Losing Sleep Trying to Get Sleep Medication

By Joe Kraynak
May 27, 2009

Over the past couple weeks, my wife, who happens to have bipolar, has not been sleeping well, which is always a bad sign. For two weeks, she’s been trying to get something to help her sleep - to get her through the often manic days that seem to reach full bloom about the time school lets out. You can read the whole account, “Tragedy of Errors” on our Bipolar Blog.

What really got to me this time around is just how messed up the system is for dealing with bipolar (and probably other mental illnesses). We knew what was going on. My wife knew what helped her sleep in the past - temazepam, and still she’s teetering on the edge of full blown mania because the system is so irresponsive. The doctor refuses to prescribe temazepam because he’s afraid she’ll develop a dependency. The insurance company denies coverage for Ambien CR, because it’s too expensive. The doctor prescribes Lunesta, instead, which helps my wife sleep 4-5 hours but has her waking up WIRED. And all the time, the bipolar is raging out of control.

My wife calls it frustrating. I call it stupid and irresponsible. It would be like firefighters showing up at your house to put out a small kitchen fire and then arguing about how to proceed as the house burns down.

In 1999, my wife, Cecie, experienced her first major manic episode. She ended up in St. Vincent’s Stress Center, where she was diagnosed as having bipolar disorder. She has been hospitalized a total of three times – all for mania. She rarely experiences the debilitating depression that many people with bipolar disorder struggle with. We have two children together, both of whom are pretty much adults at this point. Over the past decade or so, we’ve struggled to coexist with this disease. At times, it seems to be a cruel puppet master pulling our strings to act out some demented drama on the stage we call our home. Most times, we manage to keep this beast chained up, through a combination of medicine and therapy, but occasionally it escapes and turns our home inside out. In 2005, I had the good fortune to co-author Bipolar Disorder For Dummies with Dr. Candida Fink. In the process, I learned a great deal about bipolar disorder and strategies for treating it, preventing major mood episodes, and dealing with the fallout when preventive measures are ineffective. Through this blog, I hope to share what I’ve learned about bipolar while I continue to discover even more.

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2 Comments to
“Losing Sleep Trying to Get Sleep Medication”

Hank Roberts at 11:51 pm on May 27th, 2009

This might be helpful for getting more sleep while you’re working on the other things you’re trying. It’s science, new stuff, some anecdotal, but the biology behind it is good. It’s about sleep, but with a tie-in to bipolar in the first discussion:

http://www.psycheducation.org/depression/LightDark.htm

If that’s interesting, some how-to and links for finding the lights or filters to block blue light to make sleep come easier are here:

http://psychcentral.com/blog/archives/2007/03/12/light-and-dark/

Suzanne at 11:03 pm on June 4th, 2009

That is truly ridiculous. Who the heck is in charge of your wife’s mental health? The insurance company or the doctor you trust? When my ins. co. denied Provigil 12 yrs. ago (FDA approved for narcolepsy, but my meds provider had literature showing it was effective in bipolar & I had such extreme daytime sleepiness on ALL MEDS–to the point of falling asleep while driving) so I needed the Provigil desperately if I was going to continue on meds for bipolar & have at least a chance at life–I mean then I would be awake emough to participatein life.

Sorry for typos–after midnight–my bedtime!!