Insomnia and Depression

I was wondering if anyone on this forum had experience with sleep maintenance insomnia?

So far I've had two doctors tell me that the reason why I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep is because I'm depressed. They have diagnosed me with depression based solely on the fact that I wake up every single night between 1-3 am and can't get back to sleep. They want me to take anti depressants.

I had a sleep study (after a year of my doctor refusing to let me have one) and I had 23 obstructive hypopneas associated with 10 awakenings and transient arterial desaturation. Of course during the study I didn't wake up at my usual time of 2 am but I woke up at 11 pm and it coincided with an obstructive hypopnea. Since my AHI is <5 the doctors don't give a crap, even when I tell them that sometimes I wake up choking. These hypopneas happened whenever I was on my back during both REM and NREM, and all through REM when I wasn't on my back. No snoring.

From what I understand, depression causes sleep maintenance insomnia by increasing REM, and anti-depressants suppress REM. I did have a high REM portion on my sleep study, but lack of sleep can also cause increased REM sleep. Also, when I take doxylamine succinate, which is anticholinergic and therefore suppresses REM, I still wake up at the same time.

So my two questions are:
1 - can you have depression even without feeling depressed, just because you have insomnia? If I do feel depressed I feel that it is caused by the insomnia, not the other way around.
2 - does anyone think that mild sleep disordered breathing can cause chronic sleep maintenance insomnia? Or is an AHI index <5 common in the general population, including people without insomnia?

missymoo wrote:I was wondering if anyone on this forum had experience with sleep maintenance insomnia?

So far I've had two doctors tell me that the reason why I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep is because I'm depressed. They have diagnosed me with depression based solely on the fact that I wake up every single night between 1-3 am and can't get back to sleep. They want me to take anti depressants.

I had a sleep study (after a year of my doctor refusing to let me have one) and I had 23 obstructive hypopneas associated with 10 awakenings and transient arterial desaturation. Of course during the study I didn't wake up at my usual time of 2 am but I woke up at 11 pm and it coincided with an obstructive hypopnea. Since my AHI is <5 the doctors don't give a crap, even when I tell them that sometimes I wake up choking. These hypopneas happened whenever I was on my back during both REM and NREM, and all through REM when I wasn't on my back. No snoring.

From what I understand, depression causes sleep maintenance insomnia by increasing REM, and anti-depressants suppress REM. I did have a high REM portion on my sleep study, but lack of sleep can also cause increased REM sleep. Also, when I take doxylamine succinate, which is anticholinergic and therefore suppresses REM, I still wake up at the same time.

So my two questions are:
1 - can you have depression even without feeling depressed, just because you have insomnia? If I do feel depressed I feel that it is caused by the insomnia, not the other way around.
2 - does anyone think that mild sleep disordered breathing can cause chronic sleep maintenance insomnia? Or is an AHI index <5 common in the general population, including people without insomnia?

I dont have personal experiences with any of sleep disturbances, but promote nutrition that can have impact on quality of sleep. It's hard to say, what's the reason for waking up so early, but i would check some of those:

- allergens (mold, environmental toxins) in the room can distrurb sleep patterns with increased cortisol, when should be lowest.

- no EMF, no light, even closed fuses might help to promote attempts of your body to find circadian rythms triggered by light and changed electromagnetic status of athmosphere.

- serotonin to melatonin conversion, and promotion of pineal gland activity.

Nurtients as zinc, magnesium, b1, b5, and b6 are needed for having adequate conversion rate from 5-HTP to the melatonin, the desired antioxidant and sleep promoter.

Would try also niacinamide and nutrition that is worth to reverse calcification - K2, iodine, ...

-Temperature status of the body during sleeping. If experiencing night sweats or cooling the body, this should tell you something.

- I believe nobody should go in the bed hungry, or opposite - with full stomach with heavy foods to diggest. Would say, fat soluble vitamins are important too, as it will help you being protected during longer period of time and will assist in repair.

-From the depression stand point, i'd focus also on methylation with MTHFR supplementation, activated B12 and b6. And curcumin, plenty of it.

There is probably tons of different ways to look at it...

What's your sleep position?

Will insomnia and depression cause hair loss ?




sorry, I had to.

iuyyighghghgkh wrote:Will insomnia and depression cause hair loss ?




sorry, I had to.

fuckin riot, this one.

