To Medicate or Not to Medicate

According to the National Sleep Foundation, adults should aim for 7 to 9 hours of sleep each night. On a good night, I will get about 6. According to my smartwatch, my average hours of sleep is 4 hours 25 minutes a night. That means that I am sleeping half the amount of time I should be.¹

Some nights I do not sleep until the early hours of the morning. I live in a busy household; there are 6 of us living at home. This means I always get woken up when my family is up and about. Sleep is the most natural, instinctive thing that humans do. It frustrates me that I cannot do this right.

Taking medication has always terrified me

I have researched sleeping pills a lot. I know of some people who take them. I would be so grateful for a full night's sleep. But I take a lot of medication already to treat my ankylosing spondylitis. One of the medications I take at night is called amitriptyline. I take 10mg. When used in higher doses, it is used to treat depression.

When I began taking it, it used to help me sleep. I would be asleep within 15 minutes of taking it. Unfortunately, after about a month, my body got used to this medication and it did not help me sleep anymore. I take this tablet as it is a muscle relaxant, and it helps with my muscle spasms.

Taking medication has always terrified me. Even when I was young, taking simple pain killers such as paracetamol would scare me. When I was diagnosed with ankylosing spondylitis, I had to start taking all different types of meds. I felt so afraid and out of my comfort zone. But I know to help my condition and to help stop its progression, I need to take them.

I don't like feeling 'out of it'

I deal with chronic muscle spasms on a daily basis, so sometimes, I need to take Valium (diazepam). This drug terrifies me. I feel "out of it" when I take it. But it always helps me sleep. Even though it helps me sleep, I do not like this. I want to be able to sleep naturally, not because I have these drugs in my body.

When I take tablets like this, even though they are supposed to relax me, I get so anxious. I think things like: this is a muscle relaxer, my heart is a muscle, what if my heart relaxes too much?

I always try to fight these tablets when they make me fall asleep, which in my experience, is not a good idea. It causes me to feel more "out of it" and high, which I don't like.

Sleeping pills and my catch-22

So, this is my fear about taking sleeping tablets. I know that so many people take sleeping tablets, and they are ok. I also have fears about the damage not sleeping has on my body. I feel like I am in a catch-22. Will I put more drugs into my body? Is this going to damage my body and my liver? Or will I continue not to sleep and potentially damage my body anyways?

I think it is time to talk to my doctor about this again. My rheumatologist is against me taking more medication, and my GP is for me taking them. I'm seeing my pain management doctor next week, so I think I should ask him for his advice on this too.

Do you take sleeping tablets? How do you feel about them? Share with us in the comments below!