Not sleeping

[shelley1977]

It's now been 5 weeks since I've had anything more than 4 hours of broken sleep. Quite a few of those night involved no sleep at all. Its mostly down to restless legs and rib/hip pain. I am already on pain medication for fibromyalgia and it does nothing for these other problems. Does anyone have any suggestions? Its really taking its toll on me now, the midwife I saw on Tuesday is concerned but couldn't offer any advice.

11 weeks here and haven't slept since about 4 weeks well I've obviously slept but it takes ages to get off then I wake up hourly and normally give to by 5am :(

My doctors told me it's normal and something to get used to .. Didn't help

Its really crap isn't it. I have had sleep problems, its common with my illness but this is beyond anything I've ever experienced before. I usually can still lie and rest but cant with my restless legs, I have to get up or move about lots then there is the needing to pee every half hour/hour!

Oh can i join? 26w4d and sleeping soooo bad at the moment! The Restless leg is crazy annoying. I just can't get comfortable!!!! I wish i could find a cure!

I find a reasonably hot bath helps settle my legs a bit and I never suffer as much after dtd :) but nothing lasts for long in relieving the symptoms. Its quite often worse if I have sat on hard seats, yesterday at pharmacy I was sitting for half an hour and knew id suffer because of it!

I've heard bananas are good for restless legs - it's the potassium

Don't want to recommend anything but you might want to know that the first drug they give you for morning sickness is promethazine. It's a knock out anti histamine as well. You can buy it over the counter as phenarghan for travel sickness. Nothing is ever approved for use in pregnancy as such but the fact is women take this for months on end of they are sick and it just happens to help you sleep as well. I've personally taken it almost every day through two pregnancies with no issue whatsoever and would do so again.

glass of milk before bed is good for restless legs, something I generally suffer from if I am too warm. Slowly getting used to the broken sleep, mountain of pillows to help with the hip pain and naps when at home 26+1 can see the amount of pillows increasing the further along I get lol

I was having trouble sleeping too and my blood tests showed I was borderline low on iron, within a few days of taking supplements I was back to normal sleeping, they made a huge difference.

My iron levels are really low, im taking liquid iron as tablets give me a sore stomach. Ive always had low levels though. Have had milk but it didn't seem to help, just really craved some

I haven't slept for more then 2 hours in a row for about 6 weeks because of sickness and having to eat or vomit. The only thing I can do is sleep at every opportunity. I also suffer from restless legs usually and it can be a sign of dehydration. Try drinking a big glass of water before bed. Also a few months ago ( before falling pregannt) I was going out of my mind with it and started taking iron supplements. After a few weeks it had all but vanished. Are you taking a pregnancy supplement? It should have iron in it. But try the water also. Good luck x

Thanks for the info about dehydration, I'm drinking about 1 and half litres a day, my thirst has increased recently. before I was quite bad for not drinking enough.

Am also struggling with lack of sleep at 29wks. If its not restless legs keeping me awake its hip pain :( tried sleeping on nice squishy pillow with one between the knees but no relief. bean those drugs are sounding mighty tempting!

My sleep has been rubbish, although my restless legs are much better now (currently 25 wks). I sleep much better when DH is away on business so I get the bed to myself - he may get punted to the couch for the last trimester! I've also noticed reading a book before bed instead of trawling through facebook on my ipad has really helped! I've got a dream genii pillow but I'm not getting on with it at all :( I've just got some really fat pillows and putting them into a V shape helps.

I sleep better with my partner but were on sofa bed so not a lot of space and I hate knowing how much I disturb his sleep, he needs as much as me due to illness and working full time in really cold temperatures. I offered to sleep on spare bed in childrens room but he wont have it as he said he wil miss me to much! It doesn't help I can only lie in 2 positions and have to change regularly due to a crampy pain in thighs. I use pillow between my legs as well and it does ease hip pain a bit. Sometimes I have to almost sit up and lean over pillows/sofa arm to the side to try and relieve the pain in my ribs but cant stay like that for to long or the crampy thigh pain gets really bad.

Magnesium for restless legs. see your doc for a meds review as well. Some of my team are working on a fibromyalgia study right now and the research seems to indicate that drugs like pregabalin (lyrics) are miles better than painkillers, which might even exacerbate things in the long run.

Hope you get some sleep! I'm a terrible insomniac myself so I know how miserable it is. I found melatonin worked wonders for me, but there's not much safety data in pregnancy so I stopped taking it once I was ttc :/ maybe being paranoid but hey ho.

I was on tramadol / pregabalin mix for 5 years before becoming pregnant. first thing changed was tramadol to dihydrocodeine/paracetomal. The hospital stopped the pregabalin due to it being a risk to baby. Will try magnesium though, I was on really good vitamins but couldn't swallow well this pregnancy so had to stop, only just manage my pain meds!