Has anyone else felt that a nap meant for 25 mins, kept extending to 30/45/an hour and still your body feels like getting slightly warm after the extended nap?
This has happened to me ‘everytime’. And the naps i am talking about are the afternoon naps. So I am trying to live a routine life of early morning-early bed. The early bed has gotten solid, now still fixing with the early morning though. Thankfully, I had an early morning today. Proper exercise, eating and then to working for today. (And no, I am not a late owl. I know many explain being awake late is okay since that is a late owl trait. I know I am a diurnal person and I like being like that. Helps me keep track of my hours in the day too). But here’s the thing, my morning routine struggles because of the blunder that happens in the afternoon, that I am about to tell you. [As a result of the blunder,it is good enough a side cause (I think) for still only handful early mornings in my bag. Now this is typical of every early morning day I have. Continuing with the story.] Since I have been awake and working from the 7am, by afternoon having taken the lunch, well you do get little lousy, don’t you? And in my case, I feel like the need to rest my head because the brain feels getting blocked since working straight from morning till the lunch time. (I do take slight breaks but not naps). And then, having put the 25 mins alarm, well, my alarm rings at 25th min, and there - this is a pattern- It’s like having woken from the deepest sleep, and you have that bitterness in the eyes. Yeah, like that, or that you head would be throbbing since someone woke you from the deep sleep. Now, I snooze the alarm. It rings back after 10 mins, 10 mins more, till finally my dog heads out of the room and starts barking on someone crossing nearby the house’s entrance and I have to chase her back to quietness. I was almost about to overthrow my work that I was doing prior the nap but now, thanks to me dog I am awake. But there goes: I am getting warm.
And I know, with fibro every post-sleep is body heating and paining, and therefore since I can relate the cause still to some disease that relates to the symptoms (Fibromyalgia), I find closure a bit. But I can’t get just done with the heating in my body and my elbows especially feeling the ache by simply concluding it that it is Fibro. It’s something I have to live and go through for a period until it passes. (It’s elbows first. And if the heating/warming in body is much, the pain would be on the limb surface-arms and legs, and at the worst warming, also on the feet).
And hence, though my irresistible barking dog got me up from bed and brought me back to my table and chair, today was heading to be another afternoon blunder; about to get ticked with a 3-4 hour sleep which would have disturbed my bed time (since even when I go back to bed at the regular hour after the blunders, I can’t sleep because I had already rested. And so end up ultimately dozing off by 12 or 1am. Yes, that’s a blunder) and therefore the morning time disturbs.
This got me asking. Why is it that my afternoon sleep turns just like that 3-4 am deep sleep that I can’t break out of and resume back to my day’s working? Is this just me or has it happened with anyone else too? Do you too feel the pain in the elbows?
Hi there PDB,
I’ve heard of quite a few fibromites who can’t stop their naps, it’s not just you! :-).
Because I wake up 6x every night, I don’t nap at all, even my many breaks lying down make me tired, but I never give in. I’ve learnt that is good sleep-hygiene not to. Also I’ve learnt if anything to only use so called “power naps” of 10-20 mins, to prevent going into deep sleep. 25 mins seems too long, even for healthy people: praps 15 mins’d be better for you?
If a prolonged nap like this happened to me, I’d first try doing exercises with my eyes closed, like I do in the mornings, to get the heaviness out of head and body. And second I’d wash my wrists and hands cold, if necessary thighs, if necessary cold shower (only 2 mins) (see Heat & Cold therapy - 6+1 types (Cryotherapy)), esp. if heat and pain are connected in the way you describe (which I don’t hear that often by the way). In me it’s more that cold & pain are more connected, but cold shocks help me even so.
I have very different sleep problems at the moment (don’t know if you’ve read some of JayCS’s Fibro Blog - #208 by JayCS): My average sleep had increased from 8.5 to 9h/n, but working 15h/w still took my energy down to 50%, which came back to 90% for 3 weeks in the prolonged Christmas break. Now in home office I’m trying to keep the energy up by sleeping 10h/n, which is working, and my energy is higher, but I still often get very tired. Since I need from about 9-9 to get the 10h of sleep this is only possible in home office. Now I’m trying to get the breaks at night down so I can get up at or before 8. And wondering whether the long sleeping is worth it - but at the moment I’m thinking having energy is more important than feeling awake…
I’ve tried to think what you may mean here, but can’t come up with anything… 
Hello @JayCS ! Thanks for the reply!
Haha, about the “a closure a bit” first. In my case, I have found that every time I woke up from a sleep or a nap, and either if I had had some stress because of the day’s agenda (with stuff still hanging in the air to be completed in the next day) or ate something not right (currently, sugar levels in blood are being related to fibro flares) before the sleep, after the sleep, rather than feeling calm, rested, I find my body in pain. And each time that I had such a pain, in my case I have observed that my body does feel warmer, feverish sort of.
