Insomnia - I can't get no sleep!

To state the obvious, pain is bad, very bad! I’m in a lot of bad pain but more than the pain it’s the lack of sleep that blights my being!

Insomnia – “I can’t get no sleep!”

At its worse I’m surviving on 90mins of kip a night. I take sleeping pills, but the pain in my legs wakes me up, so I spend most nights in a pattern of dropping off, spasming, drifting off, spasming again followed by several hours of nerve pain. So, I’ve given up on the sleeping pills, if I’m going to be up for 20hrs a day, I might as well make myself useful rather than sulking and sobbing into my pillow!

I don’t have a secret to cure insomnia, although I’m considering having a D.I.Y above knee amputation... but here is my little guide to surviving the long nights.

Don’t fight it!

I see no point in lying in bed, clock watching and cursing the sunrise. If you make it to 4am with no success - get up, not necessarily out of bed, but do something! Mike’s been away 6 week and where he would normally lay is my night time survival kit....

My survival kit

Read

As you can see, I keep myself busy.... I’m a prolific reader, so there are always magazines and books dotted around the flat. I’m currently reading Nothing Changes Until You Do: A Guide to Self-Compassion and Getting Out of Your Own Way by Robbins, Mike (2014) Paperback (yes it’s a self help book, yes I need all the help I can get!). I'm also reading You're the One That I Want by Giovanna Fletcher too. I will say that you might be better off sticking to magazines for short articles and features as the trouble with a good fictional read is that you’re forever telling yourself “Just one more chapter....”

Beautify

3am is a dull time of day, unless you’re out at all night party, so it's a perfect time to do those dull beauty tasks! I use my time taming my mono brow, nails and taking a cheese grater to my foot. Monotonous tasks make for a monotonous brain... i.e. hopefully boring you to sleep!

I also keep creams, lotions, lip balms and overnight hair conditioners close by, I might as well pamper myself in my hour(s) of need and face wipes are must pain = hot, sticky clammy face and arms which drive me nuts!

Entertainment

Thank god for Netflix, BuzzFeed, Youtube and Huffingtonpost! On my tablet and mobile I have all four. We don’t have a TV in our bedroom but I’m more likely to fall asleep with my tablet balanced on the pillow next to me as I’m comfier on my side. I know “experts” will say to avoid all technology in bed, but those experts haven’t been distracted by puppy videos or cried them selves to sleep (hey sleep is sleep) watching The Notebook and Fault in the Stars!

Clear out your brain

I’m a writer so there’s always a note pad close by, all my idea’s, thoughts, and ramblings are better on paper than clogging up my drug filled insomniac brain. If nothing else, due to the severe lack of sleep I write to do, to take, to text, to remind, to watch and to buy lists and I even have to do lists informing me of to do lists I need to check – it’s a skill!

Medication 

....in my case, and not in many others, I need medication, a lot it too. I always keep them nearby and lots of water!

Monotony can be key

As I mentioned before, boredom can cause sleep. One of my good friends suffers with neuralgia and plays mind sweep whilst waiting for her pain medication to kick in. I’m personally currently addicted to Theme Hospital,  for young people it’s a very old cheesy game set, funny enough, in a hospital. You’d think I’d be sick of hospitals after my years of treatment but maybe that’s why I like it.

Indulge in guilty pleasures

I have many guilty pleasures, except I never feel very guilty about them. At 4am, I don’t have the brain power to follow an episode of Game of Thrones, instead I indulge in 16 and Pregnant. Teens not using protection, angry parents, girls believe the guys will change/grow up/man up (they never do!) girl loves baby, but always says in the end that they wished they’d waited and hadn’t realised it would be so hard! 5 seasons later you’d think they’d learn but it’s very addictive viewing!

On bad nights I’ll also indulge in copious warm milk, Oreo cookies and lately, strawberries, being up alone all night is not fun – food makes me happy!

Talk

The beauty of the internet is A. There will be other Insomniacs sat considering introducing their heads to a brick wall and B. The world has many time zones, even if your country is asleep many others will be awake, so make some international friends and you’ll never be lonely.... or in my case get engaged to a Geologist who spends half of his year in America!

So this is how I survive the long nights. No one can underestimate the effects of never getting a decent night’s sleep, my work, social life; concentration and sanity are regularly in jeopardy due to insomnia but I do what I have to do to keep myself going how about you?

Lastly...

I bought a Spoonie Survival Kit from a little store on Etsy. It won’t cure any pain or insomnia but it’s adorable. It includes:

• Pink fluffy socks
• A tea bag
• Marbles for when I’ve lost mine
• Lip balm and nail varnish for pampering
• String to “Hold it together”
• A silver spoon (to read about the Spoonie movement click here!)
• A pen to write down my feelings 
• a dice for luck.

A sweet gift if you know someone who’s suffering or in need of a little boost. You can buy them here!

Sleep tight

L xxx

Vidal Sassoon - Salonist - Review

I was asked to try Vidal Sassoons new hair colouring project Salonist, in association with Super Savvy Me.

Ten years ago, I dyed my hair bright red, although unintentional it became my “thing”. Towards the end of my twenties, I took it upon myself to look/act more mature, so I went for sleek black bob. Although I love my bob, my life in general became crazy and far too serious, my Mike joked that my old red hair held my superpowers!

