It has been 60 days since my open heart bypass surgery! And last night was the first night since December 13th that I slept through the night in bed! It has been an interesting sleeping experience! Here are some of the observations:
1 - The first week after surgery I tried to start in bed and lasted maybe one hour and needed to get out of bed, read, watch TV, or work on something to stay busy. At this point I was still on my pain medicine - Percocet - Oxycodone. This medicine made me feel very anxious and when I tried to sleep my body could not relax. After over a week, with the permission of my nurses, I switched my pain med to extra strength tylenol.
2 - After 3 weeks I started sleeping in the recliner in the family room. This seemed to help, but I still was not sleeping through the night. Normally, I am a restless sleeper, start on back, move to right side, move to stomach, etc. At least I was getting 4-5 hours of sleep!
3 - After 4 weeks I started taking tylenol PM. I should have started this in the beginning! Two capsules made me sleep through the night! After about two weeks I started to use only one tablet, and for the past week I stopped using tylenol PM altogether.
4 - And last night, after 60 days, I slept through the night in my own bed, with no medicine! I still am sleeping only on my back, but sleeping!
Again, the Cleveland Clinic, had some helpful tips for sleeping!
Cleveland Clinic - Sleeping after Open Heart Surgery
Yeah.. your own bed... sleeping all night...big accomplishments! School will still be there. So happy that you are doing so well:)
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