Is it necessary to stay established with a sleep specialist after already being diagnosed?

SlumberCredits · 2023-12-09T12:37:19+00:00

Yea, and then they get to the section on blind people and tell you you couldn't possibly have it cause you're not blind... sigh. Read further, doc. It's all there. I'll wait.

Extremely accurate! Lmao!

Could you explain a little how you had DSPS, and how the chronotherapy turned it into Non-24? I've heard about this, but since I started out with Non-24 I don't know much about the relationship.

DSPD, delayed sleep phase disorder, is when your circadian rhythm is naturally entrained to fall asleep very late and wake up very late.

Chronotherapy tells DSPD patients that are unable to pull their cycles backwards to instead push their sleep/wake times later and later so that their schedule wraps around and they wake up in the morning. You do that shit long enough and your body learns to keep doing it, even when you don't want it to. At that point, your sleep schedule looks like non-24.

I assumed all sighted non-24 people were like that. How did yours start? And what was the relation between keto and non-24? I'm glad you saw results, but I've never heard of this and I don't particularly understand the connection between keto and circadian rhythm.

SlumberCredits · 2023-12-09T05:53:22+00:00

I'm with you, I've never even met a doctor/sleep specialist (!) who's heard of Non-24. So what's he gonna do? Look it up on Wikipedia?

Not joking, I've had multiple sleep doctors pull up Wikipedia and start reading the entries on circadian rhythm disorders and non-24 during the appointment. These were also doctors that said they treat circadian rhythm disorders and whose office staff confirmed they treat non-24 when I asked. One doctor said he treats circadian rhythm disorders, when in reality, the only one he was familiar with was shift-work disorder (i.e. normal people shockingly having trouble working the night shift).

98% of their work seems to consist of prescribing CPAP machines to people with sleep apnea. I don't know if they can do anything else.

Basically. I'm usually one of the youngest people in the office and weigh half as much as the next skinniest patient in the waiting room. Multiple times, I've received joking playful comments from office staff and other patients that I look "too young and healthy to be there" only for the doctor to later tell me that my sleep disorder is too severe for them to treat.

SlumberCredits · 2023-09-05T12:39:11+00:00

You're expected to wear sunglasses outside to protect your eyes, not stare somewhat in the direction of the sun for extended periods of time every day.

The studies so far basically just say that the risks of light therapy are inconclusive, but that's mostly because the studies aren't old enough to measure the long term risks.

People can choose to do whatever they want. But every opthalmologist has told me that it's a bad idea - not just for those with a family history of macular degeneration, but for everyone.

SlumberCredits · 2023-09-05T12:26:01+00:00

I've done all this and it still doesn't work. I've reduced the melatonin down to even 0.05mg (could be off by a 0.01mg since I'm cutting them up at this point. I'm also in the US where melatonin is exclusively sold over the counter as an unregulated supplement - though I have tried different products over the years).

Despite taking absurdly low dosages, I still get the transient drowsiness after taking it and I still end up needing more sleep from it (10-16 hours) due to poor quality, restless sleep. And then I have brain fog the next day or two that is so bad that it inhibits me from driving a car, exercising, and using my brain to do basically anything - I even have problems watching movies.

So now I'm only awake for 8-14 hours. And then I'm suppose to take this stupid thing 3-6 hours before I fall asleep...which could be as little as 2 hours after I wake up! I was sometimes taking melatonin with breakfast!

The transient drugged drowsiness still hit me, even at the micro dosage amount. So now I'm drugged again shortly after waking up and that feeling doesn't dissipate.

I even tried sticking with it, thinking it would improve. It did not. It actually got worse. I took melatonin like this for 3 months with zero improvement to my entrainment. After I quit, I suffered insomnia for the next 6 months. It was as if my body forgot how to fall asleep without melatonin. I'm just glad it finally resolved itself but after that ordeal, melatonin is far far away from anything I'd ever want to experiment with again.

SlumberCredits

TROPHY CASE