Posted by Phillip Marx on August 21, 2000, at 19:13:43
In reply to Oh the ever elusive sleep, posted by tina on August 16, 2000, at 2:09:26
> Tried the herbals, now what? Can't sleep and dont' want to get addicted to anything. What can I take now?? I tried all the herbal stuff, and teas and warm milk and meditation. I think only a med will do but what isn't addicting?? I've asked my docs and they won't give me anything, SH*T. I'm sick of waking up at 2:44 am every damn day.
> A frustrated TinaI’d like to make a few suggestions to insomniacs, also ADD/ADHD, since I suspect that some of that is due to years of poor sleep or forced sleep and wakefulness during hours when people really are as out of sync as they feel and think. I found a way to get to sleep without medicine, without herbs. Disclaimer: this only fixes a particularly poorly recognized imbalance, not all possible sleep disorders. This is a healthy place to start, and a harmless thing to try, if a lot of medications fail to do anything except imbalance you into a sedentary sedated lifestyle with an involuntary hermit appearance.
Get an ear thermometer or one of those Q-tips brand (has an extra digit of resolution) basal temperature (pregnancy) thermometers and start plotting you daily temperature rhythms. It is very, very indicative. When your temperature drops into the 96s, your hormones want you to hibernate for a few hours, when you “wake up” you should warm up to the low 99s for a couple of hours. “My” temperature has been nearly flat-line at 97.6 for years until about a month ago when I started this and now I have a strong circadian temperature profile. If your poor self or kid has your/his/her sleep hormones trying to knock ya’all out during work/school or other inappropriate hours, then don’t medicate them for something else. Even if the medication has forcing function benefits, it can mask the real problems while causing the usual plethora of mis-medication derivatives. At the very least, you can learn how to assess sleep medications (and sympathy synchronizations) and get smarter about start times. Caution: you CAN get a little grouchy from medication withdrawal, lest you get damaged from being over-joyed, I suggest a gentle transition if you can. If your worries (near-panic) from benzodiazepene disinhibition recede, watch out for a rebound to care-free-less-ness.
I watched a TV infomercial for CalMax (channel surf stop at keyword: “sleep”) and simulated his customized and purified nutritional benefit with dolomite and Vitamin C in very hot water ( >160 F). What a difference, even the severe headaches are gone now. (hmmm, I wonder if aspirin acid selectively tweaks serum/apatite calcium ratios?)
You can spend weeks checking out how this works as I did first, start here or just try it.
http://www.google.com/search?q=calcium+magnesium+sleep+insomniaI don’t know if a single short incident (PTSD, not merely “post” traumatic stress disorder in my case, but definitely a “persisting” traumatizing stress disorder) or a relatively long period of stress nutrition abuse does this, maybe probably both. I think a strong shock can upset and/or knock down a system without warning and I think a long run down can cause one to run down just as badly. I think everyone has a different stasis position for their relative acidity/alkalinity (gee, watch the people at restaurants and school cafeterias served mood and energy altering food, for both short and long term effects). I am stunned by how much different I am now that I let acids back into my diet. My stress is now down to where I don’t need Gold Bond for three weeks after every work crisis. Antacids were always too little too late to protect skin, I have sweat scars from learning too late to avoid all acidic foods during stress cycles, a possible contributing factor to a wrong direction rebound. Blood pressure medicines include calcium channel blockers to energy starve one out of being able to work their blood pressure up. There are many calcium blockers medicines and even trace lead poisoning affects calcium ingestion/utilization.
I hadn’t gotten even an hour’s sleep without medication in almost seven years before I tried this. Now I also can’t get to sleep before sunrise, but I also can’t get up before noon, so I should have chosen better when to restart my circadian rhythms for better daylight consciousness. I also recently started taking Iodine supplementation since I have a near zero salt diet and both hypo and hyper activity need iodine for regulation. Kids sure seem to wind up on salty fast foods, now I can without salt. Iodine affects the parathyroid, which affects calcium absorption. Iodized sea salt has been my other switch, since regular salt has up to 25% talc (=aluminum, which I don’t think is so inert in an alkaline food).
There seems to be a ton of research on Caffeine, Calcium and Magnesium related to sleep, maybe my initial “presenting” condition as so otherwise healthy defeated an initial impression of an over-stressed nutrition disorder. I am very grateful to my latest doctor who brought me back from so many medicinally compounded (and generated) problems that I now have a hope and a chance of getting all this history way, way behind me.
