that for every ten years you own your mattress, it doubles its original weight in skin flakes, sweat, and dust mite “debris.” That may be an exaggeration, but EWW. At least we have dust mite encasements for all of our mattresses because of our allergies/asthma (can you believe hubby and I were allowed to breed?). 😉

    Hang in there, and hugs,
    Kathy

  28. Your post made me laugh out loud – specifically, the part about not getting on Web MD in the middle of the night- “Dwarfism: that’s why my pants don’t fit. I need to be de-wormed..”.
    You are too funny.
    Glad you got a new bed and are sleeping much better.
    I, too, have chronic pain – from a horseback riding accident 30 years ago – and I’m allergic to pain meds. I do the same thing you do – heat and ice packs. Also, have you gotten a Backnobber? I bought mine online. It helps with knots in your back.

  29. I can tell you were wired on sleep deprivation when you wrote this post. I laughed my a$$ off — but not at your pain. This whole mattress thing is motivating me (a little) to get a new mattress. I have been putting it off and am as desperate as you were. Why do we procrastinate over such simple things? I think my mattress is a bit older than yours but I still haven’t gotten myself to the store to get a new one. I think I want it to be the PERFECT one that will last for the next 20-30 years. I bought my present one when Montgomery Ward was still in existence. Yeah, that old. Maybe I’ll get one this week. . .

  30. At 67 sleep is even harder. Sleeping late is not advisable because you might not wake up. So I sleep from ten to six in the morning. I wake up each night with thoughts in my head about what I want to blog on. It has been a minor obsession with me. Now I actually have people reading what I write not because they are in my middle school class and therefore a captured audience but people all over the world who could be doing stuff of great importance and yet take the time out to look at my work. It swells my ego, makes me elated and gives me pride. Why? I honestly do not know. But at the end of the day I go to bed dreaming of what subject I next want to investigate, what topic do I wish to malign and what truths do I wish to slant and misquote. I think I may need a therapist but I can not find a phone book. That is what happens when you are 67.

  31. So sorry to hear about your back pain. I think that is the worst. I am seriously impressed by your positive attitude.

  32. Been there, done that, bought a memory foam bed. Love it! The quality of the bed really does make a difference. Those of us who spend 8 hours a day+ at a computer keyboard need to take extra care of our backs. I hope you are feeling better SOON. Back pain is the worst!

  33. Spunky, spunky piece; terrifically droll, and outright chuckle outloud type of thing; amazing how time flies by with our mattresses; there they lay, passively holding/ caving rather, make it caving from the weight of our lives; total best wishes for your back to heal.

    • t.i.n.a. on August 19, 2013 at 12:07 pm
    • Reply

    Oh, Kristen, I sympathise! Our mattress was only about 9 years old but the hubby was the one who convinced me (broke me down, rather) to get a new bed a few months ago. I suppose I sleep better, but my insomnia/inability to sleep comes from something else entirely. The rest I do get is due to the incredible bed. It does make a difference.

    I’d tell you the story about how we busted a comfy air mattress, but that might be TMI… 😛

    Also, yes, do NOT go on WebMD particularly if you have the tendency to connect non-existent dots together (like my husband – I swear, there was a moment when he seriously thought he had TB and I could have strangled him). Moving to this country and his body chemistry changing (i.e., he became allergic to things he had never been allergic before) has gotten him more paranoid. Oy.

    Let’s hope to a speedy recovery of GOOD SLEEP!!!

  34. Well, I can tell you that you did well on the class on Thursday! 🙂
    Seriously! 1994 was when I was born! When I read: “I figured maybe it was eight or even ten years old, but almost TWENTY?” I thought OMG I’M ALMOST TWENTY! Which I don’t think is the reaction you were looking for. (Maybe it was the context, for a bed twenty is very old and I think that somehow projected onto me. I feel old. That’s not like me. Bah)

    Not to brag – okay, definitely to brag – but we have the best beds in the world! My brother and mother both have extreme cases of sleep-deprevation and finally my parents got around to buying new beds.
    My mother sleeps. My brother sleeps. (Also, they found out they were zink-deficient. Still, the bed helped BEFORE that revelation.)
    My bed is the best. I missed it during my trip this summer and I appreciate it every evening.

