Health Corner

By Dr. John Philip Pestaño, General Medicine

A Terrible Thing To Have

Have you ever had problems sleeping at night? Do you lie in bed frustrated and worried because you've been lying there for the longest time without feeling sleepy? Or do you fall asleep easily but wake up several times during the night? Quite possibly, you might even fall asleep, sleep like a log, then wake up at two in the morning and can't seem to fall asleep again?

If you have problems like that, you might even have problems during day time. You might feel tired or sleepy or might be unnecessarily irritable. You start growing eyebags and people start complimenting you on your pale complexion.

Do you have problems like these?

If you do, then it's quite possible you have something called INSOMNIA.

Insomnia is characterized as a sleep disorder. Its when you are unable to fall asleep or are unable to remain asleep for any reasonable period of time. This also includes waking up after a short period of sleep or waking up tired and unrested despite 7-8 hours of sleep.

Just like we have different types of people, we have different types of isomnia. Short term or transient insomnia involves symptoms that last from a recent few nights to a few weeks. Intermittent insomnia is similar to the short term type except for the fact that it occurs from time to time and is not a recent problem. Chronic insomnia occurs three nights a week for a period of at least a month or more.

Here are some more types to choose from:

• Sleep Onset Insomnia (Delayed Sleep Phase Syndrome): when you can't fall asleep or wake up at the desired time. Ex. It's way past your bedtime and you're very wide awake. So wide awake sometimes, you?d do anything to fall asleep. Anything.


• Idiopathic Insomnia: A sleep problem that you've lived with since birth. You've tried practically everything and its still there!


• Psychophysiological Insomnia: You're so anxious you become sick from it. Your body becomes so tense and sometimes painful in one or several places that you have difficulty sleeping because of your symptoms or the worry that they bring.


• Childhood Insomnia (Limit-Setting Sleep Disorder): Blame your parents because they were softies. You got so used to getting away with sleeping waaay past your bedtime, your body clock has trained itself to sleep late. Now, you're paying for it.


• Sleep-Onset Association Disorder. Insomnia that you get because you miss your teddy bear or security blanket when you were a kid. Now that you've grown up, this translates into missing the tv, the light, a favorite pillow, or a favorite someone to sleep with.


• Food Allergy Insomnia: Allergies to food don?t only make you itchy. Sometimes you don't feel a thing. There might be even times that you won't feel sleepy. Aren't allergies fun?


• Environmental Insomnia (Environmental Sleep Disorder): Something wrong with the light? Is your window rattling? Dripping faucets, leaking roofs, noisy neighbors, a snoring bed partner, all of these might be responsible for your personal hell at bedtime.


• Transient Insomnia (Adjustment Sleep Disorder): Did you just break up? Did your boss yell at you? If you have a temporary sleep problem because of recent stress, conflict or change of environment, this is your bug.


• Periodic Insomnia (Non 24-Hour Sleep-Wake Syndrome): If you've had a problem falling asleep or waking up in a regular pattern for about 1 or 2 hours off the time you wanted to sleep or wake up, this is your insomnia. You've most probably have this problem for a long time before you got to see this article.


• Altitude Insomnia: If you get sleep problems with headaches, poor appetite, or tiredness because you decided to go become a mountain goat somewhere or because of a camping trip up in the mountains, that's insomnia due to the altitude change.


• Hypnotic-Dependency Insomnia (Hypnotic-Dependent Sleep Disorder): Let's say you decided to be a good boy or girl and stop taking those sedating drugs (drugs that make you drowsy or sleepy.) You're going to be a good boy or good girl with insomnia. Call it a drug withdrawal syndrome look-a-like, and you wouldn't be that much off the mark. You can also get this if you're so used to taking sleeping pills, they don't work anymore.


• Stimulant-Dependent Sleep Disorder: If you stop drinking coffee or smoking, or stop taking drugs that pick-you-up, this is part of the price you pay to get better. Because your body and your brain is so used to the stimulants, stopping those things put you into a degree of stress that's debilitating to your sleep.


• Alcohol-Dependent Insomnia (Alcohol-Dependent Sleep Disorder): If you like drinking something alcoholic to help you sleep and for some reason, the world ran out of alcohol (or if you simply forgot to buy or stock the stuff and all the stores were closed), this is the kind of present you get for being bad.


• Toxin-Induced Sleep Disorder: Heavy metals or organic toxin poisoning. Nothing to do with music. Contamination of mercury or cadmium into your food or medicines or if you, for any reason, decide to take something poisonous, this type of insomnia may be one of the symptoms. But only if you are alive enough to want to sleep in the first place.

So, which one do you have?

What do you do if you have insomnia? Well, you can hunt around medical books, surf the Net, or go consult a physician. Or you can wait for the second installment to this article.

Happy drowsing!