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How does Parkinson’s affect your quality of sleep?
Parkinson’s can affect sleep patterns in different ways. For example, some folks struggle with falling asleep or staying asleep, others experience sleep disorders like REM sleep behaviour disorder and restless leg syndrome, and others struggle with tremors, stiffness, or urinary symptoms that interrupt them at night.
Do you experience any of these challenges? What helps you get a better night’s sleep?
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19 Replies
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My sleep is definitely changed since having Parkinson’s. I wake up several hours after falling asleep, and then I’ll stay awake for most of the rest of the night. I’m having bad dreams that I don’t even remember. My wife tells me I’m thrashing around during the times that I do sleep. The only thing that really has helped me is to take a small amount of melatonin and then when I wake up after a few hours, take another small amount of melatonin so I’m taking about 2 mg of melatonin each each night.
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I have improved my sleep to a good degree with blue light therapy. My sleep is not back to normal but it is improved.
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Mike- Please give us details of your blue light therapy. What light do you use? For how long? Where did you find out about it? Thanks
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For me it’s the restless legs that drive me insane. It feels like I can’t ever get fully relaxed. I’ve started using a low-dose magnesium supplement and it actually helps more than I expected.
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Yes, I often had trouble getting to sleep. If I did get to sleep, I would generally wake up between 2 and 3 AM. I would not be able to get back to sleep until 5 or 6 AM. Then, up at 7 AM. I have solved this with cannabis gummies and/or Trazodone (Prescription, see your doctor).
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BTW; This trouble sleeping was while I was on 5mg (and later 10mg) of melatonin, magnesium, zinc, and zertek.
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I have improved my sleep with blue light therapy. Not back to normal but definitely improved.
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Hi Mike, can you share more about how you’re using blue light therapy to help with your sleep? Have you noticed a changes to any other symptoms because of it?
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Yes, I sleep much differently since my brain makes no dopamine.
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What does this look like for you, Christina? What helps you with sleep?
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I have REM Sleep Behavior Disorder (RBD). I take trazadone and 12mg of melatonin. I was taking 10mg but it stopped working
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Hi DonFiresmith, have you found some relief for your sleep challenges with this medication?
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If any thing my sleep has increased. When having trouble falling asleep I started taking me,atonin before going to bed. I generally sleep 9+ hours a night and frequently fall asleep in the afternoon if reading
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Hi Jls – do you find this to be a good thing or a challenging thing?
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One of the things that has helped me is a book called “Quiet Your Mind & Get To Sleep” by
Carney and Manber. It is about CBT-Insomnia. Some of the other things are 4-7-8 deep
breathing, aromatherapy, accupressure, meditation and Rescue Remedy. My sleep isn’t
perfect; but these tools do help.
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Thank you for sharing these resources!
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REM sleep behavior disorder is the main issue. The acting out dreams, yeah, that’s me. My partner has been elbowed more times than I can count, and it’s getting worse.
What helps is honestly a high-dose Melatonin right before bed, every single night. It doesn’t fix it 100%, but it dampens the motor symptoms enough so the bed isn’t constantly shaking and I’m not falling out. That, plus a heavy weighted blanket, weirdly.
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I no longer turn over in my sleep. If I sleep on my right side, I wake up on my right side usually with a very sore hip from sleep in the same position. My cat doesn’t mind though because she’ll press herself against me knowing that I hardly move.
I sometimes get restless legs that feel like they tighten up and then thrash keeping me awake some nights.
I also have vivid dreams. Sometimes, they’re entertaining and sometimes they’re bothersome.
I also get gawd awful dystonia in my legs and feet. More recently, I had it not only in my legs but also in my torso. I woke up screaming in agony until they subsided. Since this is a new thing, I will report this to my neurologist when I see her at the end of February.
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what do you do when you WAKE UP in middle of night, I’ve done it a few times,wide awake, my body feels really shakey, i get so emotional and lay there and just cry, been known to just lay there till after 7am so I can take meds,don’t take around the clock, i don’t nap during day, afraid of not sleeping at night, like a roller-coaster ride
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