Fibromyalgia interrupts the deep sleep cycle with short bursts of high intensity brain activity. Your muscles require deep sleep in order to repair themselves from the days activities. No deep sleep means higher levels of pain. Sleep medication is pretty much part of the equation when living with Fibromyalgia. This is a critical part of managing this complex illness. Take care.

ya i dont sleep good either. i sleep better from 5am to noon than at night for some reason. and i cant take sleep medication or any nightime cold or flu meds because that ingredient gives me restless legs, and thats enough to make me want to break something lol. im always tired and hurting when i wake up. great way to start everyday lol

Like simone71, I also sleep best from 5am-12pm or somewhere around there. I've always been this way but since fibro came into my life, this sleeping pattern intensified. Thankfully I have a schedule that allows a random sleeping schedule.

The length and quality of sleep I get each time seems to be really random. I don't take any pharmaceutical sleep aids but I will occasionally take a melatonin supplement or a sleeping tonic.

Take care!

*~Stephanie~*

Funny, I just wrote about this in my journal.....how sleep deprivation is used as torture for good reason. I am at 6 hours if I can get to sleep.

I have terrible bouts of sleep problems. I also have sleep apnea but my main problem is getting to sleep. After a sleep study they determined I did not go into deep sleep (common with fibro) at all without the mask on. With the mask, not until the 7th hour of sleep. I plan on going back to see what kind of medicine might induce deep sleep. I also have terrible nightmares at times (probably from ptsd) and I've been told there is medicine for this too.

However, I just weaned myself off of quite a bit of medicine, so taking more natural alternatives like higher melatonin and sleepy time tea sound like better options to me. Also, my counselor turned me on to this nighttime meditation I found on Netflix that shuts my brain down (overactive). Right now my body clock is backward due to severe insomnia, so I'm going to try it again as it worked before. Good luck. I'm always looking for new alternatives, so thanks for topic.
P.S. I don't sleep at all without sleep meds of some kind: Benadryl, valerian, lorazepam, rozerem if really bad. I alternate using mostly just one benadryl or one lorazepam (same as unisom) because it doesn't give me a hangover.

This is one of the most difficult I deal with. I have no answers. I am fascinated to hear that several others here sleep at odd hours. I go to sleep about 4:00 or 5:00AM and sleep about 8 hours. Of course, I feel like somebody beat me up when I wake up and it takes about an hour or so for me to get out of bed.
I have sleep apnea, too. I stopped using my CPAP a few months ago because it didn't feel like it was helping. That said, I just HATE waking up choking on my own tongue. Nasty. I just have such a hard time trying to fall asleep with thee stupid thing on....
I remember when I was young, I would hear my snoring father choking himself awake. No wonder he was testy all the time. I wish he had at least had the option to use it, but I have a cousin who is heavy like Daddy was and he absolutely refuses to use it. I guess I'll try to get used to the stupid thing again. Good grief.

I was having a terrible time sleeping. I've had insomnia for years and now fibro has made it worse. I am another one who sleeps better in the morning. So weird. I can be dead tired, just can't sleep. It is so frustrating and makes me cranky and depressed.

I use sleep aids such as homeopathic coffea cruda which helps me to fall asleep and stay asleep a bit longer. Before I started it I was only sleeping 2 hours a night. I also use melatonin. Quick dissolve. It doesn't always help. I've been working with 5 HTP but not sure if it's helping yet.

I'm very sensitive to meds so I have to be careful. When things are really bad I take Percocet to knock me out. But that's a last resort.

Good luck, or should that be good sleep!