  35. My mom got a cheapie mattress for me after her divorce and I took that thing to college and beyond. At first I loved how squishy it was (zero support) because who wants a hard mattress? I figured my back was sore because of hunching at my data entry day job. But when I got married and got a real mattress, Good God did I sleep better. I have no idea how long mattresses should last. Ours is maybe 8 years old and seems pretty good still.

    1. Probably time to start thinking about a replacement. That way you’ll have one in a couple of years. 🙂

  36. Your ability to laugh at life’s outrageousness is your strongest suit. BTW, no one ever thinks of the bed. Ever. Until we can’t sleep on it. Or the only part with springs is in the middle, but there’s too many bodies to sleep there, so you roll off the side. 🙂

  37. Oh, and did you know that in ten years, your mattress doubles in weight? The cause? Dead skin cells. Eeewww!!! Sorry, couldn’t resist…and I thought you’d want to know.

  38. Just goes to show, the old adage is true – ‘if you do not rest you will become rest-less’.

    Hope you get a good night’s sleep soon, and you back feels better when you wake up.

  39. I didn’t even know they made mattresses in Mordor–well, I guess it’s smart to diversify.

    My sleeping habits have definitely changed over the years. From being able to conk out in the middle of class, with drool pooling on my non-existent geometry notes to waking up every other hour because it’s hot, then cold, then I have to pee and now the cat is on my head. But, my mattress? I’ve never thought to blame my sleep problems on it … Now that I think about it, I don’t even know how old the thing is or where it came from. A little scary.

    Then there’s Web MD. So, as a nurse, I pretty much know the most awful things that can happen to you. Once I latch onto whatever ailment I think I might have, I use Web MD to confirm it. If that doesn’t work I try the Mayo Clinic or even Wikipedia. I will search the depths of Google (has anyone else been all the way to page 5?) to confirm that I do in fact have … well, I’ve never thought about dwarfism. How about some disease that prevents me from the cleaning the house? I do wish I could confirm that I have that so my husband would stop bugging me.

    Well, I’m glad your feeling better. My wishes for a restful and well-deserved sleep tonight.

  40. Had a really bad mattress. Trashed it and bought a queen-sized water bed. Back healed, learned to swim in my sleep as I owned four cats and they like putting pinpricks into the mattress. Four waterbed mattresses later bought a full sized regular mattress and box spring. Back is a tad stiff in the morning but I wake up dry. Moral: Mattresses are never going to be perfect, find the one that suits you and hubby and go with it. You might have a crick in your back in the morning but a back rub by bed partner is a good way to get rid of it and start the day.

  41. I’m a Valerian gal myself, after liking Ambien just a little too much! Also, I have a water pillow that cured my decade-plus of neck pain. Looooveee it!! I buy a new one every few years, and order it from a chiropractor in CA if I remember rightly. I found it after trying chiro, massage, muscle relaxants, Tempurpedic pillows, neck-roll pillows, you name it. I really hope your new mattress works for you. You start to tolerate pain as a natural condition and then when it’s gone, you can’t believe you had it for so long. Good luck.
    Sydney

  42. It’s funny you should post about this (not funny ha ha, but funny, woe is me) I have terrible insomnia. Have nearly all my life. Valerian is like taking a sugar pill for me, those p.m. drugs do nothing, warm milk nada. I hate to admit it, but the only time I sleep is when I go to the hospital for major surgery and I’m given morphine. Oh how I love morphine. Alas, if this were the 1800’s you’d find me blissfully asleep with an Opium pipe hanging out of my mouth and a bottle of laudanum in my purse for backup.
    Pretty scary.
    A nice bed doesn’t even help…I’ve got that.
    Glad to hear you got a new mattress. Most people are soothed by that alone.
    Best wishes on a restful night’s sleep!
    Have a great evening,
    Tamara

    • Shawn Mc on August 19, 2013 at 2:17 pm
    • Reply

    The bed had a 20 year guarantee, so it was time..

  43. Beds are like engagement rings. You should spend 1- or 2-months’ salary to get one you absolutely love. If you scrimp and save, you’ll pay for it in the bedroom, LOL!

    1. Then I would be on the street with my mattress LOL

  44. I have a pair of unspeakable knees and sciatica from 35 years of limping so I feel your pain. Congratulations on the new bed. I’m sure it will help.

