Insomnia For Gummies

Ohai

I hope everyone had an excellent Veteran's/Remembrance Day, may we never forget their sacrifices.

One day in and I'm already ignoring blog prompts... lawlz. Today's topics didn't quite inspire me. Besides, I have a better topic to discuss!

As some of y'all might remember I have been having a rather unpleasant bout with insomnia over the past few months. Honestly, I've had difficulty sleeping for as long as I can remember. When I was a kid I had terrible thoughts that would keep me up, solved by a TV in my room. When I was a teenager I was in too much pain to sleep, solved by a memory foam bed. In high school and parts of college I took Advil PM or Tylenol PM... they helped me sleep until I became immune to them. I got used to not being able to fall asleep and just kinda dealt with it until recently. While I was recovering from my surgery I had no reason to get up at any specific time so what sleep schedule I had got totally out of whack. I was falling asleep at 5 in the morning and waking up some time in the late afternoon. That was the straw that broke the cripple's back. I needed to do something about this whole sleep thing... STAT!

What to do though? I didn't want to take Ambien or anything like it, cause that stuff can royally mess you up. I recalled someone I know taking melatonin to help them sleep, so I went to CVS to see what was at my disposal. At first it seemed like there were so many choices of sleep aids, then I saw it... GUMMIES! Yes, melatonin gummies. Needless to say that me, being the mature adult that I am, bought the gummies.

So that night I took the recommended dose of 2 gummies. If any of y'all are wondering about the taste... they taste good enough. I prefer these over pineapple flavored gummy bears if that means anything. After a little while I started to feel tired. Not a "I'm stoned off my ass tired", just a normal tired feeling... which was a pleasant surprise. When I got tired enough to where I put my head on my pillow I was asleep within ten minutes. That's practically unheard of for me! I spent the next couple of days experimenting with timing and all that fun stuff. I found that if I take two gummies around 9pm I'm usually asleep by 2am (that sounds late... but that's pretty damn good for me). I've been taking the gummies every day for a little over two weeks and I've noticed a massive change in my sleep schedule. I've been falling asleep earlier, faster, and waking up in the morning has been sooooooooooooooooo much easier. The only "side-effect" that I've noticed is that I had some crazy-ass dreams for the first few days. My personal favorite melatonin-induced dream was that I was at a party, and then all of the sudden someone there tried to assassinate Natalie Portman... yeah... maybe it means something?

Me thinks it means that these gummies are freaking awesome. I really like how it just helps me get tired naturally, and when I do feel tired I don't feel like I'm drugged. Maybe one day I'll mess around with doses... but for now I'm pretty content.

Crippies Tippie - Gummy Vitamins are freaking awesome, regardless of your age

The Limping Dead

Bonjour!

Thank y'all for all the awesome suggestions to remedy my friggin insomnia. I used to take tylenol PM every night for well over a year, so naturally I'm now immune to the stuff. Has anyone tried melatonin pills? Do they work?

In the mean time I'm trying to regulate my sleep schedule, but it's certainly a challenge. I had a rather busy day today so hopefully that'll knock me out. I had a long-ish day at work, mainly due to my coworkers and I discussing the return of "The Walking Dead" tomorrow. We all agreed that Lori needs die as soon as humanly possible. If she croaked in the first episode I would not complain. We also discussed our plans for surviving a zombie apocalypse. The general consensus among us was that if we weren't able to barricade ourselves in our homes until the wave of zombies passed, we'd probably die fairly quickly. On the bright side, if I were to become a zombie my limp would be comedically worse than the other zombies. Or I'd probably just end up like bicycle girl and drag my mostly lifeless body with my arms. Yes, this is actually how I spent my day at work.

After work I went to see a stellar performance of "The Last Five Years" at the local community college. Oh my lawd I loved it. The production, sets, orchestrations, acting, EVERYTHING was amazing. It was an amazingly complex two person show about the rise and fall of a relationship. If any of my local readers are interested in seeing it, HERE is the website.

Now, I really should be getting to bed. I have a loooooonnnnngggggg day ahead of me tomorrow. I'm attending the unveiling for my aunt, who passed away last year. While it won't be a "happy" day by any means, I'll get to see some relatives that I haven't seen for a few years. That'll be good at least. Besides tomorrow is not about mourning the dead, it's about celebrating them.

I hope y'all have a lovely Sunday

Crippie's Tippie - Appreciate your relatives while you have them

Sleeping Crippie

Greetings!

I hope all my crippled comrades had a marvelous weekend, Crippie especially hopes that her local cripples enjoyed that heatwave. It was so freakin' hot this weekend, my goodness. Luckily I didn't have to outside for many reasons. I was worried about all of animals but thankfully I had no reason to worry. The piggies got through the heatwave unscathed, Helen enjoyed sleeping in the warm grass when she would go out for walks (she really is lazy), and Angel hated the weather, but she got ice cubes in her water which she enjoyed. So all is well in Crippie's animal kingdom.