I worked (a little over half a decade ago on an ambulatory micro EEG array research proposal) with Dr. James Swanson, Ph.D. (@ UCI - head of the only federally funded ADD university research program). I think I will put together some references like this to test on his hard-core or fringe ADD subjects. Some of those people are very fully documented for prior condition. I will have to prune through the following someday, but I don’t have time now.
Anticonvulsant medications may alter both vitamin D and bone mineral metabolism, particularly in certain disorders, in the institutionalized, and in the elderly. Although symptomatic skeletal disease is uncommon in noninstitutionalized settings, optimal calcium intake is advised for persons using anticonvulsants.
http://text.nlm.nih.gov/nih/cdc/www/97txt.htmlhttp://lifesci.arc.nasa.gov/LIS/Hardware_App/circadian_rhythm2.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.websciences.org/sleepandhealth/duffy.html+circadian+temperature&hl=en
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.math.utah.edu/~hills/time.html+circadian+temperature&hl=en
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.csen.com/theory/bbt.htm+circadian+temperature&hl=en
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.circadian.com/learning_center/circadian_temp.htm+circadian+temperature&hl=en
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.srssleep.org/srs/edgar.htm+circadian+temperature&hl=en
Electrolytes and dopamine
http://www.pitt.edu/~jgdst7/research/calcium/calcium.htm
Lou Gehrig's disease, Lauren Tewes husband of LoveBoat fame has this:
http://www.bcm.tmc.edu/neurol/research/als/als8.html
Yikes, Calcium and Alzheimer's
http://www.alzforum.org/members/about/board/khatch/95150330.html
Worldwide Research
http://www.ion.ucl.ac.uk/~dkullman/CalciumChannels.htm
Oxytocin Niric Oxide -- Effects of selective regulators of hepatic function
on calcium mobilization in hepatocytes using quantitative fluorescence
imaging to measure intracellular calcium and calcium oscillations.
Research Projects:
Neuroprotective action of estrogenic steroids Estrogen Regulation of Intracellular Calcium Signaling using quantitative fluorescence calcium imaginghttp://www.usc.edu/hsc/pharmacy/mptx/labs/brinton-lab/brintonteam.htm
Movies
http://www.cellbio.com/research.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.mbl.edu/ARTICLES/Loligo/Armstrong/Loligo1.html+calcium+research&hl=en
excitotoxicity of ischemic brain
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.bme.jhu.edu/labs/dyue/research.html+calcium+research&hl=en
http://www.ima.umn.edu/dynsys/winter/dynsys6.html
http://www.compneuro.umn.edu/research.html
brain aging
http://www.alzforum.org/members/about/board/khatch/91175856.html
Modeling
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.bme.jhu.edu/ccmb/ccmbresearch.html+calcium+research&hl=en
Iodine-131 Thyroid Research (Early '50s); Additional Calcium Metabolism Studies on Elderly Subjects (Early '50s)
http://tis.eh.doe.gov/ohre/roadmap/histories/0473/0473_b.html
Neurotransmitters decrease the calcium Component of sensory neurone action potentials.
http://www.alzforum.org/members/about/board/archive/fisch/79073166.html
The Thyroid Treatment/Osteoporosis Controversy
http://thyroid.about.com/health/thyroid/library/weekly/aa061100a.htm
Calcium Glutamate (vision)
http://cwisdb.cc.kuleuven.ac.be/research/P/3M96/project3M961986.htm
Calcium and Short-term Memory
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.med.harvard.edu/publications/On_The_Brain/Volume4/Number1/Calcium.html+calcium+research&hl=en
Brain damage
http://www.stroke.org/NS805.0_AcuteTrtRes.html
light sensitivity http://www.cogsci.soton.ac.uk/bbs/Archive/bbs.neur3.bownds.html
http://www.nhgri.nih.gov/festival99/mini_symposia_session_2c.html
Funny Calcium leached by lactic acid in muscles is an anti-microbial indicating mobility is curative?
http://www.aari.ab.ca/research/ari/bidf/97/97h097.html
http://www.neuron.yale.edu/neuron/bib/usednrn.html
http://chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/article/0,2669,SAV-0005180115,FF.html
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.electric-words.com/adey/adeyoverview1.html+calcium+research&hl=en
calcium and epilepsy http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:www.jax.org/pubinfo/media/releases/Stargazer.html+calcium+research&hl=en
http://www.google.com/search?q=cache:seasilver.threadnet.com/newsletter/mar-2000.htm+%22Wilson%27s+Syndrome%22&hl=en
http://www.thyroid.org/annonc/wilson.htm
poster:Phillip Marx
thread:43041
URL: http://www.dr-bob.org/babble/20000811/msgs/43470.html