Neuro-psych test??????

[Jennita]

Originally Posted by lasia221

hi jennita
i'm sure you didn't read my initial post in this forum, but the fibro, the pain, and the sleep problems are fairly recent. last 4-6 years. the ADD, and the many many many symptoms well pre-date that, going back to early childhood.
pain does not keep me awake. also, the sleep problems started before i was diagnosed with fibro, well before (the diag and the meds are very recent, last 6 months) i was on any meds.

you think like my doc i am to get a sleep study done.

also, i'm sure my post you replied to was confusing, i'm bad about that, but the first guy that i was talking about, the mean one with the retarded "test", i don't think (at least i hope not) that THAT was the neuro-psych test.
that's why i'm asking what IS a neuro-psych test, and what should i expect? i want to know for my own worries, but also to compare...if others on here have had one done, and can tell me about it, if mine is nothing like that, then i know that something fishy is going on, that the doc isn't right, and that i need someone else.

Well, yes, interpreting message boards is not always easy. I mentioned medications and fibro together since there have been some links to AD's causing fibro and other things like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. AD's also have an adverse effect to the sleep pattern, but so do alot of things like benzos, alcohol, stimulants, etc. If you had pre-existing sleep issues, meds sometimes worsen that. Pinpointing the origin of sleep problems is hard, but like I said, if that's screwed up, mental function and of course the physical health will be effected. If you could go back and discover the origin, that would be good but sleep is effected by a variety of physical and sometimes mental/emotional things so I know it's hard.

The sleep study might help. Have you also had a full blood workup? Thyroid disease or hormone imbalances can effect sleep too.

Good luck finding out. If you had ADD stuff in childhood, that really doesn't mean alot because kids sometimes take longer to mature, and there are sometimes other reasons for such behaviors.

At any rate, since you are having sleep issues, the last thing you would need is a stimulant medication! Strattera isn't as bad, but it can change on you later sleep-wise....my nephew started getting woke up at night alot after he was on it for awhile and as a result he was always fatigued. His previous Adderall caused him to have mood-swings. His parents got fed up and he's off all meds. He is healthier and happier lately, not moody or tired at all. Seems now, however, he is doing just fine in school without them...go figure.

[lasia221]

Originally Posted by Jennita

Well, yes, interpreting message boards is not always easy. I mentioned medications and fibro together since there have been some links to AD's causing fibro and other things like Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. AD's also have an adverse effect to the sleep pattern, but so do alot of things like benzos, alcohol, stimulants, etc. If you had pre-existing sleep issues, meds sometimes worsen that. Pinpointing the origin of sleep problems is hard, but like I said, if that's screwed up, mental function and of course the physical health will be effected. If you could go back and discover the origin, that would be good but sleep is effected by a variety of physical and sometimes mental/emotional things so I know it's hard.

What do you mean by "AD's" here?

Originally Posted by Jennita

The sleep study might help. Have you also had a full blood workup? Thyroid disease or hormone imbalances can effect sleep too.

Yes, I've had many many rounds of blood tests within the last year. Ruling out such things as Lupus, Lyme, Thyroid, etc.

[Jennita]

Originally Posted by lasia221

What do you mean by "AD's" here?



Yes, I've had many many rounds of blood tests within the last year. Ruling out such things as Lupus, Lyme, Thyroid, etc.

That's good, one less thing to worry about! AD's are an abbreviation for antidepressants. SSRi's especially can cause sleep pattern changes. Anyone with sleep problems shouldn't take stimulants. So there are not many other options for your ADD than AD's or stimulants from the medical establishment. You might want to try some supplements like fish-oil capsules, Focus Factor, Be-Calmed, etc. I read one doctor who recommended cal-mag supplements for ADD. I have no personal experience about those, however, the board has had some people swear by those things, with literally no side effects. Some people use caffiene in limited amounts.

[lasia221]

Oh ok. Well the AD (elavil) was prescribed to me only recently, for sleep purposes. For Fibro, low dosage AD's are often presribed to be taken before bed, to help regulate sleep. it still does help me, just not quite as much as when i first started it, which was a few months ago. It helped keep me asleep longer, i woke up less frequently. I think it also somewhat helped me fall asleep. But it's so low, only 10mg. occasionally I up it to 20mg.
The fibro doc my mom sees is more up on fibro stuff, and has her on 2 different AD's, one SSRi and one that ups the other nor-something...the combo helps her sleep better.

i've only noticed better sleep and such since starting the elavil.

[Jennita]

Originally Posted by lasia221

Oh ok. Well the AD (elavil) was prescribed to me only recently, for sleep purposes. For Fibro, low dosage AD's are often presribed to be taken before bed, to help regulate sleep. it still does help me, just not quite as much as when i first started it, which was a few months ago. It helped keep me asleep longer, i woke up less frequently. I think it also somewhat helped me fall asleep. But it's so low, only 10mg. occasionally I up it to 20mg.
The fibro doc my mom sees is more up on fibro stuff, and has her on 2 different AD's, one SSRi and one that ups the other nor-something...the combo helps her sleep better.

i've only noticed better sleep and such since starting the elavil.

I'm glad it helps you sleep. Unfortunately, most drugs will help sleep for awhile, but they can poop out eventually and lose their effectiveness. This is a sign of drug tolerance. Since you need to up your dose, it could already be happening. Tolerance is usually worse with benzos and benzo-like drugs like Ambien than with AD's , but it can happen. Only answer then is to up dosages or add more drugs. That will work for a while, but down the line it's possible again to develop more tolerance and the drugs stop working.

The only reason I mention this is because I am someone who had to learn the hard way to let the brain do things it's own way when it came to sleep....I'm talking tolerance of a fairly high dose of Ativan, in which I could go days and days without sleep while ON it! I was heading down the road of a sleepless psycho I suppose. I'm just glad one day I saw it for what it was and got off meds completely.

Now, I sleep good without anything...but it took a long time to get the natural sleep back and I had to suffer alot intil that happened; it was a slow process. It had become clear my original symptoms were caused by prescribed codiene for an illness.... which were then treated with mainly benzos and an attempt at an AD along the way....both these classes of drugs are alot worse than the original codiene. I wish I had known about the codiene back then; I could have avoided the benzo/AD drugs....athough it is narcotic with nasty withdrawals, codiene symptoms are much shorter lived than those other drugs.

I guess you can take the AD but just be informed of the possibilities of tolerance and worsened sleep issues in the future. Natural sleep does have a way of returning over time. My mother-in-law didn't sleep at all many nights for a year after her husband died. Now she sleeps everynight. Also, older people usually don't require the same sleep as younger as my mother-in-law sleeps around 5 hours a night and she says she feels rested from that. I hear many of her friends and my own mother say the same. But on particularly active days, she will sleep a bit longer.