Nocturnal txs and trouble sleeping

Maybe it is not a serious problem at all, but do you ever have a problem when you can not sleep and feel claustrophobic like you have to get free? In a past thread I know you said you watch tv, play video games etc to relax and get back to sleep. But I am wondering if you ever have overwhelming feelings like you are stuck there and feel like you are going nuts. Because with regular hemo, my sleep is not what it used to be, I sometimes wake up at night and it helps me to get up for a bit and work on the puter, I may go to the potti, or get something to drink etc. Just getting out of bed for a bit helps. It is hard to imagine being in bed every night by about the same time and not being able to get up and get out of bed if one wants to. Of course, maybe with nocturnal txs, one does not have the need to get up as sleep is better and one may be looking forward to getting up in the morning knowing he will feel great. but just wondered what it is actually like.

Your last sentence says it nicely. I generally don’t have trouble sleeping at all. Some nocturnal people may on here, but they may not be doing daily nocturnal. Six nights a week, I put about 115 to 120 litres of blood through that dialyzer. It seems to make a big difference in how I feel both during the night and during daytime, at least for me.

It’s really remarquable to way I sleep better.

Pierre

While I don’t dispute the truth of what Pierre is saying about daily Nocturnal, I would say that some nights I do feel like I could go quietly nutty in the early hours because I feel tethered to a friggin’ machine and the noise of Freni starts getting to me. I can sleep soundly some nights whether I am on Freni or not, but depending on what is going on in my mind about my day/life/work/playetc, like most people some times your head just gets into a wakeful space and you have to ride it out. I find listening to the walkman helps get through this until sleep comes again.

If I want to go to the loo, hubby wheels Freni to ensuite while I am still connected (lower speed to 200) and I just walk in (lower arm fistula may cause less alarms)? No worries there.

I personally feel (and so does my Neph) that at the moment I am getting a good dialysis with 30 hours per week as I only started 11 months ago and I like the fact that my body and arm are being given time and freedom to work up to more dialysis when and if I need to. I find it comforting to know that there is more I can do when the time comes. 8)

I occaisionally feel like this, but I just make myself ride it out. If I know Im going to be coming off quite late in the morning and its the day where theres nothing on TV, I have my fave DVDs there to watch to make the time go quicker. On a few occaisions I have wanted to come off so badly I just came off, and would try to make up that time the next time. Now Im doing the max hours (10), I cant really make up for lost time, unless I do 2 days in a row, which at the moment Im not feeling up to doing.
If you are really having trouble sleeping perhaps mention it to your doctor. The tablets Im on for feet pain usually get me to sleep reasonably quickly. They do dialyse off though, so if Im awake on the machine for a while it is harder to get to sleep, as when the meds are dialysed off, my feet start their usual annoyances.

I do sympathize with you, amba and beachy. It’s miserable when you can’t sleep all night and you’re tied to that machine. I know because it has happened to me the first couple of months on nocturna. I’m blessed in not having that problem too much since. Last night was my first night back on nocturnal after a week and a half. I was supposed to start on Saturday, but a positive water test prohibited that. It turned out the problem was with the test strips themselves, and not with my carbon filters, but I had to dialyze at the centre on Saturday evening. Anyway, it’s great to be back to my normal routine. Even first night back, I slept like a baby. I watched a little TV the first 45 minutes, and then that was it. I slept all the way through until the end of treatment alarm sounded this morning. This morning, I feel terrific… and now my whole day is free until about 9:30 tonight.
Pierre

I know about the faulty test thing pierre! I had tablets that were about 6 months old but not out of date. I was continually getting positive results despite having both carbon tanks changed. It wasnt until they came out to change the tanks again that they realised the tablets were giving false readings. This drove me absolutely nuts and I ended up getting so completely paranoid about the water, and I would be half awake all night worrying and testing during the night. That was about a month ago, and Im still not over the paranoia or the worrying, its not as bad, but it still bothers me.

I had a feeling at the time that it might be a problem with the new bottle of test strips I just opened, because both the worker and the polisher carbon tanks tested positive. It’s almost an impossibility that both would be expended at the same time a month before the scheduled rotation, unless maybe the city spiked the chloramine in the water. Still, if that test is blue, there’s no way you can dialyze. I had to wait for a tech to come sort it out on Monday morning.

I didn’t really mind that much. They got me into a chair at one of the dialysis centres pretty quickly - only a 5-10 minute drive away. And it was kind of nice to see some old faces, since it was on the same shift that I was on before I started at home.

Pierre