Rao & Rollings (2002). Sleep Disturbances Following Traumatic Brain Injury. [Archive]

Acid

12-06-2002, 10:45 PM

Sleeping tablets do not sound like being healthy all for the kidneys and other systems.

I heard that there were people even getting addicted to sleeping tablets, seeming to have messed up their natural sleeping abilities big time.

I therefore do not agree with messing chemically into the kidneys and other systems just to force sleeping patterns somewhere.

I agree that it can feel inside odd and be a bit of a problem when sleeping timings get sort of more chaotic after brain injury, and I had that, too, after a concussion.

But I never even felt the urge to mess into my kidneys with pills there.
I more found the whole pattering, in spite of its chaos, interesting.

It seemed to be linked with the headache-time.

In the time where the headaches still came, for about over a year,
I had the feeling the cardian synchronizing was disturbed.

I slept between 6 and 16 h and was up between 12 and maybe 36 h.

That was a bit chaotic.

When the headaches left, finally dawn and when the sun is red on the horizon in the afternoon
started to make the cardian "tunings" again, and I felt very relieved about that that finally these times started to register again.

(By now I wonder if with sort of artificial getting oneself to pay attention to these times might have helped a bit.)

After the cardian synchronizing internally with the mentioned times was back, it did not feel so chaotic for me anymore.

I still do not sleep like most other people, and in cities have a preference for the night, where there is less signal overload in my brain. Sometimes I also am up like 36 h or more still. But at least there are set timing preferences when to sleep again, where I regularily get tired (even if they seem rather differing from most people around me).

Living in more natural nature they tend to change towards a bit more like average human (though not entirely the same, but as MBD I also seem not to feel the aspiration to leave my own towards other ideals, if it can be avoided).

What for me was important, apart from enough sleep, for quite a while still after the concussion, was to sort "boot-up" after waking up in a very special way. It could take many minutes, up to twenty maybe.

It is like a very gradual powering up,

not straight opening the eyes and overloading damaged systems with external data like some sudden hammer.

To be disturbed in the slow "boot-up" (like by other people pushing mentally and otherwise around) could cause me disturbances and inner imbalances over many hours. But by the afternoon then usually they seemed better about, so it just messed up stuff for maybe 4 h or a bit more.

What disturbed me more than chaotic sleeping and waking times,
were blinking lights and peeping things.

I felt like reaching prestages to epileptics.

In USie culture they seem to favour loud beeping vehicles, so one area where I lived in that time it started early in the morning and went for about 12 h a lot.
(I once tried to find out where from, walked what might have been over a km, and arrived at a fence behind which there was a huge sand pit with several vehicles, where each time one went backwards, it made that infernal peeping.)

It drove me half-nuts, and even stuffing something into my ears did not help much.
I tried to break what for me were pre-epilitic patterings caused by it, devising weird methods to try break the rhythm they made.

It was sheer torture to me, and I never understood why in that culture they love to go beeping because of some monkeys in Washington, and next wonder if so many children are bad concentrating in school, as if, after having learned out to blend out that acoustical inferno (if ever managing), it would be not much easier to do it with the voice of a teacher and a lot else, too.

It was among the aspects I hated most there, even later, when the concussion had healed more, and at least I did not get what felt like pre-epileptic stages from it anymore.

(Also blinking lights after the concussion could give me what felt like pre-epileptic stages.

It's to do with a certain rhythm span,
that seems to overlay with an internal one.
Too fast or too slow never seemed to do it. Also before not, when still sometimes getting epileptics and not steering out well enough before in time. In me it is to do with that rhythm seeming to overlay with an internal one, and then comes systems overload and sort of "cramp-pulsing" along, that rapidly spreading and, if not blocked out, sector hopping. If it does that, come also the jerks in the limbs. Also I was "not there" then as normally, and could not do much about it anymore.)

"Sleep disorders" They are called disorders there. I am not so sure, if they are not also orders, or at least with me, adaptive to faster overload of systems and differing regenerative aspects.

I might be wrong on this, but I suspect even, that the cardian synch with dawn and "sun-down" might not have been a primary damage thingie, but a secondary reaction, to sort of allow for differing sleeping and wake timings, more adaptive to damaged systems needs.

"commonly complicate" One can also regard it, that it are more the expections of others, when one is to be awake and sleep, and also in other aspects, that might be in the way of more undisturbed recovery.

But I had good luck, that all in all I could sleep when I wish, as long as I wish, and be up as long as I wish, and be it just 12 h,
and that was good.

(...) "Insomnia" Maybe it is not the time to sleep yet. Nights for example can be more easy to be awake, because there is not so much signal overload. While days might have so many signals, also artificial ones, to be far more straining for damaged systems.

", excessive daytime somnolence"

I regard that as wrong. Why "excessive". Is the author the damaged systems to know just how much they got overload and just how much better it is for them to shut down to sleep, to recover better?

(...) "Early treatment of sleep disorders must be considered an integral part of the rehabilitation process."

I do not share into that "must be", nor into the "dis"orders.

I believe I am genetically a lifeform, that is over a billion years old,
and that ancient "programs" often might get way better than me what is good for systems, also when damaged.

I rather trust them, than someone who does not even seem to consider various of the aspects I mentioned. (And all in all I am glad it still got that good after the concussion, compared to the starts, and I have no reason to believe, that a load of sleeping tablets and messing into internal chemistry and the kidneys, would have been better.)

"psychiatric disorders" I usually regard the psycho-branches to often already with mistaking orders for disorders, irregardless how orderly they occur on differing continents of Earth parallel, show blatantly disorders of they psychobrances indeed, that could be also called "psychiatric disorders", and often speak of a remarkable lack of their understandings of differing brain systems internal and correlational aspects. (This also going for "special programs" and their relevance after brain damages.)

If looking for someone headblind (and sense-censored) not able to list me emotioal aspects in differentiation
of the three most important emotional systems of my brain, I might turn there. ;-)

", and awareness of other psychosocial stressors are mandatory steps in the management of sleep disturbances following TBI. "

Why should I regard them as sleep disturbances.
Also, that so many have them after brain damages, does not seem to make it likely, that really with all just exactly the relevant centers got damaged.
I regard it as more likely, that they are of the special "programs" in adaptation after brain damages, and mentioned why I think these might be there.

"In addition to pharmacologic therapy,"
Is that how chemically attacking kidneys
and receptor molecules levels in the brain
is called?

"nonpharmacologic approaches such as diet,"

If systems went to special wake and sleep differentiation to allow more adaptive flexibilty to internal needs of damaged systems
(rest after overload + healing)
the diet seems irrelevant for that.

However there is an amino acids tablet sort I once had in North America,
and I suspect that that for food directly after a concussion (when the stomach is fit enough for that) might be not the worst,
maybe with some not too salty vegetable juice.

"environmental modification," Difficult. Among the most disturbing I found artificial noises, blinking lights, and expectations/demands of others.

Moving into the desert into some really quiet area where the watch is not the God?

"and behavioral interventions"

I think if someone had tried to intervene against what my systems indicate as correct for them, he might have been in for some serious trouble with me as a limbic systems central of us systems.

"Based on the evidence that sleep disturbances impact rehabilitation in TBI patients we support the need for ongoing studies in this area."

Then maybe do not disturb special sleep needs of someone after brain damages too far.