Sudden Sleep Issues - please help!

HedonisticImper

I've been a great sleeper my entire life - used to sleeping 8-10 hours a day. Suddenly over the last year I've been having some crazy sleep issues. I'm really new to this so a bit unsure where to even start.

It seems it all started after my hair transplant surgery about a year ago. Some nights was unable to get sleep for like 3-4 hours after my bedtime. Some nights would wake up early and wouldn't be able to sleep again. 4-5 months into it, I thought it was maybe because of topical minoxidil (for better hair) and found a bunch of reports saying it can happen if applied at night. Immediately stopped it and sleep went back to normal for a few months.

Now for the last 2 months its come back and this time there is a very predictable pattern. I wake up around 4-5 hours after getting sleep. Find it hard to sleep for 1-2 hours - usually visit the bathroom, have a snack, in hopes of getting back to sleep soon. And the rest of the night I get very broken sleep.

I'm not on any medication whatsoever. My diet and exercise is really solid - haven't changed anything in the last 3-4 years. I'm so confused why this is happening.

Now I'm beginning to think even the earlier bout of insomnia right after transplant may not have been minoxidil. At times I've thought its because I'm on a caloric deficit trying to lose weight that its happening - but then get the same issue even on days when I'm not on a deficit.

I am fortunate to have had great mental health - don't have any anxiety or stress issues. To me it seems more like something biologically has gone wrong but have absolutely no idea what it could be.

The one thing is I'm a vegetarian who eats a ton of fruits and veggies - so overall diet is mostly carbs - very little fat and protein. But then that's how I've always been and never had any issues. I'm going to experiment a bit with this to see if adding fats and proteins would help.

But I'm totally at a loss of how to go about getting some answers as to why this is happening and what kind of things I can try to do that will help. Please do help me get on a path to get more knowledge in this area...