Valerian Root - sweet dreams & cool for cats?

When I was younger, I used to sleep so well.
In fact, I could drift off to sleep and wake up quite refreshed at whatever time I'd decided I needed to rise. I've never liked to lie-in. I love the early mornings and hearing the dawn chorus was nothing but joy to start my day.

Then came M.E.

Painful, endless nights, like lying on a burning mat, limbs shivering, muscles twitching no matter which way I lie. Hot. Cold. Stiff. Nauseous. Sometimes I can get to sleep, but the sleep is fitful, and I jerk back into consciousness every hour or so. By morning, I'm so exhausted I drop off for longer than I like to, and suddenly it's late (mid-morning is late to me!).

I try to maintain a good sleeping pattern so my body clock isn't thrown, but my body has a mind of its own. When I've overdone things, or pick up a virus, like at the start of my latest big M.E. meltdown, I can sleep the clock round and never feel refreshed or even half human in the waking hours.

I've tried lots of things over the years. I asked my GP about MELATONIN some years back, but she wasn't allowed by her own professional guidelines to prescribe it. If she had, the cost would have been covered by my medical exemption certificate for Type 1 diabetes and similar lifetime conditions. I bought some online from a reputable chemist. Quite expensive to keep that up and I didn't see any huge improvement, though for a while seemed to help with actually getting off to sleep. It's what our bodies produce naturally when we are well and functioning normally. No side effects. Widely used to counteract jetlag etc.

Likewise, in the early days of diagnosis I was prescribed low dose AMITRIPTYLINE to help painkillers to work more effectively and aid relaxation and sleep. But these had many unwanted side effects like weight gain and tachycardia and were eventually stopped. They didn't really do anything for sleep, in any case. Not sleep that felt healthy.

I was never just "stressed", in any case, apart from feeling despair at not being able to function reliably. Plus the emotional struggle any human has with coming to terms with a disability that's an invisible illness, to boot. One that gives the world and their grandma a license to tell you how you could miraculously cure yourself if only you take the quack advice they heard from their next door neighbour but one! (Cures which invariably turn out to be for CFS, or because the patient went into remission which may or may not prove permanent!)

I've tried HEAT PADS, HOT WATER BOTTLES, RELAXATION TECHNIQUES, WHITE NOISE, NATURE SOUNDS, SEA SOUNDS, TREE SOUNDS, LAVENDER, HOPS (the plant, not the exercise!), TENS MACHINES, PERRIN TECHNIQUE, DIET MODIFICATION (more than all usual modification for diabetic health), TAI CHI (when able to balance for the less demanding moves!), COUNTING SHEEP. You name it. Most of these are comforting and relaxing. My favourite of them is LAVENDER, on balance. Heavenly scent, like summer fields and open spaces. A few drops on your pillow or combined with a heat pad can sometimes be just what you need to feel good. Sweet sleep may well follow. Though sometimes it doesn't, for long!

But till some lovely spoonie friends mentioned it on Twitter recently, I had never tried
VALERIAN ROOT (Valeriana officinalis).

I discovered I could buy 90 tablets of VALERIAN (3 bottles of 30 vegetarian 500mg tablets) from Amazon.co.uk marketplace for £2.50 + £2.03 shipping. They arrived two days later.

Only down side- they pong rather like a cross between Tom cat wee and something slightly unsettling you can't quite place! They are sometimes likened to catnip for sending cats wild! The smell is quite unmistakable from the moment you break the seal on the pill bottle. Apparently Valerian teabags and liquid forms have a similar effect. So I lock the doors before taking the lid off now. Don't want to be pulled up by the RSPCA for driving the neighbourhood kitties insane with desire!

I have taken 1,2 and some days 3 per night, staggered through the evening (this is the recommended dose on the label). On the days I have taken them I certainly feel drowsier (nauseous, exhausted drowsy) before bed. That can happen with M.E. too, so a bit tricky to quantify. I have got off to sleep quite quickly too, which is a good thing. I still wake occasionally through night but get back to sleep. Again, certainly not worse than before, though would have to try it when sleep problems are at their worst.

