Sleep

I can't believe how much a difference a little sleep can make in my life. It has been a huge change to go from an average of 4 hours a night, which I did for over 15 years, to an average of 7 hours a night. I definately feel the difference when I DON'T get my sleep. One reason my Rheumy feels that I may be dealing with Fibro as well as RA is the sleep issue. For months- and I think it was all stress induced- I haven't been sleeping full nights and definately feeling it in the mornings and evenings with more joint and muscle pain. So she gave me a muscle relaxer to take in the evening to see if it would help me with that problem. It does- somewhat. All I know is that the more sleep I get- the better I feel. Last night I was really sore and took two of my pain pills (I have permission to take up to 8 a day) and my muscle relaxer and once I was able to fall asleep. I slept like the dead. This morning- I feel WONDERFUL!

It really makes me want to kick myself for taking sleep for granted for so many years. Who knows how much less damage I could have done to my body. I am not crazy- I know that I could not have stopped the diseases from hitting me- but could I have minimized the damage? We will never know. But I do know that I am going to focus on getting more now that I see the difference.