Re: Sleepless bipolar pt

[Guest guest]

Forgive me if I'm repeating,, but Have you/she investigated

meditation? ,relaxation or hypnotherapy tapes,? affirmations?,

distracting the brain eg by planning intricate but relaxing garden

tasks or boring radio? and especially being careful not to confuse the

pineal " s secretion of melatonin by putting on a light brighter than the

moon or a brief lightening strike? along with the herbals, can be

quite powerful. Also changing the remedy til you find one and a dosage

that works for her,remembering she needs to develop confidence in the

remedy and she's relearning the sleep process. ( I know some people

don't sleep much, but the most famous one that springs to mind is

Margaret Thatcher. Hmmmmm ) (Zzzzzzzzz!

Sally

[Guest guest]

> I have a new pt with sleeplessness extending 20yrs. She is

responding poorly to lithium now although she has been on it for most

of that time. Other psychoactive drugs and sleeping pills do not give

her rest - she feels " really wierd " on them and has landed in

hospital a couple of times. She stays up for 7-9 days at a time and

may only have the occasional " power nap "

Dear ,

Humulus has a reputation of being good for insomniacs who are overly

intellectual, and given that she does not have the downs (many " bi-

polar " people do not) I would say that it would be well worth trying.

Also given that the Valerian " does nothing for her " , have you looked

at her condition from a constitutional point of view? - does she

perhaps need cooling down? Valeriana is a warming herb, and thus will

not necessarily help someone who is already quite hot enough.

I presume you have checked out her caffeine intake...(I once had a

severley insomniac person who reported 32 cups coffee + some cola

o.d - didn't believe him until further questioning revealed that he

had already had a total of 10 cups prior to our 10.30am appt.!!)

Finally, about the " power naps " , there is a strategy that is

sometimes very helpful in this kind of situation, where the person

gives up on what we expect to be a " normal " sleep pattern and the day

is divided into 6 four hour cycles. For each of the first five of the

cycles, the person works through for four hours and then has a 15min

nap, then another four hours work, until the sixth cycle when they

slepp through the four hours...it involves using an alarm to set the

pattern, so that you do not oversleep the naps, which usually allows

the body to be ready for the four hour sleep when it comes round.

Leonardo da Vinci, Winston Churchill and Florence Nightingale are

examples of people who lived and acheived a lot like this....

All the best in your endeavours

Noreen

[Guest guest]

susan fidler wrote:

> I have a new pt with sleeplessness extending 20yrs. She is responding

> poorly to lithium now although she has been on it for most of that time.

> Other psychoactive drugs and sleeping pills do not give her rest - she

> feels " really wierd " on them and has landed in hospital a couple of

There was a very good article on the effects of sleep deprivation in a

recent Medical Herbalism (http://www.medherb.com/MHHOME.SHTML) - you could

ask Bergner about it. Medical Herbalism is currently the best herbal

medicine journal for the western herbal practitioner; the first 11 years'

worth of articles are online in full, for free; those after 2000 aren't;

the journal it's well worth the subscription price. An issue doesn't have

all that many articles, but those it does have are are profoundly useful.

And tell your client _no_ caffeine. That's absolutely _no_ coffee, cola nut,

tea, mate, guarana, caffeinated sodas, caffeine pills etc. etc. for at

least a month, preferably longer.

(And just power naps with no full nights' sleep will, in the long run, play

havoc with your mental health.)

Henriette

--

Henriette Kress, AHG Helsinki, Finland

Henriette's herbal homepage: http://www.ibiblio.org/herbmed