    Cheers

    MTM

  45. Goldilocks (wife) and I stayed at Pechanga Casino in Temecula, CA and they have beds that are an extra thick slice of heaven. You can tell everyone thinks so; the casino has information on how to purchase them…. for a king’s ransom…oh, if I could have stuffed that bed in my suitcase…. now we are in need of a new bed as well and I’ll have a hard time accepting anything less. So happy you found a good night’s sleep. Grumpy writers are not a pretty sight… especially the ones that are good with a gun.

  46. Two words that can help this back thing also……new shoes!

  47. Don’t forget I did link back to your blog. 🙂 I wonder if our bed is that old. It could be since we bought it second hand in the first place. Beds are impossibly expensive.

  48. Been off-line for nearly a week. I’m sorry to hear about your back pain/mattress ordeal.

  49. LOL, Kristen! Hubs and I just celebrated our 15yr anniversary, and we bought that bed as our wedding present to each other . . . I know it’s time to replace it, but seriously can’t afford to right now. And yes, I diagnosed myself with Parkinson’s disease one night on Web M.D. but it turns out I just drink waaayyyy toooo much coffeeee!!!

  50. A 20 year old bed?!?! Are you kidding? I mean…okay, so my mom and I pretty much moved every four years and I’m fairly certain we got new beds each time. Well maybe not every time BUT you’ve been sleeping on a bed that’s almost as old as me!!! I just don’t understand!

    I’ve had insomnia my whole life. Pain meds don’t work well on me either. I suggest listening to Loreena McKennitt or Enya or something until you just drift off. Daydreaming helps. Also Cozy Chamomile tea 🙂

    Meditation is your friend. Knitting is a good meditation tool. It may sound weird, but rub your palms and massage your feet. Works really well to help you relax.

    Oh and best advice ever is to NEVER get on Web MD EVER AGAIN! When I go on there I swear I have brain tumors and am going to die before I graduate college. Just…no. Don’t go on there LOL

  51. I got my mattress from my grandmother, so God only knows how old it is (she kept everything forever). I don’t have huge problems with my back, but every so often I wonder what a new mattress would be like…

  52. Oh my … I am sorry for your pain, but thankful too … you surely had me laughing (not AT you, of course, and not because of your pain — that would make me just twisted). Thanks for your writing, and I completely relate to the insomnia thing … as I sit here writing this at 1:36 a.m. because sleep refuses to give me a hand-out. Yes, I think I’ll give you a follow … it’s well worth it. 🙂

  53. Have you tried an inversion table? You are basically telling my back story. (No pun.) We got the new mattress after trying everything else, and that still didn’t do the trick. I did end up having a laminectomy to relieve a pinched nerve, but I credit the inversion table for a quick recovery and on-going back calmness. The number one brand starts with a “T”. Bonus—it also helps with circulation, complexion, and my yoga teacher claims keeps your internal organs from sticking together with age! If you rock on it, it supposedly even helps squished-down disks refill with fluid they way they’re supposed to! Double Bonus—I feel like I’m doing something healthy that doesn’t require breaking a sweat!

  54. We got rid of the mattress I married into when I hit pregnancy, and there just wasn’t enough room for the two of us, my big belly, and my I’m-always-hot problem. My kid still sleeps on that one, and oddly enough it’s pretty comfortable still. Then again, it only held the weight of a small child for almost 10 years.

    Benadryl also wires me. The only thing that really works for my insomnia is taking melatonin. Hope you can get some good sleep soon, and that your back improves greatly!

  55. I can soooo relate to it all! Thanks!

  56. wonderful post, very informative. I wonder why the opposite experts of this sector don’t notice this. You must proceed your writing. I am confident, you’ve a great readers’ base already!

  57. I have such a bad time sleeping sometimes that I write until 5 am – and since I have to be at work at 8 am I usually sleep for 1 or 1 1/2 hours for days… too bad one day it got me – I overslept. My boss called me at 11 am asking me where I am and he was insulted…
    Too bad I’m quite uncompassionate when being woken up by a call and I told him, if he had called me at 9 there wasn’t such a bad reason to be so stinky. LOL
    He acted better for the rest of the day… but the sleeping thing gets on me… slowly but surely…

  58. A mattress can impact a person’s sleep. A much more expensive mattress doesn’t necessarily mean it’s better. Instead of focusing on price and brand name, think about what you want in a mattress. Selecting a mattress is very personal.

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