Rough Yesterday Bleeds into Today

Yesterday was bad, emotionally. I talked to four friends at different times during the day, working through my fears and hurt. That helped. I took Nuvigil for the first time, and it was okay. It made me a little shaky, but I was able to get through the day without a nap, so I didn't mind the shakiness. When it wore off, I was ready to crash. I thought I would fall asleep easily, and I was certainly exhausted...

But I laid in bed for hours. My body was dead tired, but I couldn't turn my mind off. Not racing thoughts. Occasionally an anxious thought, but mostly just regular thoughts. I forgot that I was supposed to be sleeping. I would go half an hour without trying to fall asleep.

And I began noticing a symptom that had happened once or twice before. Darn it, I thought I was getting better! I am. I guess it's a slow process. Up and down. Lack of sleep probably has made it worse the past couple of days. Just googled... Oh my goodness, even one night of four hours' sleep increases inflammation. That's the last thing you want with MS, and I've had several nights where I have slept poorly.

OK, so the "new" symptom was pins and needles in the right side of my tongue and lower lip. Seriously, just the right side. Weird! And it's like partially numb. It feels like I had dental work several hours ago and the numbing is wearing off. Kind of burny. And today I'm having taste disturbance--things taste bitter. But it might be because I chewed on an Immodium tablet (diarrhea, joy). They're kind of bitter. But I've chewed on them tons of times and never had that taste stick around. I took it five hours ago and have eaten since then. Wasn't able to enjoy it with the bitterness, but I did eat. Um, maybe I should brush my tongue or something.

Alright, so after I blogged at 1:30 about my frustration with insomnia (which is not something I've struggled with before), I went back to bed and tried to sleep. I ended up crying. Praying and crying. Begging for sleep. I have two Ambien pills, but I knew I couldn't take one at that time. You need to be able to sleep 8 hours after taking it, which I couldn't have done. So I decided to take a Bendryl.

Wow! Big mistake! I took it at 2:00 and began to feel much "heavier" (limbs) by 2:45, but I didn't fall asleep then. Maybe half an hour later I did. But I woke up around 3:45/4:00 because my leg was twitching! Like jumping. Weird and so uncomfortable. I've taken Benadryl before and never had that. It continued for half an hour. Stuck awake. After that feeling subsided (whew), I fell asleep. I think I woke up and went back to sleep twice. Got up at 7:30. So I got less than four hours of sleep. I can't believe I am awake right now. But I did NOT want to take a nap, because I'm hoping I can sleep tonight. On the other hand, maybe you can get "overtired" and that makes it worse? I know that people with MS need a lot of sleep. I don't know how to manage that.

I don't want to do the numbers for yesterday, but I know that I was tired (would have been worse had I not taken Nuvigil), weak, and had some pins and needles in my right foot.

Oh brother. I was just noticing the bitter taste getting worse, and I wondered if it was the Solu-Medrol (please see my soon-to-be-written next blog post). Google! Yup, other people have had a bitter taste. Darn! I hope it goes away soon.