I have certainly slept longer. Last night, with some interruptions, almost 10 hours (10.30pm - 9am) which is excellent. The trouble is still, with M.E., I don't feel much refreshed by that good long sleep. Though an outing on Saturday had all but wiped me out. Still pain, nausea, brain fog (terribly much yesterday in particular), unsteadiness and very little appetite at the moment.

As usual, we'll see how it goes. So far, so good. Apart from the stomach-churning pong! At least your cats will love you!
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Update Tuesday 24th Jan 2012: Took 2 tabs last night around 11pm. Slept with a few minor interrruptions until 11.30am. At which point mum texting to make sure I was ok and not hypo. Managed to struggle down by just after noon. BG 12.0 (high, but not that unusual if I ever sleep late). Headache, muscles weak & "rubbery", heart pounding on and off, chest sore and fibro tender in shoulders, wrists, knees. But on that evidence, the Valerian seems to be working as a natural sleep-promoter! Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzz

Chronic Fatigue Link to Diabetes?

US study identifies fatigue as one of main challenges faced daily by diabetics


It doesn't account for all the muscle, nerve, balance and numerous other multi-systemic symptoms M.E. patients live with. But this study is of interest to those of us who also live with Diabetes.


Before I developed Type 1 in my early 20s, I heard of the friend of a friend who could struggle through the week with his diabetes, but was then invariably forced to sleep for a day solid to catch up.


Fatigue has always been a bit of an issue for me, even before I was officially diagnosed in my mid 40s with M.E. after two decades of diabetes.


We know that fatigue and sleep deprivation can quickly lead to other more complex physical symptoms involving muscles, cognitive function etc.


So, will medical research one day uncover a more tangible link between these two conditions? Even with the tightest control, ideal weight, perfect HbA1c results etc, I still have all the M.E. symptoms to a disabling degree after activity. This new study's assertion that:


People with poorly controlled diabetes are often dehydrated and vitamin B depleted. These can be significant factors causing fatigue

certainly doesn't apply to me, these days.

This weekend, for example, after an hour's engagement in leading a church service, even after sleep and rest, then another session of helping a friend with her PC problems, I am all but wiped out today. Pains everywhere, so unsteady I'm having to lie down as the ground 'liquefies' under my feet, sleeping, muscles so weak they're jerking and with my body temp and BGs all over the place. My sugars have been lower than low for no obvious reason followed by two days of double figures. Not through carrying extra weight or eating unwisely.


So it's not simple to solve it. But maybe diabetes research may feed back into M.E. research in time. I've blogged here before about the link I read about between M.E. and hypoglycaemia. Food for thought, at least.

Soothing Sounds, Sweet Sleep?

Many people with illnesses that disrupt sleep patterns find out two things when their condition is in a flare-up:

(a) they can sleep forever through sheer exhaustion at the most inappropriate times, and

(b) sleep often eludes them at night, or sleep is interrupted and unrefreshing.

I'm always on the look out for sounds that I can play quietly just before retiring to help to ease my way into slumberland. I find favourite daytime tunes and songs are often too charged with emotion and excitement to be conducive to the land of nod. (That also applies, for me, to those slightly menacing talking tapes with stories or "on-the-shrink's couch" type delivery that gives you the willies rather than ushering you off to the land of Nod!)

Silence can be great, if thoughts aren't racing, as they often do during times of bodily illness when the mind can't switch off properly.

Sea sounds, waves washing on a beach or over shingle can do it for me, too.

Wind whispering through trees, birdsong, distant thunderstorms that make me feel snug and sheltered under the sheets also help me to drift off sometimes.  There are so many ambient cds and mp3s available with natural sounds.

Now I've discovered that piano jazz can also sometimes do the trick. The tinkling cascades from the piano, the low thumping heartbeat of the bass, the tick and tumbling of gentle drums and snares can soon have me in the mood to drift away in peace. 

Is it because the sort of chunky "Linus and Lucy" piano played in old Charlie Brown cartoons by such as Vince Guaraldi remind me of childhood and usher me back to the womb? Whatever the psychology, it works for me. Bill Evans, Dave Brubeck, Keith Jarrett, Herbie Hancock, Art Tatum, Thelonius Monk, Red Garland, Chick Corea...but now the mind's racing again. Each person will find their own particular relaxing groove to help sleep approach, ranging from silence to swing and everywhere in between.

Let the mellow mood just sweep us away, and all that jazz!