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Comment by MavisBacon | Hacker News Reader

I can relate deeply to this. Spent the last 2 years trying to get treatment for what turned out to be a neurological sleep movement disorder with an insomnia component. Basically I have sometimes ~150 involuntary limb movements/hr during sleep, they sometimes wake me up but even if they don't I wake up exhausted.

Things are getting better with medication finally, but yeah I've learned not to bring my sleep issues up with people generally. I diet, exercise, avoid caffeine and alcohol yes I've tried magnesium, as well as a slew of atypical antipsychotics, very old tricyclic antidepressants, and a parkinson's medication. Most people have a very hard time imagining what it's like to fight for each hour of sleep, so have a difficult time empathizing I think

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No matter what problem you have, you will always be met with the "just do this, it works for me". Eating disorder? Just eat. Can't sleep? Just do some running one hour before bedtime. The invisible disorders are much harder to get any sort of understanding for than the visible ones. If you use a wheelchair because you are missing limbs, noone will tell you to just get up and walk.

How did you get that diagnosed?

had a polysomnograph (aka sleep study) done which allowed them to recognize that I was having these movements during my sleep. My wife had always assumed I was just tossing and turning constantly while awake and I obviously had no clue what was going on without that PSG

This sounds naive perhaps but would velcro straps or other gentle arm restraints prevent movement and allow you to sleep better?

These don't actually prevent moving. Restraints simply mean the movement won't be large. Great solution to prevent damage if you hit things in your sleep or, say, you have had a stroke and can't control one arm. It just doesn't actually prevent the movement or the signals that make them (muscles will still get the signal to move).

The first issue with that is periodic limb movements (or PLMs) by definition can actually range from subtle movements almost like muscle spasms to large limb movements, so constraints would be limited in efficacy for that purpose specifically. This would also surely negatively affect any insomnia, sucks enough waking up at 2am involuntary when I'm not in restraints

That said, my father has a sleep movement disorder as well- but his is more extreme and called REM Behavior Disorder. Basically means he physically acts out his nightmares on a regular basis. His neurologist has been trying to convince him to put barriers on the side of his bed so he doesn't fall out and injure himself but he's been hesitant. sucks getting older.

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