Has anyone ever seen a sleep specialist?

[Tracy]

My ds5's pediatrician recommended that we take him to a sleep specialist. He has been having headaches of the type that the ped thinks is stress-induced. After some discussion, the most likely source of stress seems to be lack of sleep. Ds has rarely ever slept through the night. We started giving him melotonin about a year ago, and it helped. He still wakes up during the night, but he can go right back to sleep when we put him back in bed. I have been trying to eliminate his naps in the hopes that he will sleep better at night. I am not sure if it has helped or hurt.

 

So now I have a referral to a sleep specialist, and I am wondering if this is going to help at all. What can they really do? I can't imagine they would give him sleep medication. Has anyone done this? Did it help?

[NotSoObvious]

Yep. Best thing we ever did for dd.

 

There have been a few recent threads on this. You might want to search. (Though the new search feature doesn't work well for me.)

[AngieW in Texas]

My youngest finally had a sleep study after two years of severe sleep deprivation. She didn't get the sleep study until after she had been on sleep meds for 3 months. Starting sleep meds made at least a 95% improvement after just two nights. She was having panic attacks and microsleeps and lots of general anxiety along with pain episodes (reacted strongly to all 22 tender points for fibromyalgia before sleep meds, but only reacted to 5 after sleep meds).

 

She has been on sleep meds for 1yr3mo now and is terrified at the thought of stopping. She doesn't ever want to go back to the condition she was in before.

 

The sleep study didn't show any problems (like apnea or restless leg syndrome or seizures) that would cause her sleep issues, but she did do it while on sleep meds. They said that when a patient can't sleep without meds, that they should take the meds during the sleep study. They can't study sleep if you don't sleep. My dd was getting 4 hours/night at the most before the sleep meds and those 4 hours weren't all in one chunk.

 

My 17yo might end up with a sleep study. She is also having problems, but they aren't nearly as severe as my youngest's. She is getting to sleep just fine, but then wakes up anywhere between 3am and 5am and then has a lot of difficulty falling back asleep. She is taking 15mg of time-release melatonin every night. Before the melatonin, she was having this issue pretty much every night, but now it's only 2-3 nights/week.

 

My dh also has sleep issues, but he won't even attempt to regulate his sleep patterns, so I think his sleep problems are caused by his own lack of schedule. My kids have done everything right according to what you are supposed to do to improve your sleep. My dh does pretty much the opposite of all this. In fact, right now he is snoring away in his chair at the computer. He will probably nap in his chair for an hour or two and then stay up until around 3am and go to bed for a few hours.

[PollyOR]

Yes, for 17yodd. She tried melatonin. It helped her go to sleep quickly but didn't help her stay asleep. She doesn't take it anymore. Mostly the suggestions were to get up at the same time every day and no artificial light (tv, computer screen, bright reading lights, etc.) after dinner. I still think dd is a bit sleep deprived but it isn't nearly as bad as it had been (falling asleep in the middle of reading aloud while standing, night sweats, exhaustion, depression).

[gracesteacher]

Personally no I have not but I have worked with several ped and adult ones (I am the person that does the test) My owe hubby has been thru more than one test and my dd will soon also. Please let me know any specific concerns and I will try and help you.