As usual, I'm tired.

But there's a good reason this time! Last post, I was blogging about moving furniture and stuff, but what I didn't mention was that I tried to move a sofa-bed by myself. So. Really bright. Within a few days, I'd managed to sprain my left ankle, my right wrist, I have a bad knee anyway (yay, genetics!), and now, I'd pulled a muscle in my back.

Now, muscle relaxers and pain-killers do help you sleep, but it's not a natural, restful sleep at all. It's more like being hit over the head with a ball-peen hammer. I didn't dream, I didn't feel rested when I finally regained consciousness, and had a horrible headache to go along with the backache.

Wait a minute. Didn't I say I wasn't going to complain? Okay, just one more thing: I have a cold. But I'm making progress! I'm now active on G+ and looking for other insomniacs willing to share their stories. I tweaked this blog a bit, which put the dates all out of whack, but I can handle that.

You might also notice that I put a couple of links for Hemi-Sync and Sleepsonic on here. That's because my husband is using their products right now, and he is finally getting the six to eight hours of sleep he needs. I'm waiting for my pillow to arrive (it's really cool--it has speakers in it, but you can't even feel them) so I can use the discs I need. Since he's kept awake by tinnitus and I'm kept awake by my ceaseless internal babbling (my mind likes to review current and past events when I try to sleep and will not shut up), the same sounds don't work for both of us. Mine does nothing for him, and his drive me insane.

That's the good thing about the pillows. Before he got his pillow, we had to have audiobooks playing all night long through our Bose at a volume that was uncomfortable to me. I didn't realize it was happening at first, but my headaches started getting worse and more frequent during the day, and I was certainly getting even less sleep at night. One day, I realized that the soft, almost electronic whine I hear all day was louder than usual. And once I noticed that, it started getting worse. I had to deal with the fact that what we were doing to try and help my husband sleep was beginning to hurt me. I didn't want to tell him, because he feels guilty enough about being disabled by his tinnitus and headaches.

So, I started creeping downstairs in the middle of the night and sleeping on the couch. Unfortunately, he'd almost immediately notice I was missing and come to get me. Finally, I had to tell him what was going on. He tried headphones (too uncomfortable) and ear buds (they fall out) and even leaving his hearing aid maskers on all night (they'd also fall off, and if they get sweaty, they stop working), but nothing else worked. I started looking for an alternative, and with a great deal of help from the owner/inventor of the Sleepsonic pillows, I found one.

My husband put the sounds that work for him on his iPod. The pillow plugs right into it--it even has an extension cord so the iPod can sit on the bedside table and out of harm's way. I'll let him tell you about HIS experience with the pillow and sounds (check his website), but my experience was miraculous. I couldn't hear the sounds from his pillow at all. Though my insomnia is still a problem for now, my tinnitus faded over the weeks to almost nothing. Listening to my husband's deep breathing as he slept was almost as good as sleeping myself. I am so happy for him. I know we still have a long way to go before there is a cure for tinnitus (they're doing studies in Oslo and Germany right now involving the vagus nerve that's almost a "reset" switch for certain brain functions, and they're working at the human test subject level now, and things are looking good), but getting sleep helps him with his anxiety, depression, and overall malaise. He is much more the man I married fifteen years ago than the man I've been worrying about 24/7 for the past five or six years.

Whew, think that's enough for one day.

Good health to you and your families, and until next time, I am:
InsomniAmy

Though this blog will be updated regularly, you can find me elsewhere:
@InsomniAmy on Twitter; Insomni Amy on Facebook; InsomniAmy on G+; private questions can be directed to InsomniAmy@gmail.com (please be patient while waiting for a personal reply, though!)