Beebrox wrote:

missymoo wrote:I was wondering if anyone on this forum had experience with sleep maintenance insomnia?

So far I've had two doctors tell me that the reason why I wake up in the middle of the night and can't get back to sleep is because I'm depressed. They have diagnosed me with depression based solely on the fact that I wake up every single night between 1-3 am and can't get back to sleep. They want me to take anti depressants.

I had a sleep study (after a year of my doctor refusing to let me have one) and I had 23 obstructive hypopneas associated with 10 awakenings and transient arterial desaturation. Of course during the study I didn't wake up at my usual time of 2 am but I woke up at 11 pm and it coincided with an obstructive hypopnea. Since my AHI is <5 the doctors don't give a crap, even when I tell them that sometimes I wake up choking. These hypopneas happened whenever I was on my back during both REM and NREM, and all through REM when I wasn't on my back. No snoring.

From what I understand, depression causes sleep maintenance insomnia by increasing REM, and anti-depressants suppress REM. I did have a high REM portion on my sleep study, but lack of sleep can also cause increased REM sleep. Also, when I take doxylamine succinate, which is anticholinergic and therefore suppresses REM, I still wake up at the same time.

So my two questions are:
1 - can you have depression even without feeling depressed, just because you have insomnia? If I do feel depressed I feel that it is caused by the insomnia, not the other way around.
2 - does anyone think that mild sleep disordered breathing can cause chronic sleep maintenance insomnia? Or is an AHI index <5 common in the general population, including people without insomnia?

I dont have personal experiences with any of sleep disturbances, but promote nutrition that can have impact on quality of sleep. It's hard to say, what's the reason for waking up so early, but i would check some of those:

- allergens (mold, environmental toxins) in the room can distrurb sleep patterns with increased cortisol, when should be lowest.

- no EMF, no light, even closed fuses might help to promote attempts of your body to find circadian rythms triggered by light and changed electromagnetic status of athmosphere.

- serotonin to melatonin conversion, and promotion of pineal gland activity.

Nurtients as zinc, magnesium, b1, b5, and b6 are needed for having adequate conversion rate from 5-HTP to the melatonin, the desired antioxidant and sleep promoter.

Would try also niacinamide and nutrition that is worth to reverse calcification - K2, iodine, ...

-Temperature status of the body during sleeping. If experiencing night sweats or cooling the body, this should tell you something.

- I believe nobody should go in the bed hungry, or opposite - with full stomach with heavy foods to diggest. Would say, fat soluble vitamins are important too, as it will help you being protected during longer period of time and will assist in repair.

-From the depression stand point, i'd focus also on methylation with MTHFR supplementation, activated B12 and b6. And curcumin, plenty of it.

There is probably tons of different ways to look at it...

Hi Beebrox, thanks for the reply

I don't think I have a problem with melatonin conversion, I fall asleep very easily most nights, but there is definitely a cortisol issue when I wake up in the middle of the night. Not sure what's causing that, and it doesn't seem to be helped by supplements that lower cortisol. My endo wants me to do a dexamethasone supression test, said something about depression causing cortisol to not be suppressed by dexamethasone.

I did a saliva cortisol test a couple of years ago and at 6am my cortisol was very low, and it was normal throughout the day. My guess is it gets too high at 3am, gets used up by 6am, and starts to build up again during the day.

I don't think I am depressed but the insomnia is really getting me there.

MikeBison wrote:What's your sleep position?

I always fall asleep on my side but a lot of the time I wake up on my back

missymoo wrote:

MikeBison wrote:What's your sleep position?

I always fall asleep on my side but a lot of the time I wake up on my back

I ask because sometimes I get hypnic jerks, like I stop breathing for a second, when trying to sleep on my side but I never get them when lying on my back.

Yeah, I get those too but I think mine are from too much glutamate

missymoo wrote:Yeah, I get those too but I think mine are from too much glutamate

you need b6 to transform glutamate...

Beebrox wrote:

missymoo wrote:Yeah, I get those too but I think mine are from too much glutamate

you need b6 to transform glutamate...

I take b6 for pyroluria but it doesn't really stop my twitches. I think my glutamate issues are from mercury.