Four years on an unusual rotating shift making regular sleep a struggle

My hats off to you; that is one strange schedule.  No wonder sleeping is troublesome at times.

As I am not a doctor or trained in the medical profession, I will leave any specific advice to our experts ( i'll make sure this post gets forwarded to them directly).  You should also consult with your doctor so he can recommend a specialist in the are if necessary.

In the meantime, you might care to read about the general aspects of sleep disorders  as well as suggested treatments and preventions  on our Sleep Disorder Site.

Hey bdonojr

Thank you for asking about and sharing your shift work schedule here so I can follow along and possibly learn some new sleep habits for myself (wife of a shiftworker) and also my husband.

My husband has worked a 7 day tour shift at a papermill for the past 20+ years.  He works 7x8-12 hr shift from 11:00pm thru 7am, then he gets off on monday morning on the 8th day has tuesday and wednesday off, goes in thursday night swing shift 3pm to 12am through the next wed night and has thursday and friday off and goes in day shift on Saturday 7am to 3pm works through to the next friday night and then has sat, sun, mon, goes in tuesday night graveyard again and goes through the whole cycle again.

I'm the one with Chronic pain around here and when I was still able to work, I just stuck with my schedule and slept through his crazy shift, but now that I don't work his shifts are really messing with my sleep schedule and I'm more on the same schedule with him.  I'm having an incredible hard time with insomnia and some times am so messed up that I don't fall asleep at night until he gets up to leave in the morning  on day shift week.  He also gets called in early quite often and that can mean that our phone often rings at all hours of the day and night and then he has to get up in a hurry to get ready, I jump up and try to help him get his lunch made and get ready, then I have a difficult time getting back to sleep again, so we are just in a vicious cycle around this house and I'm not able to get myself out of it.

Yes!  I've thought of turning the guest room into my bedroom and moving out of the room with him, but I really think that it would cause or distance us in our marrage and we've always been the type of couple that does not go to bed angry with each other and will make up before we sleep.  So I really believe that it would cause too many problems and also hurt his feelings If I moved out of the bedroom.

I take trazadone for sleep help, but it only helps me fall asleep and I will wake back up in an hour or two because of the pain, we've tried everything, changed beds 4 times in the past five years too and have a memory foam mattress, but my lower back, hips and extremities will fall asleep, ache severely and my hips have a horrible burning sensation and I cannot stand it and am unable to stay asleep.  I'm hoping that the doctor or a professional will have some advise for us shift worker families.

Thanks

Betty