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Weird Flu developments?
Endomatic
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
I've been sick with the flu for a couple days now, and it's been fairly painful and unfun. We all know how the flu goes but I've been having some really weird other things happening and I'm not sure if it's normal.
I haven't been sleeping well. My fever has been more or less constant. Not super high, but my temp is elevated and consistent.
Some of it is the changes in temperature. First I'm too hot then I'm too cold, but that's common enough.
When I'm trying to sleep at night I get extremely restless. I'm a side sleeper, but I continually switch sleeping positions, ones that I know and am comfortable with, but they are just making it worse. I can't stop moving. I am continually tucking my ankle under my opposite knee, while laying on my back, a thing I don't do normally. It feels a like a compulsion to put my ankle there, and then I have to straighten it out because my muscles are cramped and sore. Rinse and repeat nearly all night.
This just may be general discomfort and be the result of my sore muscles and genuinely shitty condition, so I'm not entirely worried about that.
However, this is a bit different:
Whenever I close my eyes and try to sleep my mind injects some sort of random scenario in my head and.. I dunno... I wouldn't say think about it because I'm not really doing that. It's like the setup for a dream that doesn't come.
Sorry I can't seem to articulate it better than that.
It's completely random things too. For instance, I snapped my eyes wide open mumbling a sentence from a conversation I had with a friend last week. It's not like I fall asleep, sleep for an hour and then do it. I'm talking 10 or 15 minutes.
It takes a couple seconds to orientate myself every time this happens, and it's really starting to get to me.
When it happens several times a night, I develop into a bit of a nervous wreck and simply fail to sleep at all the rest of the night.
Is this a development from lack of sleep? If I am so tired, why can't I sleep? This has been ongoing for a couple days.
I have even taken some drowsiness inducing cold and flu medication which does absolutely nothing to encourage sleep for me right now. I have used these things with success in the past, but doesn't seem to be working for me this time around.
Should I maybe just try a sleeping pill for straight sleeping and skip the medication crap? I have cough syrup I can use for cough.
I've had the flu many many times in my life, but I've never had things like this happen.
I haven't been sleeping well. My fever has been more or less constant. Not super high, but my temp is elevated and consistent.
Some of it is the changes in temperature. First I'm too hot then I'm too cold, but that's common enough.
When I'm trying to sleep at night I get extremely restless. I'm a side sleeper, but I continually switch sleeping positions, ones that I know and am comfortable with, but they are just making it worse. I can't stop moving. I am continually tucking my ankle under my opposite knee, while laying on my back, a thing I don't do normally. It feels a like a compulsion to put my ankle there, and then I have to straighten it out because my muscles are cramped and sore. Rinse and repeat nearly all night.
This just may be general discomfort and be the result of my sore muscles and genuinely shitty condition, so I'm not entirely worried about that.
However, this is a bit different:
Whenever I close my eyes and try to sleep my mind injects some sort of random scenario in my head and.. I dunno... I wouldn't say think about it because I'm not really doing that. It's like the setup for a dream that doesn't come.
Sorry I can't seem to articulate it better than that.
It's completely random things too. For instance, I snapped my eyes wide open mumbling a sentence from a conversation I had with a friend last week. It's not like I fall asleep, sleep for an hour and then do it. I'm talking 10 or 15 minutes.
It takes a couple seconds to orientate myself every time this happens, and it's really starting to get to me.
When it happens several times a night, I develop into a bit of a nervous wreck and simply fail to sleep at all the rest of the night.
Is this a development from lack of sleep? If I am so tired, why can't I sleep? This has been ongoing for a couple days.
I have even taken some drowsiness inducing cold and flu medication which does absolutely nothing to encourage sleep for me right now. I have used these things with success in the past, but doesn't seem to be working for me this time around.
Should I maybe just try a sleeping pill for straight sleeping and skip the medication crap? I have cough syrup I can use for cough.
I've had the flu many many times in my life, but I've never had things like this happen.
Endomatic on
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The drug in Nyquil that helps you sleep (diphenydramine) is the same drug that they use in an awful lot of OTC sleeping pills.
The stuff I have isn't Nyquil brand but it has pretty much the same ingredients. It's a generic.
It claims to stop fever, but does not contain any diphenydramine. Only pseudoephedrine and Acetaminophen and some others specifically cough related.
Should I look for something that has diphen~ in it?
Also, pseudoephedrine can make you jittery. Two Sudafed will have me wired for a good 4 hours when I take it.
To the OP: what I would honestly recommend is going to the store, getting some generic Benadryl (diphenhydramine), and some ibuprofen. Then, take the generic benadryl with a shot or a beer before you go to bed. It's possible to get weird dreams off of cough syrup or pseudoephedrine, though it is a very rare side effect of pseudoephedrine; if you cut both of those out, take your pain reliever/fever reducer and your sleep aids (the beer/shot is actually because the alcohol interacts with and drastically enhances the effects of the diphenydramine; it's safe, don't worry, just don't do it when you plan on operating heavy machinery in the next several hours), it may make the dreams go away.
My suggestion, if fever really is bothersome, is to take 650mg tylenol at time 0, 8, 16, and 24, and 400mg ibuprofen at times 4, 12, and 20. AKA alternate medications every 4 hours to avoid toxicity. This will also help with any muscle-aches that may be resulting from your condition, since you will have two pain-relievers on board. As to helping you sleep: You can take melatonin supplements (though that is a more long-term solution...it takes a week or so for it to kick in), or take a benadryl when you want to sleep. I wouldn't take more than 50mg at a time, or more than 100mg per day....and definitely don't take it with alcohol. While it may not seem harmful, people who are susceptible to the additive effects of alcohol and benadryl can develop something they call serotonin syndrome, which can induce a seizure-like state and can potentially be life-threatening.
Also, I had similar issues with sleeping and feeling spaced out, getting weird dreams when I had a bad case of pneumonia. I'm guessing you're feeling dizzy as well as the other symptoms you described, which means you really have a bad case of it. Make sure you stay hydrated and try to keep food down as best as you can...Unfortunately, your immune system has to beat the hell out of the flu to get it out of your system, and it needs energy to do that!
And really, any dosage of Tylenol is toxic to your liver to some degree. Follow the instructions on the bottle, and stop taking it when you stop needing it and you'll be fine.
I actually live in Canada and a lot of the sleepy time cough syrups up here still contain pseudoephedrine, which you don't actually need I.D or anything for. Surprisingly enough, it's more often the generics that have it versus some of the better known brandnames. Probably because they are in US and Canada and you have those rules there, and I imagine they just send us the same things they make for you.
I was surprised the first time I saw it on there too. Maybe it's more difficult to extract it from the syrup or something? I'm not sure.
We do have a drug watch program similar to yours for meth ingredients but I guess these syrups are not included or something.
I'm always really careful not to overdo it with Tylenol or Ibuprofen. I never take the daily max dose over the course of the day. If anything it's usually max -1.