Murky&aggitated final stage (last hour) of sleep

Hi everyone,

I am posting this hoping that others who are having similar sleep disorders will maybe want to share their experience. I apologise for what seems to've become a very long thread - I tried to stick to the most relevant details.

For about a year and a half I've been suffering from a specific type of sleep problem. The last part of my sleep, towards the morning (perhaps the final hour or so; hard to tell exactly) is very agitated; feels like a dizziness, as if I had mud in my head, and where I am half-awake (almost conscious/obsessive dream-like thoughts reoccur) yet find it difficult to wake up. This means that, after a struggle to break away from a confusing, exhausting last hour of sleep, not only will I have spent longer in bed than I'd have wished (say, 9 hours) but "in exchange" I get a day during which I am often tired, and sometimes find it hard to stay awake longer than 10pm. "Tricking" myself out of sleep before the critical stage starts (e.g. after 7 hours of sleep) doesn't work, as then I just feel under-slept.

Other (even more upsetting) side-effects of this long-standing sleep disorder include irritablility and apathy to exercise and to sex. In addition, I seem to've acquired a form of tinitus (high-pitched buzz in both ears), the severity (loudness) of which varies from day to day, though hard to tell if correlated with sleep quality.

Several medical tests (including ear-nose-throat, endocrinology and head MR-imaging) revealed no obvious cause underlying my symptoms, however a sleep study (polysomnography) revealed two presumtive (tentatively-given) diagnoses:

1) REM sleep disorder (although I don't have the intense dreams characteristic of this diagnostic)

2) borderline sleep apnea (several episodes of irregular breathing per night).

After this test, my somnologist prescribed Circadin 2mg (melatonin), which I've been taking for a month now without any noticeable improvements even after being told to double the dosage; the medic recommended, if the Circadin treatment remains ineffective till the end, that I next try to sleep with an anti-apneic mask (CPAP). If that will fail also, she said the only remaining cause remains stress; I haven't been particularly stressed times, however I *do* tend to take things to heart.

Some further details:

- Taking natural sleep supplements (camomile tea, pills with lavander, etc) before bedtime helps sometimes but not reliably (probably not beyond placebo)

- My sleep is abnormally dependent upon bed-time, in that if I go to bed late (a lot later than, say, midnight) I am guaranteed a tormented sleep. However, even going to bed early (11pm) hardly helps with the final-hour-restlessness that I describe.

- I'm keeping careful sleep logs, however none of the factors I suspected - including amount of exercise (which I don't do enough of) and stress during the previous day, bed/pillow conditions, bed time, anything to do with meals (including coffee), etc - don't seem to obviously (and single-handedly) lead to this final-hour-syndrome

- Soon after falling asleep, I am told I often fidget/twitch and snore, although I never have trouble *falling* asleep (only at the waking-up end)

- Since 1.5 years ago when my problems started, the frequency with which my sleep ends with such a restless hour varies: I've had a few good months/weeks, but otherwise it's rare (maybe one night out of 10) that I *don't* get the symptom, i.e. when I wake up easily and rested.

- My sleep hours are normally regular (midnight to 8am)

I am male, mid 30s, no other major health problems. If anyone has encountered similar symptoms and can share any advice of what they tried that worked, I'd be really grateful! Many thanks in advance!

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