Insomnia for two nights

Being unable to sleep is not fun.  That said my first night was relatively painless and comfortable, and languishing thus is a rather pleasant experience.  Then hardly sleeping through the day, followed by yet another similar night brought me to the point of saying, "enough is enough."

I have been playing round with my meds.  When I say playing I guess that make me sound carefree, whereas the opposite is true.  My methotrexate, as I think I have said before seems to do little for me.  I seem to be banned from other powerful NSAIDs and so am limited to codeine, paracetemol and 10% diclofenac gel.  Each of these I can take "as needed."  So what does as needed actually mean?

About 3 weeks ago I tried majoring on the gel, using it on major pain & inflammation points.  After a while I found that didn't feel at all good.  My joints weakened and generally my problems were not solved.  After that I focused on codeine phosphate.  This had the benefit of hiding most of the pain, but did little or nothing for my inflammation.   Mind you as my diet has been improving that has become less of a problem since every night any and all inflammation has been regularly disappearing.  But every morning it takes only ten minutes of "walking" and inflammation around my ankles is back.

And so now to focus on paracetemol.  I think it is this that has caused the insomnia.  So yesterday lunchtime I had my last, and after that reverted to codeine phosphate to cover the nighttime.  The result is much better: not perfect necessarily but getting there.

Which brings my to one last point.  A major success this week is no major inflammation in my hands.  Yes there is a slight ring of inflammation and pain around both wrists.  But compare that with last week - and before - when my left hand in particular was very obviously inflamed and painful to one and all.  I do believe I am getting there!