How I Reversed My Severe Chronic Disease And Recovered My Health: Part 2
Tying Myself Down
This night I mentioned a few moments ago in particular was the last night I slept without any type of effective barrier between my fist and my face. I’d been getting the symptoms of RBD for months here and there, maybe a couple times a week, but the last month leading up to this point it’d been nightly.
At first I was able to sleep on my sides and that helped a bit, then I would rotate my pillow so that the pillow would offer some cushion for the times my fist went shooting up to my jaw, but this wasn’t so helpful after a few days; so I transitioned into sleeping with boxing gloves for a while, until the nightly uppercuts to my chin became even too ferocious for the gloves to dampen down.
Eventually I found some relief.
A Punch-Proof Invention
After testing all kinds of contraptions unsuccessfully I came up with the very simple but effective idea of using two watches, one for each hand, and then tying one piece of rope around both of them individually, and then tying the other end of these two ropes to the bottom of my bed. At that time I had a metal bed frame that extended up straight a few inches over the bottom of the bed. So that was used to anchor the rope down. Also, the length of the rope was fitted so that I could safely move around in my sleep if I needed a little natural give, but not long enough to where my hand, or more specifically my fist, could reach anywhere near my face.
This stopped the violent attacks on my dome. A small but significant step in the right direction.
When you’re dealing with sleep issues, any bit of relief can seem like substantial help. Sleeping is such a relaxing and powerful phenomenon when we’re able to indulge in it. But when we have sleepless nights or when we toss and turn or when we have occasional insomnia it can be incredibly stressful and even torturous to our psyche.
Hypnic Jerks
I remember after dealing with this RBD problem for so long I developed hypnic jerks, which is when the body jolts itself awake to keep you from falling asleep. It’s the body’s way of keeping you alert to save you from potential danger and is theorized by some to have sprung from primordial ancestors during times of danger as an innate safety mechanism.
Well, as it turns out, these hypnic jerks were quite effective at keeping me awake. Every time I would doze off and get ready to fall asleep my body would thrust about and immediately wake me back up. And the more tired and stressed I got the more often I’d get the hypnic jerks.
At one point it became literally impossible to sleep.
So I didn’t.
Crippling Insomnia
I developed crippling insomnia where I would go many, many days without so much as a couple of minutes of shut-eye. All the while I kept praying for answers and asking God to intervene.
But he didn’t. And I continued to suffer.
The insomnia, as well as the debilitating headaches, and tingling and shaking of my arms and legs carried on relentlessly for well over a year. Accompanied with other symptoms at times including nausea, weight loss, anxiety, depression, and of course extreme fatigue given the fact I was barely ever able to sleep.
Paralyzed After Waking Up
Along with the RBD I was still getting (despite the fact I eliminated the climactic result of facially striking myself each night) I also periodically got sleep paralysis which is the opposite of acting out your dreams and involves you waking up during your sleep but not being able to move (hence the “paralysis” part). I could open my eyes and see, but I couldn’t move my body or limbs and I was literally paralyzed. This phenomenon typically lasted just a few minutes or so, but it often felt like hours.
Like some who experience sleep paralysis, I’d often hear a variety of weird noises - buzzing sounds, loud bangs, strange hummings, and more. I’d also usually get this sensation of falling out of bed or “into” my bed (like the girl in A Nightmare On Elm Street). To say this was scary would be a massive understatement. It was downright petrifying.
The Scariest Phenomenon Of My Life
I remember one time I nodded off to sleep after having not slept for like four days straight. I finally felt like I was going to sleep good. I was relaxed and calm despite the awful circumstances. I kind of just sunk into my bed and was so exhausted I didn’t even bother tying down my hands. At almost the exact instant my head touched the pillow I was out.
But then something shocking happened even more rapidly…
As soon as I went out my head exploded!
That’s right. I nodded off to sleep and the instant my consciousness went under, my head blew up. Or at least that’s what it sounded like and felt like.
I experienced a phenomenon scientists best describe as Exploding Head Syndrome. Where someone falls asleep and something happens with the neurotransmitters in the brain and an explosion of sorts takes place within the brain that sounds like a bomb just went off inside your head. Or perhaps the sound that a gun would make if it were pointed directly on the back of your head and you were somehow able to hear it before being killed.
In any event, it’s the loudest, most shocking and terrifying noise you’ll ever hear.
And it happened to me a couple of times. And of course compounded the already negative aspects of my health in terms of exacerbating the insomnia, stress, and overall decline in my health I’d been experiencing.
I wish I could say this was the end of all my suffering but unfortunately it wasn't. However what I did next would change everything...