How much feverish am I ‘feeling’ though can be related to how much warm my body is. Like when after waking up, if body is little warm, my elbows would be generally the one paining. If it is warmer, there would be the elbows, and limb ‘surfaces’ (not joints other than the elbows) in pain. If more warm, then the elbows, limb surface region and the feet. And if yet more warm, that is the ultimate, the pain would be like it is in the bones. I’d be feeling ultimate weakness and warm like a fever. Yeah, it’s that weakness that we feel in a fever, I think safe to say, that is a fibro flare.
So, at the time when my disease was not concluded/settled/diagnosed, I had a lot of rounds with ‘many’ doctors. Here’s the sad thing. They called out on me that I was making excuses. Now, here’s the more sad part. Doctors aside, the folks around me were calling me out, their accusations or doubts only strengthened when the Doctors were not saying something in favour to explain the pains.
Well, (now I am crying) I couldn’t explain it, people who were meant to explain it (the doctors/physicians) did not explain it, emotional support system wass not keeping much hope and on top of it, some influential folks in family were beginning to call me out. For making excuses in order to not do stuff. (I was writing college entrances in that period of time). Ah, since it was about college start, almost like a career start, I was myself worried how to pull myself out of the pains and get going to work/study/prep, how will I carry myself out in college at all if my state be like that. I can say that oh no, it’s nothing, increase my will power, but saying so too, working on it still, my state of pain, feverish pains were yet the same. How do I pull myself out of it?
So, everytime now, after one doctor (a totally different physician from pulmonary actually) suggested that it could be fibromyalgia, having the diagnosis done (there too is a story, haha. I am not crying now 
) and getting to hear it officially from another rhuematologist (the fact being, the proper doctor concerned with this disease confirming it), well, everytime now that I wake up, that period of worry/apprehension as I had during the pre diagnosis time, well it does come. A slight of it. And then I remind myself that no, the pain can be explained by Fibromyalgia. That summarization is so powerful.
Words have power and with this word I sense that. How just a word can summarize everything I was going through with my body, removing all those poking fingers and calling outs during the pre diagnosis time.
I remind myself everytime I feel my body warming after waking up now. It helps. Haha, hence “a closure”. Saying Fibromyalgia, helps settle all those pokings, those self apprehensions. Why “a bit”? Because having a word to my problems, well it calms me much. Some stress relieved. But it doesn’t settle the case completely, wouldn’t you agree? Why fibro happens, not having a clue for it, no base, no genetics that can be conclusively talked about, what exactly can be done about it, we are yet to know the answers isn’t it? So, saying Fibromyalgia, it does give a platform. Okay, I am a person with it, I can ‘identify’ myself with it. I can see that yes indeed, I am different from other many other people in the world (haha, I meant disease influenced lifestyle wise 
). It’s a category I can see myself in, but the ground still feels shaky. Thinking that it is fibro but not knowing why fibro, there does feel that shakiness.
And so “a closure [but] a bit” .
About the second, haha, I was about to ask you how does your body feel like when you have the pain. You wrote that you observed a cold and pain relationship rather. But I think, I better follow up on it in another reply message. For the sake of readability
Ah, I get it now, you’re “closing/settling the case” on it being fibro or not, by reminding yourself IT IS! Glad you explained it, valuable to hear these bad experiences of yours! I was much luckier - my fibro-diagnosis was flying around between my GPs and myself long before the big flare up, whilst I was still capable of working full time. The first rheum. was too quickly “trapped in denial”, but I got the appt. for a 2nd opinion parallel to that, and got there only 3 months later, after having had to stop work. She diagnosed it straight away. After that I just had to de-throne a few docs/therapists that were blaming it on things like hormones or depression, but quickly find a lot who knew and accepted it (surprised and thankful every time, tho). That’s made me challenge anything anyone says, doc or physio, which is why I ended up with 40+ docs and 15+ physios inside of one year. All worth it tho.
The shaky ground is for me not really the why, but trying to find out what helps. And it’s my blog which is making the ground safer and safer, as I’m learning to understand my body, which I spose is a sort of why aswell, come to think of it… however: one which is answerable…
Your thoughts are making me wax very philosophical here, so I'll hide this, but I'll loop it back to fibro at the end:
I once worked out that there are 2 whys in the question why we exist or 2 types of sense in the sense in our lives: The big one comes from outside and goes there too, and is general: what is life’s purpose? The small one comes from inside, doesn’t necessarily stay there, and is individual: what is your life’s purpose? The big one can be answered by saying things like: Life’s purpose is living (circular reasoning), or wrong question (a living thing can’t put life/the system in question, because we can’t make ourselves anorganic, we can’t jump out of the system), or our universe seems to be striving continually “higher” in some way or that put in a Christian way: God made us to live his Love. (These answers are on the general level, but may or may not be accepted by an individual.) The small one can be answered by: If life has to be taken for granted, then filling it may be arbitrary, or it may need listening to and answering on it’s own terms, which seem in the main to be constructive, co-operative, Love, to me at least… Now taking that back to fibro:
Listening to my life at the moment, to answer what it needs doing means - to me - to listen to my body, to answer what it needs doing: Self-acceptance, Fibro-acceptance, letting fibro teach me things, yes, but then self-care, self-attentivenes, self-awareness, a new sort of self-discipline, to do what’s best, and following that self-assurance, even self-confidence.