So when I volunteered to dye my hair any colour (except blonde – have you seen my eye brows?) Super Savvy sent me two brunette colourants, a blonde and a glorious red. I posted all the colours on my social media. After all the votes it was decided that I would become a red head once more!

The colours I was sent from SuperSavvyMe 

I hit a snag early on, there was no way any colour was going to cover the black lengths of my hair, so I began the process of stripping my hair. The first lot only made my roots ginger, the second try made my roots blonde and the third set, that I left off my roots left my hair lighter brown but still very dark.

Strip One...

Strip two...

Strip three...

This was a three day process; my pain was through the roof – all in the name of vanity! On day three I just decided to go for it.

The Vidal Sassoon Salonist hair dye works on the bases that our hair roots colour differently to the lengths. So first I covered my roots, I tried using the root brush that came with the kit, but only being able to use one hand fully, I ended up using my fingers, I then added the colour serum meant for the rest of my hair. There was plenty of product to cover my shoulder length do, the Salonist kit didn't have an over powering smell like my similar products do and the colourant was easy to apply.

The Salonist Kit

No, I'm not naked!

I clipped up my hair and covered my head in a carrier bag (Superdrug if you must know!) and waited....

I got in the shower to remove the product, it looked as though I’d recreated the shower scene from the movie Psycho, but it didn’t take long, I then coated my hair in the Salonist conditioner which smelt lovely.

Even though my hair was wet (and therefore darker) I could see that the colour had struggled to cover the lengths of my hair. After I dried it, I had red roots, darker red mid hair and very dark ends eek! BUT I liked it! It looks as though I’d had an ombre treatment but the wrong way around, plus I’ve had three strangers asked me when I had it done!

Post dye roots

 So I’m now semi red head! As my hair grows, I’ll continue to dying it using Vidal Sassoons Salonist as the colour is a lovely warm red and despite all the stripping and dying me hair is glossy and soft!

All in all, I highly recommend Salonist, despite the multi red colours this was my fault not Vidal Sassoons. I will continue to apply my hair, using my fingers rather than the bowl and brush, I’ll probably keep those and use them for paint pots/brushes for my nieces’ and nephews art project –  yet another bonus!

Thanks to Super Savvy Me and Vidal Sassoon for the chance to get back my super powers!

L x

Toilet Habits

!Warning toilet habits discussed below, if you’re squeamish or eating your dinner, don’t continue reading!

Last month writer Sam Cleasby wrote a blog on being a woman suffering with an invisible illness, by invisible I mean she doesn’t have a wheelchair, white stick and she isn’t missing any limbs. Sam has ulcerative colitis, a condition that causes inflammation and ulceration of the inner lining of the rectum and colon.  

The condition is a nightmare where you are plagued with bouts of diarrhoea, excruciating pain in your bowels, weight loss, fatigue and anaemia just for starters. The condition then continues its war on a body, causing joint inflammation and pain, skin and mouth blisters, bone thinning which all could lead to sufferers having their bowels removed (or part of them) or at its very worse it could lead to cancer.  

There are similar conditions; Irritable Bowel Syndrome and Crohns disease but all three have varying levels of pain, symptoms and outcomes. Sadly I know people with all three.  

Sam’s blog piece was a letter, from Sam, telling a woman off for tutting at her, after she emerged from a disabled toilet, because the woman saw no wheelchair she assumed there wasn’t a disability.  

I’ve witnessed friends sob after they’ve not made it to the toilet in time, friends who have blushed when their condition causes a lot of breaking wind or when they’ve asked for room spray after a loo trip. These conditions have left my friends, at times, house bound, having to take days of work only for their boss to suggest they “buy a box of Imodium and get over it”. Like any of us with chronic conditions we need empathy and understanding, not sympathy and mocking.  

These day’s I try and accommodate my friends by leaving, wet wipes, air freshener and a product called Poopourri(<- click="" for="" information="" it="" nbsp="" of="" span="" this="" works="">in the bathroom and since my loo is situated off my kitchen/living room I always put music on to save embarrassment from any noises being heard.  

Due to my own conditions I’ve come closer to understanding as to what Sam and my friends go through. I have to take a lot of medication and the side effects are almost as dire as the pain itself.  

Up until recently I was taking up to 8 codeine tablets a day, these are great pain killers but caused my constipation to be so bad, that at it’s worse, I didn’t go to the toilet for 18 days . On day 17, I took a lot of laxatives desperate not to have to see my GP or A&E. Day 18 was horrendous, my guy Mike, had to hold me up on the loo for several hours as I passed out in pain, whilst I finally opened my bowels (brownie points for the boy though, he took it all in his stride, he didn’t mock me or suddenly go off me after it all!).  

For the next day or so I had to run back and forth to the loo at short notice, my butt was so sore, my legs numb from sitting on the loo and completely washed out from it all – I had a new view of what people go through. 

Invisible conditions like IBS, UC and Crohns disease are embarrassing for people, so I wanted to put my support out there. Don’t judge those who are governed by their toilet habits, don’t assume that an able bodied person coming out of a disabled loo isn’t in need or entitled to the privacy and invest in a few products to keep in your bathroom, many people are too embarrassed to ask but they’ll be incredibly thankful for your gestures!  

L x