How to Feel Your Best on Dialysis

"How to Feel Your Best on Dialysis"...what a preposterous claim...as I sit here with a pretty bad headache at 3:14 in the morning! I wish I had a comprehensive list of things to do, but alas, it is not to be. Beyond taking a steady stream of painkillers to combat these all-too-frequent headaches...which works sometimes but most of the time NOT, I cannot say. Oh yeah, there is the strategy of showing up in the ER for the REALLY strong painkillers, like injections of Hydromorphone or Tor idol for the bad bad headaches...been there 10 times in the past 30 days or so...but those drugs have some nasty side-effects all of their own.

One thing I've found helpful for that past few nights is "Melatonin", which is a naturally occurring hormone that signals sleep in your brain. That seems to help quite a bit in the drifting off to sleep thing at, you know, 10:30 or so at night. When you suffer from insomnia...which apparently is quite common for us dialysis patients...it is a huge relief to just naturally fall asleep like a normal human. Not to mention, Melatonin has very few, if any, side-effects. My doctor actually prescribed a certain medication to help with insomnia that had many nasty (possible) side effects that included high blood pressure, nausea and vomiting to name but a few.

Oh yay, like I need those side effects when they are some of the side effects that I already suffer from taking the pile of meds I'm already on!

The reason I'm going on about insomnia is...this is one of the things I wrestle with frequently. I have found that without a good night's sleep everything else tends to go to hell in a hand basket, not to put too fine a point on it. There, now that I've got that off my chest, maybe I can get a bit more sleep, with any luck.