Insomnia and my new medication

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It's 3am and I am sat up with a cup of tea writing this blog post.
2am is a friend of mine.  We are used to each others company. I am used to hearing my wife and my little labradoodle sleep while I am trying to make my brain tired again.  On rare occasions, I do not fall back to sleep and just stay awake reading.  The majority of time sees me attempt to go back sleep at around 1.5/2jr mark.  I haven't always suffered with Insomnia.  I slept through the hurricane and even a couple of earthquakes as a youngster. 
Insomnia can be caused by both psychiatric and medical conditions.  In today's society we all focus on unhealthy sleep habits, specific substances, and/or biological factors in a quest to pinpoint why we cannot sleep or better still stay asleep. 
A lot of research is poured into Insomnia currently especially in the world of cycling when it all comes down to marginal gains.  
Through recent research, researchers have begun to uncover that insomnia is a problem with the brain being unable to stop being awake.  Remember that the brain has a sleep cycle and a wake cycle, when one is turned on the other is turned off.  Insomnia can be a problem with either part of the cycle: too much wake drive or too little sleep drive.
My insomnia is caused by my condition or shall we say exacerbated by my condition.  There are many medical conditions that can lead to insomnia.
In some cases, a medical condition itself causes insomnia, while in other cases, symptoms of a condition cause discomfort that can make it difficult for a person to sleep. 
 Symptoms of my condition cause my insomnia.   In the early days my night time temperature and leg cramps then moved on to me waking because I was in pain which is the case now.  
When we returned from the Lake District at the weekend, with agreement with my GP we changed my medications.  We have upped the morphine, doubled it infact and as I have been on oral morphine for years, I have decided it's time to try an immediate  release tablet but we have started at the middle dose in an effort to nip this pain in the bud. 
Morphines side effects are associated with sleep and like everything in life, it varies from person to person.  With me it's a combination of the morphine waking me and my chronic pain mainly from my hips down.  Believe me, I am happy to trade chronic pain insomnia for morphine Insomnia.  During the last 5 days, I have struggled with dry mouth, feeling sick and of course being awake but apparently I will get used to this.  I also have a strange feeling which I have never felt before, I feel 10 steps behind everything.  Morphine makes sleep hard to achieve and to maintain quality wise.  Morphine reduces the duration of sleep cycle stages.  I now spend more time in shallow sleep and lose a % of my deep sleep cycle which is the most vital part of the cycle.  
I am hoping once my brain and body become used to the new immediate release morphine, I will settle down again.  I will keep you posted! 








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