2021-07-10, Saturday 
insomnia 
and just realized I left my credit card in a ticket machine … I think … on Wednesday… Madly dancing & singing on the lip of a volcano 
Fibro fog? Who, me? Naaaaah… Isn’t losing important things twice a month normal?
Sleep: “5h56”, up 6x (1h02) +2h20 +1h01 
Feeling 90% well, pain 1 of 7 
- somehow not tired, no pain, relaxed… 
There were absolutely no reasons for not being able to sleep: almost no thoughts, let alone compelling or fascinating ones, no pain, no excitement, unrest only occasionally. What’s the analysis gonna make of this 
Sleep details: stints of 3h at 21:15 & 2h25 at 6:45, rest was AuTr/dozing. Even the additional supps didn't kick in, only being up doing something 2h till 6:45 give me heaviness for the 2nd stint of sleep. 15:00 Trying a nap...
!exact times
Mg & Passiflora & Gastritol & psyllium at meal 20:30, GABA 21:10, exercises?
21:15- gum p2 fw2’ wife sez red eye.
21:48 7’ LBU, so FCS th drink fw1’ +290mg passionflower
0:52! 5’ p0 th teeth 2 sips first sleep stint of 2h12+52’=3h04
1:27 16’ head in a brilliant albeit untimely problem solving mode, pretty wide awake, despite sleeping well. GI OK. So I’ll try +1x45 mg mal +1x50mg gl +300mg GABA. 4 sips. Gastritol (herbs) + Gastricumeel (homeopathic) to be safer on my stomach + FCS. p0 th fw3’
2:11 23’ My body is coming down a bit more, but my mind isn’t, so gotta get that down, 6.
2:58 6’ Mind still alive ‘n’ kickin’. All positive, all curious. Later than this I can’t up anything any more. I’ll try another 2x1 Mg and then just wait & carry on with AuTr as long as it takes. If my stomach goes bonkers I’ll have to eat. I think another passionflower and/or glutamin are too risky. So interesting this is happening as I’d got sleep well under control a few weeks, apart from some days, and now 3 days 
… Triggers Mon Tues Wedn Thurs’ll go into the lowlights of the week… fw 4’ 6 sips p0 th. If this all doesn’t help till 5 I’ll do more fw.
3:33 5’ No, this def. ain’t workin’. My body is starting to wake up now, too. I was gonna say I’ll do fw now, but I’ll give the anti-stress CD another chance to get my body down & the additional supps to work. Gotta watch my stomach… fw 4’
3:38-4:09 (CD: Funny, I’d misunderstood one of the meditation words. Feels good. But still somehow wide awake. Now I’ll try sleep one last time before fw… 1’
4:13 OK, I give up. Nothing in me wants to sleep, altho there are no distracting thoughts, weren’t before the CD, still aren’t, I’m just sort of awake. Now first I’d be interested what my BP is doing… Ah, no hungry. No, BP uninfluenced by eating, see below.
4:41 Bit hungry, eyes a bit itchy, but no signs of wanting to sleep. 6:00 getting a bit feverish, maybe that’s a sign?
6:46 try again… still a bit feverish and now pretty knackered…
-9:08, ah at last, 2h25 straight.
Sum: 2h45+4h13-(7+5+16+23+6+5=)62’= 6h58-62’= 5h56, up 6x (1h02) +2h22 straight. → 8h18. Enough, or more? No, seems “enough”. 3h05+2h22 = 5h27 of real sleep.
15:00 Ah, nicely tired, let’s see what happens next -16:01 → 6h28 (6h57)
Activities: 80%/1-2
(Feeling well in %, pain out of 7)
Just sitting typing for hours is quite OK 80%/2
Workout 6’ 80%/1
Housework 30’ 80%/1
Shop 10’+5’ 80%/1
Cycling 20’
Treatments:
Acupressure 2h30 Tues & 2h Thurs: Loins, posture, energy all OK.
2x50mg & 2x45mg Mg, 2x290mg passiflora, 650mg GABA, 100mg L-Glutamine, 1x290mg passiflora + 300mg GABA + 2x50mg & 2x45 Mg, not sure about +50mg glutamine:
Well it didn’t help me sleep, but I’m OK.
Physio-type self-treatments: 3h20, fibro-work 4h45+?
* Timing, AuTr 2h, hunchback-pillow 10’, cold shower 2x(10’), RR 15x2’ palpate 1’, belly 3’, back 6’, workout 6’, thumbnails 4x30’’ gums 4x30’’, = 3h20
neck 1+ ‘, neck 2 1’, V ‘, twist-stretch ‘, yoga ‘, loins 1 1’, loins 2 1’, marionette-hang 1’, breath-hold 11’, shaking dance 1’, , *
Fibro-work: 19:30: 45’ Night: 4-6: 2h?? = 2h45… 9:10 No idea, 1h? Ordered more supps after that which is also fibro-work, but I usually mean forum work/research… 30’ +30’? = 4h45?
