Effects of too little sleep

I'm 85 and I've never ever had enough sleep. Too many late nights all my life for differing reasons and for

years because of prostate problems making me go to the toilet several times

during the night. Laser surgery partially cured that. in 2012 heart surgery

made it difficult to sleep for a few months because of having to lie on my back.

I now probably but who can diagnose it have Fluoroquinolone toxicity syndrome due to treatments from those drugs for prostate infections and it is the cause of neuropathy that makes

walking difficult and can have many other effects including sleep problems Most

nights I get off to sleep OK but I leave it late to go to bed usually between

12.30 and 1am. Every night I waken after two hours and can't get back to sleep

again so I get up for about 40 minutes. They say that one should not use a

computer then but I do to read Emails and news articles. It takes a bit to get

back to sleep and about 90 minutes later I'm awake again . This happens once

more and then I'm awake for good.

I have tried melatonin that did not help. Many years ago in the 1970s and early 80's I took sleeping pills the name escapes me at the moment. I started off with one and increased it to two

and often took another two at 4am. Surprising that I still functioned well

during the day. I gradually weaned myself off them. More recently I tried Nytol

that did not help. My GP prescribed Furosemide that I did not take as

it is an anti-histamine and I did not want to chance it in case it affected my

prostate. He then prescribed Zolpidem that said not to take unless you could

sleep for seven or eight hours. I could not see that happening.

Recently for the first time I feel physically tired at periods during the day and it seems to have added to

my walking problems. I have of course tried different sleep routines as the

media has a lot about this at the moment ad going to bed earlier but that has

not helped either.

I now cannot see this ever getting better. How many of you are in a similar situation ??

If I do manage to sleep until about 7am I am wakened by a very noisy street cleaning vehicle that goes down our street and eventually comes back on the other side before turning into the

street behind our block of flats. That even wakens my sound sleeping wife but

she promptly goes back to sleep for another few hours. Don't you just hate

people like that 😃

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