Posted by tomwith2cats on September 29, 2005 at 12:14:35:

I've recently come to the conclusion that the cause
of my insomnia was different than what I thought it was.
In a previous message on this board i had said that
i thought it was caused by one of the statin anti-
cholesterol drugs (zocor) that I had been on. I now
think the main immediate cause has been high blood
pressure. I think that anxiety, the statin drug,
and alcohol all probably contributed by exacerbating
the situation. This situation all really goes back
to 2002. In the spring of that year I began having
a mysterious chest ache. My doctor then had me take
an angiogram which showed that my coronary arteries
were clear, no blockage. So he abandoned the hypothesis
that the ache had anything to do with my heart. That
was his mistake. Meanwhile, that year I'd been drinking
somewhat heavier than usual for me. The chest ache
also got me to worrying excessively about my health --
lot's of "what if" thinking, focusing on the fact that
all of my father's family have died at an early age from
heart attacks. Studies suggest that the anti-cholesterol
drugs can cause a serotonin deficiency, which would
tend to exacerbate these tendencies to anxiety. It was
at the end of that year, Dec. 2002, that my chronic
insomnia began. Drinking lots of alcohol can also
contribute to raising your blood pressure. I now believe
that the chest ache was caused by high blood pressure.
A few weeks ago I had an even higher than usual blood
pressure reading on a visit to the doctor, so I got a
machine and started tracking it. One thing I discovered
is that one's blood pressure is highest in the middle
of the night. On those nights when I would wake up at
3 or 4 AM and couldn't sleep, I'd get up and take my
blood pressure and it would typicaly be quite high,
maybe in the 170s. Finally on one night i had a "heart
event" of sorts -- worse than usual chest ache and
very high blood pressure (190s), which drove me to the ER.
My doctor then put me on a blood pressure drug, which
has lowered my blood pressure to a normal level. Since
I've been on the drug two things have happened. First,
the ache in the left chest has entirely gone away.
And, second, I'm sleeping more. I've been averaging
about six hours a night at this point. This is the
first time in the past two years that my average nightly
sleep for an entire week has gone over six hours.
I've also been totally off alcohol for the past couple
months which probably has helped. I started to feel
calmer when i went off the anti-cholesterol drug, and
this has been reinforced even more now that I'm on
the blood pressure drug.

The insomnia hasn't gone away, tho. It can be in the
form of not getting sleepy til, say, 2 AM, or it can
be in the form of lite, poor quality sleep, or waking
up early some nights, maybe at 5 or 6 AM. So, I'm
thinking of trying sleep restriction again. In the
last few months I've not limited my bed time at all.
I've let myself stay in bed as long as i want. I think
that what I need to do now is to try to anchor the
sleep again, to improve its quality. If i've removed
the physical causes behind the insomnia (high blood
pressure, anti-cholesterol drugs, alcohol), i'm thinking
that maybe sleep restriction should work better. In the
past I'd tried it about four times with little success.

tom

Follow Ups:

• Re: insomnia & blood pressure Casablanca 19:41 9/29/05 (0)

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