Symptoms
Lying: Changed lying on my back to lying like I used to - no problem, but didn’t help…
Sitting: OK, but mostly on floor, turned to couch, or standing.
Talking: Alone all day.
GI: Behaving quite well at night, despite more supps & being wide awake.
Bladder: Quite good at night.
RR: BTW taking my BP is meditative not stressful. 4:27 122/80 49 (almost identical several last ones of 8 readings, left & right.) Interesting how low my pulse still is at night. Let’s try now: 7x, avg. 128/79 53. OK, considering the insomnia. Not enough night dipping, but then I wasn’t sleeping. And the low pulse is apparently good too.
While ordering supps I saw pine bark is good for skin and BP, so oughtnt forget that if nec.
Insomnia: Yes, maybe the triggers I’ve identified, maybe also trashing wood late on Monday evening, Wednesday was work and playing “late”, maybe also having gotten up at 6 on Thursday to try to go to work…
Lessons in self-care
#27 No worrying, no bashing, blame it on the fibro
Reasons to be cheerful
#21 Starting to get sillily funny losing things.
Highlights week 27th to 3rd
Abbreviations & explanations
Entries start with night meds & sleep, before activities & treatments, because the “night before” is vital. So Fri-day starts with Thursday night, the night before Friday.
Pain "7" = crying (/out) point; my 1 is others 2-3, and due to pacing/treatments
My wife says my 7 is other people’s 12. 1 is probably 2-3. Due to pacing, keeping work down to 25% (12h/wk) and all my treatments (acupressure, GABA) and physio self-treatments I manage to keep getting my pains & Ache down quickly. 3 usually means the Ache, not pains; these I address individually, often automatically and on the fly now, e.g. twist-stretching everything or something specific after getting up.
TIME DATA, e.g. ' = mins, h = hours, 18:10:40', date YYYY-MM-DD
’ = mins = minutes, ‘’ = secs = seconds, h is hours as time length, 3h is 3 hours long, 3:00 is 3am, 15:00 is 3pm. 18:10:40’ means 40 minutes, starting at 18:10, = 10 minutes past 6pm up to 10 to 7pm. The date is the logical digital standard: YYYY-MM-DD.
SLEEP: slp, w, lbu/LBU, RLS, p, i
slp = sleep; reasons for getting up: w = (a)wake, lbu/LBU: lower back unrest (‘RLS’?), p: pee, p2: pain 2 of 7 before peeing, i: ideas.
ACTIVITIES: TT, e.g. "5:1"
TT = table tennis, 5:1 = score, usually showing how well I’m feeling: energy, relaxedness & alertness if the first number is much higher than the second.
SELF-TREATMENTS (about everything else...)
The self-treatments listed are only things that I’m spotlighting & rewarding myself for at the mo by counting them; much of what I do at night is self-treatment to get back to sleep or alleviate (1-2h/d), certain regular movements at daytime, like twist-stretching (30’), writing this blog is self-treatment (30’-60’/d), and the further fibro-work is an indirect form.
Self treatments are usually preventative or always have the same positive effect (e.g. cold showering improves Ache and sleep) - at least I do them for that - and I use “
” to show what I’m doing to alleviate something and mark it off in the details “/” whether it works well enough for a time or doesn’t’, e.g. Ache cold fast shower “”
fw = fibro-work, meaning reading and writing this blog, the reference base, on 4 fibro-forums and researching fibro-stuff on the web.
AuTr = Autogenic Training (usually to actively get - back - to sleep, so counting it as sleep and AuTr…),
cold/FCS = Flash Cold Shower (20’’-60’’) , I count it as 10’ tho. At night with ear plugs & all lights off.
breath-hold/WHM-B-H = Wim Hof Method Breath-Holding,
Neck 1 is stretching top right to bottom left, vice versa & sky/ground, neck “1+” is stretching far further diagonally downwards, neck 2 is pressing my head against my hand “without moving”, left right and front.
loins = loins/groin = stretching the ligaments there.
ex = exercises
HWB = Hot water bottle,
RR = bp = blood pressure (Riva Rocci), plus pulse. Used to be normal, plus sometimes white coat syndrome, went up since fibro, seems to have gone down again, but I’m still sort of on meds, candesartan 16mg, instead of 8mg plus lercanidipine, cos I saw that c. has less side effects.
“V” for loins = lie on back, legs up and let legs fall to sides;
twist-stretching more for the loins