I haven't slept in 5 days and nothing seems to work, what should I do?

I'm so exhausted after several bad nights that it had affected my walking and balance

I haven't slept since Monday night. it is now Saturday and I have been going on 0 hours of sleep. i am not anxious,just feel very tired but i am scared of this and i am scared I will never sleep again. I have been prescribed zopiclone 3.5mg and had to take 2 tablets last night for it to "work" but all it did was make me feel that time had passed by!!

Try drinking a glass of hot adult formula milk before bed. When I was pregnant I stopped all medication but drink 2 glasses of milk daily and I slept very well. But don't drink 2 glasses before bed or you end up going to the toilet middle of the night.

Google how digital devices blue light disrupt sleep. Try install apps like Twilight which help lower or block blue light few hours before bed. I noticed if I look at my mobile phone 1 hour before sleep it actually disrupt my sleep. You might want to try getting a block blue light amber glasses and wear it 2 hours before sleep.

You can also try soak your feet in a basin with slightly hot water before bed. It really helps.

The first part of your post (6 hours a night) is actually pretty close to the recommended amount of sleep for the average adult person. "National Sleep Foundation guidelines advise that healthy adults need between 7 and 9 hours of sleep per night" (sleepfoundation.org). I won't assume your age, but as I transitioned out of my teens and early 20's I thought I was experiencing sleep loss and insomnia, but it was just me getting older and not requiring the lengthier sleep recommendation for teenagers.

Moving on to the pressing matter of 5 days with no sleep. Just to clarify, getting a few hours of sleep over the course of 5 days vs. literally no sleep for 5 days are very different experiences. I have experienced both, and I can tell you that most people who have not slept AT ALL for 5 days would not be able to write a coherent post. That's not to say that you aren't experiencing extreme sleep depravation, but make sure you include ANY sleep you did get if you choose to see a doctor. Also, not many people can stay awake that long without some sort of...erm..helper. It's a wide spectrum from caffeine, to study drugs, to chocolate covered coffee beans. Again, from personal experience, any 5 day mark I was hitting was not without outside influences, also something you should share with your doctor if you see one. This will allow them to get a better understanding of your situation and how to move forward.

If your doctor can't see you now, I would call the office, stress how this is affecting your life and if they can't fit you in sooner, they should at least be able to make a referral for you or have you see another Dr. in the practice (if you have a Dr. in a practice). Urgent care also will have referrals for local Dr. offices. Most doctors have time slots set aside for these exact situation so I would give calling the office another try and explaining that you need to see your doctor now (source: immediate family has been an RN for 30+ years)

I would personally avoid self medicating to try to sleep, that could interfere with your future doctor appointment, and if something else is causing this, it could be potentially harmful (source: being alive for a few decades). I do endorse guided mediation instead of Yoga. Yoga actually has a lot more cardio than you might expect and I would do it earlier in the evening to tire yourself out and then before bed/in bed try a guided sleep meditation video (source: my mother has been a yoga instructor for 26 years).

Because so many, many things could be causing this or multiple things combined, I really suggest not surfing the web for answers, it will lead to frustration and the eventual realization that everyone and their mother who has read a half paragraph scope of an article from a medical journal or lives on webMD thinks they're doctors and give wrong and sometimes straight up dangerous advice.

I wish you luck in your pursuit of sleep, as well as everyone else who has responded that they, too, find themselves staring at their ceiling for...."wait how many days has it been?"

I have insomnia for many years. I am still on medication. However I stumbled upon a few remedies that has improved my sleep. Due to prolonged consumption of medication I guess I developed tolerance towards them so they help me to sleep to a certain extent but minimum hours either broken sleep or waking up early.

I remembered when I was pregnant I stopped all medication. I would drink 2 glasses of milk powder everyday. It gives me my daily 8 hours of sleep. Recently I was kind of depressed and decided to try it again. It didn't work the first day. However a few days later I started to see improvement in my sleep. If I wake up, I am still able to go back to sleep without taking more medication.

I tried drinking packets of milk. They didn't help as much. It was due to the calcium intake. Drinking powdered milk like omega etc actually allows your body to have higher calcium absorption.

You should try it. Of course drink more water to ensure that your body is hydrated.