This weekend was rather eventful for my family. I got the see the final two performances of my sister's show. The last couple of shows were damn near sold out. While I have no proof, I'm gonna say that my publicity is totally responsible for it. Crippie had a jolly time at all of the productions and I have now memorized most of the show. This happens every time I see one of my sister's shows. I end up memorizing 'em. I can still recite most of the songs from "Into The Woods" and that show was over 5 years ago :D. Anyways... here are some pics I took over the weekend...

Helen is a lazy bum

She steals my pillows, all the freakin' time 

A view near the playhouse, gotta love the Hudson River!

Passed a carnival on the way home 

Sunday on the Hudson with a Sailboat (broadway humor) 

And Crippie was killing time by taking pictures

Moving on, Crippie has a question for her readers. It seems that I have a loooooot of difficulty in the "going to sleep" department. My usual night time schedule is to usually go on the computer until I feel like I'm going to pass out. At the point I fall asleep rather quickly. The problem is that it is around 3-4 in the morning when this occurs. I could simply get off my damn computer at a decent hour, but here lies the problem... say Crippie is rather tired, but not ready to pass out tired. If I were to simply go to bed all of the sudden Fanny would decide to act up, so you've got a good 45 minutes of tossing and turning there. After I get comfy-ish my shoulder will be like "OHAI... I'm gonna hurt you now!" so I spend another 45 minutes popping my shoulder and tossing and turning. THEN my neck will be like, "Ya, know... I was comfier the other way". THEN my hip will be like "WTF... I WAS COMFY BEFORE!". Long story short it takes me hours to fall asleep. Me thinks I need to find a way to get to the "I'm about to pass out" stage sooner. Any suggestions readers? 

Crippie's Tippie - One thing I've tried that has had mild success was to do sudoko puzzles at night with low light. It strains my eyes and makes me sleepier sometimes. Other times I get really focused on the puzzle and stay up trying to solve it. Not perfect, but better than nothing.

*Insert Cute Title Here*

Привет!

Crippie wanted to give a special shout out to my Russian readers. Apparently I have a lot of them! Fun Fact: Crippie is 50% Russian.

It looks like we're gonna have another one of those "it's 4 in the morning, I can't sleep and I'm blogging about random things going on in my life" kinda posts. I really need to fix my sleep schedule.

Crippie's day went very well, even though it was hot as balls here (over 97 degrees at times). I saw the my sister is in her show again. BTW peoples, there are still four more performances left! One tomorrow night, 2 on Saturday, and one on Sunday! If you are in the area you should totally go to the Railroad Playhouse in Newburgh and check it out! There's also a restaurant in lobby that makes nomerful food. Crippie had "Honey Citrus Pepper" chicken wings... omg soooooo good. Crippie wishes she had taken a picture of 'em... but gosh darn it... I was so hungry that I just dove in.

Once we're all done with this show, Crippie will try to schedule Fanny's removal. Keep your fingers crossed that I can get her out in September.

In animal news, Angel got very sick a few days ago. She probably ate something that didn't agree with her. Poor baby wasn't allowed to eat for a whole day. She recovered very quickly and is now back to her good ol' self. Helen is still convinced that she is peoples. She was sleeping on my bed before when she had a nightmare and starting whimpering. Crippie had to hold her like a little baby in my arms and rock her till she calmed down and fell asleep again. All of the piggies are doing well, although Nellie has been having a lot of "special" moments recently. These moments include diving into the hay (literally), turning her cuddle cup on it's side and sticking her head in it, and having staring contests with walls. Nellie is kinda special like that.

Speaking of piggies, remember how Crippie said she'd be keeping her eye out for piggies in shelters? Well, recently Crippie found this little nugget on petfinder!

His name is Meatloaf and his petfinder profile can be viewed HERE. He appears to be a Texel/Peruvian mix. It appears that the shelter is planning on neutering him, so he could theoretically live with Mama, Frida, and Nellie. Crippie will probably go and visit him sometime next week. While I am tempted to adopt him, there are a lot of factors to consider. If he's a total asshole like Maggie or Emma an introduction would be damn near impossible. This dude's hair is also major thing to think about, from the picture it's pretty clear that he has HAIR, and that hair needs to be maintained. Judging by the picture alone, me thinks his prior owners trieeeeeddd to maintain his hair... a little. While I'm interested in the walking wig, I do have 5 pigs already, so if anyone else out there is looking for a piggie... consider this one!

So yeah, that's about it... Crippie is gonna try and get some sleep now

Crippie's Tippie - See my sister's show and go visit Meatloaf

Crippie Plays Catch Up

Sup Everybody?

My cold is finally starting to go away... YAY! I can breathe again!!! Apart from the general annoyance of the cold, it was really starting to get painful, tumors in my ribs were catching when I coughed, hella painful. Anywhooo today Crippie figured she'd talk about some random things that have been on her mind recently...