If I ask why the fibro exists (why does nature/God allow suffering, the theodicy-question…) I’d quickly run into the trap of self-pity. Same if I ask: Why me? And not all the others who are similar to me? But it has turned my focus away of doing way too much for others all my life, loving my neighbour and ignoring myself. So now I’m getting told the answer: Time for you. Something I’ve been Getting Told for quite a long time, but obviously wasn’t listening hard enough… 
Again: This is the individual answer I am finding and using at the moment, well knowing that I cd question this by protesting: Little JayCS didn’t learn to care for himself, because he didn’t feel cared for, is that his fault, is he to blame, shd I feel guilt? But he was and I am part of a system/network that can only be healed by Love, not by blame or guilt (but a bit of anger and a tiny bit of hate, some moaning and self-pity here and there may sometimes be nec for Healing… 
). Life (incl. nature) needs to be complicated that way, otherwise it and we wouldn’t be free, which wdn’t be G(o)od (that’s my favourite answer to the theodicy-question btw…).
Hehe, @Polkadotbeans_fibro - and I don’t even know how you meant your why!? 
haha, yeah, there have been many times I did ask this question philosophically. I have had to experience a time not able to work especially at a phase/period when students generally try to visualize their career life as whole. So, a resistance to that flow when put in practise, it was not pretty to digest.
However, feeling the shakiness on the ground that I referred, is due to the scientific why which is still to be conclusively, objectively answered. 
I am trying to keep much in touch with the research articles on that, information helps. So as much as I want to inform myself more and more, what so far I have got, still keeps the answer to the question 'Why (scientifically) does this happen, (the mechanism, brain parts involved, body physiology involved, neurology behind this disease) is still open. Not knowing the answer to these, does make the ground a bit shaky.
Reading the articles is one thing but I have again come back to joining the community to talk it out with others for the same reason. Because sometimes, somebody is not writing more about it in an article. At the moment of uncertainty which I was feeling about myself not being able to get out of the bed in a nap, that’s why I wrote it here, and so good it was to know how your answer; about some fibro patients also experiencing it!
About the second, (following from my previous message), I saw in your profile and in my understanding, putting something cold helps you. Is that right to say?
Personally about sleep, I have felt that in my case when the sleep starts reaching the 9th or 10th hour, I might be on bed, dozing without having a care in the world, but after having woken up, my head feels heavy. So my head feels heavy with more than 8 hours of sleep but I so easily miss out on a timely waking up. I really don’t know where to set the bar that something is really due to a disease’s interruption or is that my will at fault in such case? The line there is so vague.
And yes, I feel like at the regular 7 hours, my body doesn’t ache. But in the excess sleep days, the head throbs and sometimes the body also aches. Because since in the morning I have excessively slept and missed out on the hours of planned productivity, failing in that sometimes (most times) makes me feel depressive too. And, to cook breakfast at 10am, (during days when I was living by myself), does not make me happy at all to realize that fact after getting up at 10 am.
I really like having a morning routine. I feel good with my productivity, but comes afternoon and the whole day goes upside down. If ever I have had a streak of proper morning waking up, that streak probably has lasted 3-4 days on average.
That’s why I could comment about a pattern, because I am indeed observing where is something going wrong. But I really am not certain how to find that righ piece for this puzzle.
The 25 mins nap that you had pointed, when a morning has thankfully begun as I wanted it to, since working from 7am to 2pm, after 2 (because this is the time I take my lunch), having had my lunch (which I try not to keep heavy because of the lousiness it cause to any normal being too) now is the time I say to take a break and cave in to that bitterness that was creeping in my eyes since 12 pm. It’s like I am working on extension you see. I have observed, it’s always 3-4 hours of blundersome sleep. If I caved in at 10 am and went back to my bed, I would wake at 2pm. If at 2pm I went to the bed, i’d wake around 6pm. Currently, because of studies and online classes, day somehow still gets extended past noon. Otherwise it used to be, gone back in bed at 9 am or 10 am with exactly 3 or 4 hours of sleep taken, never less than that.
