In my search for better sleep I came across melatonin. It's our natural sleep hormone - and guess what? CFS/FM sufferers apparently have abnormal levels of it. Here's the introduction page of melatonin in the new insomnia sub-section...

Essentially, melatonin supplements are meant to help you get to sleep - and stay asleep.

I have tried taking synthetic melatonin supplements and they do sometimes actually work me! I have to say though, that sometimes it doesn't work. It depends on my current sleeping hours. Also, when I take them, I sometimes get 'vivid' dreams (bordering on nightmares but not quite), which I understand can be a side-effect for some people. But that doesn't happen every time I take melatonin and it's still one of my favorite sleep remedies nevertheless!

So I decided to dedicate a whole sub-section to melatonin. Again, it's not finished, but the introduction page to the melatonin subsection is here...

And here is some info about some of the pages I have already uploaded:

There’s lots of evidence out there that suggests that melatonin supplements can help to treat insomnia. Click here for more info...

Another page about melatonin (about how it can reset your sleeping patterns), that is already online can be found here...

And for the page titled 'The Melatonin Hormone - The Hormone Of Darkness', click here

Should you use normal or sustained-release melatonin supplements? Click here...

And (this is important) for why synthetic melatonin supplements are best, click here...

So how much melatonin should you take? Click here...

If you're wondering if melatonin is safe to take every day, click here... and if you wondering about the side effects of melatonin, click here...

As I said, the melatonin sub-section isn't finished yet, and the pages to which I have provided links above, aren't really finished either. Call it another 'sneak preview'! ;)

Insomnia can be a nasty symptom of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome - not all sufferers experience it though, and some may develop it while others won't.

I didn't suffer from insomnia as a symptom of Post Viral Fatigue Syndrome until after my relapse a few years ago (after my PVFS went into remission for a year and a half). And I have to say - what a cruel thing to have when you have CFS/PVFS!

Not only are you already weak and exhausted, not only do you never feel refreshed after sleeping (and usually after long hours nevermind hardly any) - but you also have trouble getting to and staying asleep!!!! Insomnia and CFS. Not a great combination!

What with my insomnia phases becoming a normal part of life with PVFS, I thought I'd look into 'sleep deprivation'. Here's what I found...

Hypersomnia is a common symptom of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome and can be especially severe in the early stages of CFS. I know as a suffer myself, that you can spend what seems like your whole life sleeping. It got so bad for me, that at one point I could only stay awake for about one hour a day.

Now I'm better. But I still need a lot more sleep than I should do. I seem to sway between periods of Hypersomnia, and periods of Insomnia - with little 'normality' inbetween. So finding out more about both hypersomnia and insomnia proved to be very interesting for me on a personal level as well as a professional one.

For the page on hypersomnia, click here...

I will be uploading my research on insomnia and CFS but it's not online yet. I will post it on here when it's online though, so if you're interested in being kept up to date, click here...

If you want to be kept posted everytime I post an update on sleepydust.net, then all you need to do is add this code to your RSS reader:

http://sleepydust-blog.blogspot.com/atom.xml

What's an RSS reader? What does it do? And how can I keep myself posted with your updates without having to visit your blog all the time?

Visit this page for a good explanation - it answers all of those questions AND tells you how to go about getting RSS updates. Click here...

Recently I've been giving you 'sneak previews' of a few of the pages from the new sleep section, which isn't yet formally 'open' (because I haven't finished coding it!). Well here are a few more 'sneak previews' for you:

Many think that CFS/FMS is due to poor sleep hygiene. Well it's not. And this page talks all about it...

That page is actually an introduction to how CFS sufferers are thought to have a hypothalamus disorder. Your hypothalamus is crucial to maintaining harmony in your body, and I've written a page explains what your hypothalamus actually does, and what it needs in order to work properly - natural daylight. You can find out more about this here...

The Problem is that if you've got moderate to severe Chronic Fatigue Syndrome then you're not likely to get much daylight - many of us are housebound, or even bedridden, with little energy to spare. So going outside for natural daylight isn't really viable for most of us. I've written a whole sub-section on how you can get around this - but I haven't coded it up yet so it's not online yet. I'll post a link to it here once it is - it makes for some interesting reading and offers some cool suggestions for how to get more natural daylight - without even going outside!

If you want to be notified when you can access this information online, visit this page...

When you have CFS or FM you are likely to experience sleep disturbances and/or have a sleep disorder. Well I've researched the most common sleep problems related to CFS/FM and written about them in the sleep section. You can access the introduction to this sub-section here...

You can now view the Sleepydust.net Blog at sleepydust.net here!

Claire
Editor of Sleepydust.net

In my last post I spoke about the link between CFS/FM and the production of your growth hormones. It made for interesting research on my part, and I think you'll find it helpful too.

But the question in my mind was - are human growth hormone releasers safe to take?

Well it's important to make the distinction between actual human growth hormones and human growth hormone releasers. I also wrote a page about whether taking human growth hormones releasers are right for you...

So then the big question is - which human growth hormone releaser supplements should I take? There are so many on the market and some are of better quality than others. So I scoured the internet and decided to put reviews of 3 HGH products. Here's what I found...

Or if you want the 3 separate reviews:

- 1st HGH releaser product review

- 2nd HGH releaser product review

- 3rd HGH releaser product review

I hope you find these reviews helpful.

In my research for my latest section for sleepydust (on sleep), I discovered a wealth of interesting things about CFS/FM and sleep. And one of them was the link to the production of your growth hormones.

I felt that 'growth hormones and sleep' were such an important topic when it came to CFS/FM, that its sub-section is larger than most of the other sub-sections on sleepydust.

In my previous post I gave you sneak previews to a couple of the pages in this new sub-section (it's not open to the public yet). Here are a few more...

Firstly I tell you about what you can do if you have a growth hormone deficiency. The page that follows that is called 'Does Human Growth Hormone Supplementation Really Work?'.

Next is one of the most interesting pages, I think, which reports a study on Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Sufferers taking Human Growth Hormone Releasers. It had some very positive results...