- Anybody watch the Oscars? Crippie enjoys watching award shows and picking out the winners regardless of whether or not she knows what she is talking about. I did pretty well last night, got a vast majority of my answers correctly. The biggest bummer of the night... WHY DIDN'T HARRY POTTER WIN ANYTHING? I mean, c'mon couldn't the academy at least recognize them for their make-up? Biggest moment of awesome (for me anyway)... when "The Descendants" won an award for it's script. Why? Because this means the academy agrees with Crippie in how the movie is not offensive in any way, shape or form. Snaps for validating my opinions. 

- Now that my cold is going away I can focus on trying to sleep again. Last night I fell asleep around 5:30am. The night before that it was 4:00. Crippie really needs to think of some sleeping techniques. Oh, and for those who suggested either Tylenol or Advil PM... Crippie used to take those to go sleep for several years. What happens when you take a drug regularly for several years? You basically become immune to it. Alas they no longer have any effect on me. 

- Crippie visits her pain management doctor on Thursday. My mom really wants me to consider the anti-depressant as a pain medication route again. This time we are gonna go to the doctor specifically discussing my hip pain (normally I just say I'm in pain from the neck down). I'm gonna bring my hip x-rays and discuss how I want to preserve my hips for as long as possible. Although part of me thinks I should probably be talking with my ortho about that, which reminds me... I haven't had an othro appointment in over a year, YAY ME! 

- The piggies are starting to get dirty, I guess that means it's time to bathe the piggies. Something tells me Thursday will be spent at the doctor's office and then bathing and blow drying pigs (yes, I actually use a hair dryer on the piggies). Anyone interested in seeing pics of that super fun event? 

- Speaking of piggies, here's some pictures of Frida sleeping in Nellie's house. Ever since Frida managed to get in Nellie's house she has refused to come out :D

- So yeah, that's about it. Random jumble of a post. Crippie's thoughts get jumbled at 3:00am... which is mainly why I NEED TO FRIGGIN SLEEEEEEEEEP!

Crippie's Tippie's - In this day of digital x-rays its super easy to ask for a copy, they can be emailed to you too! 

Crippie Tries To Go To Sleep

Ohai!

Hope y'all had a lovely Tuesday. Apart from slowly coughing my lungs out my day went pretty well. I was kinda surprised by how not sucky today was considering it took me well over 5 hours to go to sleep last night.
It's weird, you think it would be easy for a person with chronic fatigue to fall asleep... but alas that does not appear to be the case with me. It's pretty easy for me to take a nap, I fall asleep within 20 minutes and I'm not in too much pain. BUT as soon as Crippie tries to go to sleep for the night either her hip, shoulder, or something random decides to hurt her. Sure, pain meds help to a degree, but I'm usually in some form of discomfort when I go to sleep. I've had trouble sleeping for as long as I can remember. The only time I don't have trouble sleeping is when I'm recovering from anesthesia (only good part about surgery... drugs and anesthesia make it super easy to sleep).
Recently, after growing ever frustrated with my sleep issues I thought of a novel idea... "Hey Crippie, if you can nap without issue, why don't you treat bedtime like naptime?". So Crippie tried to sleep propped up at a weird angle on her bed watching some random tv channel. Go figure I fell asleep faster than I usually do. I've been trying this for the past several nights and it's been working, with an exception for last night but I was up because I wasn't feeling well... so it doesn't count ;) What about you guys? What do you do to treat insomnia? I would try something like Ambien, but some of my relatives have had some crazzzzyyy side effects from that one (let's just say they involve show tunes).

Crippie's Tippie - Sometimes the best solutions are the weirdest

Crippie Actually Tries To Fulfill Her New Year's Resolutions

Ello!

I hope my readers had a fantastic Friday. Mine went relatively well. Emma went to the vet again today for a follow up. They think she has a bladder infection and needs 10 more days of antibiotics. On the bright side, Emma finds antibiotics to be delicious.
Crippie has been spending the past few days working on some New Year's resolutions. First I started with the learn web design one. I figured I'd limit this one to blogger design so I can customize blogs and all that fun stuff. I've starting looking at tutorials and code from other people's blogs and think I'm starting to get a gist of it. I made a blog for me to practice coding on, it's viewable HERE if you want to see my progress. I've also been making some typographic drawings that I'm gonna turn into a Society6 shop. YAY for progress!
Crippie actually should amend her resolution list to add something that I really need to do, regulate my sleep schedule. I used to have a really solid sleep schedule and I wouldn't go to bed terribly late. Now my sleep schedule is awful, thanks college. I'm not sure of the best way to regulate my sleep. The whole "just go to bed early" thing doesn't seem to work, it actually seems to cause discomfort. Should I go for herbal suppliments? Spend an hour walking up and down my driveway? Milk and turkey? Any suggestions readers?

Crippie's Tippie- If you want a shnazzy blog and can't design one on your own, there are tons of free backgrounds out there.