And this is what I want to break out of. To solve this extra 3-4 hours problem. My body would be like feeling exhausted in that extended time till 2, that going back to bed feels right. Like once upon a time, before fibro i’d feel exerted, so would go to bed to lay my back straight and get up. I have tried accepting that maybe I do with an hour of sleep. Tried that. But still it’s yet the same waking up from a deep 3-4 am sleep as I wrote in the initial post!
I have to keep productivity in mind too. And taking more hours of rest in the afternoon disturbs my night’s sleep. Fun part on top that, the night sleep has to, has to be a 7 hours sleep in one big piece. Because any less than that, and my body would go slightly feverish the next day as I have described before.
It’s this puzzle that I really can do with suggestions in order to solve it. I hope, even for someone reading this thread, if they have something to say that might help, they do too respond here. 
Oops, I knew I’d left something important out… My reasoning was meant to be that - like you reading old and new studies regularly - I don’t see the scientific “why” being answered in my lifetime, and in any case not being answered now, altho I want to do something now. So I was comparing the philosophical why of life with the scientific why in that both are in a way out of reach. (The scientific causes of life are probably better known than the causes of fibro! That’s also why I was talking about making the ground less shaky by finding “causes” or at least help for single symptoms.
“putting something cold helps you. Is that right to say?”
Not quite that easy! Cold is poison to me as to most of us for a longer amount of time, as in staying outside in cold weather. Bathing my hands in cold canola in the rheum./fibro-clinic for 15mins. caused a big flare. But 3 mins. was quite OK, helped. And before that I’d already found out that 3’ whole body cryotherapy, which is propagated here by patient societies, and also 2’ showers or cold washing can alleviate pains and especially the Ache for quite some time. But “putting on” cold pads doesn’t, for longer I need heat. More details in the cryotherapy-link posted above Heat & Cold therapy - 6+1 types (Cryotherapy)
I understand the getting up early part. On a similar note, I once had the idea that 9h might be too much, so went back to 8.5h and 8h, and the Ache got worse. Now I’m going up from 9h to 10h and the energy is getting better. Also I know that before fibro I used to get headaches and didn’t at all like sleeping more than 8.5h, my average was 8h, and while working often 7-7.5 with no big problem. And I read that that is normal, there are studies that show, that sleeping too much gives you headache, just that it’s different for everyone how much. So it’s clearer in my case. I do remember that I started taking a sleep break for an hour, sleeping 2x4h. Finding that strange, my wife too, I looked up and read that that seems to have been perfectly normal in the 17th and 18th centuries!
So sleeping 12-7 at night is good for you, then working, then a light lunch, but that all makes a nap necessary, which you’d like to get under control, I think I’ve understood?
The usual main problem for fibro, apart from the sleeping problems, is of course to pace yourself with every activity, resting in time, looking for the invisibly moving sweet spots for everything you do. In my case I need an active break with certain exercises and cold washing after 1h of work in the sense of talking to people, better working from home. If I take the break in time, I can manage another hour and another. If I don’t, the flare comes immediately and may take a few days to calm down. So in your case I’d suggest taking active breaks breaks regularly, and each time try to get your body back down to zero. If what you notice is the “bitterness”, then try to find out if it’s enough to take an active break at 12, or if you have to do it before at 11. It’d be helpful to learn to sense what exactly comes along with the bitterness - is it fatigue in your limbs, for instance? Because bitterness alone doesn’t necessarily explain long sleep being necessary. But as long as you have nothing else to go by, then by all means use that as an indicator. Fibro means trying to NEVER do anything “on extension” as you put it, or if you do, you will definitely flare, so you have to calculate it well. We call it “overdoing it”. There are certain things, like cleaning windows, which I can only do for 1 min, other things for 3 mins, some for 1 or 2h (that’s usually the uppermost limit for anything I do). To still keep active longer, I switch tasks.
Now what about the 3-4h? If it’s so regular, your body seems to need it, doesn’t it? If it does then, when do you want to take them? Does it have to be in the daytime? To solve that, maybe you could try not to nap at all, all day, just take active breaks and try to stop the “bitterness”, i.e. the overdoing it, from building up. That way, you might be able to work in the afternoon as well, again with active breaks, and break down at 7pm, and then take the 3-4h. If I napped, I’d sleep. Some days I yawn a lot, feel very tired. But I don’t let myself sleep, so that I can sleep better at night. What happens when you try that? Having to sleep 10h per night and needing 1-2h additionally for that, plus feeling tired from 6pm on, means I am less productive - that’s fibro, there’s no way around that. Fibro is telling us we have to stop, because we believe productivity is more important than our body and fibro tells us our body is the requirement… It’s hard accepting that, but it’s a fight we lose, if not, because it’s the reality of fibro, the new reality of our lives…
What a quirk that I’ll have to try getting up at 6:30 or 7:30 on Thursdays after the lockdown and am now considering taking a 25 min. nap, which may then get to be 3-4h… JayCS’s Fibro Blog - #212 by JayCS (situation in the post before)…