I almost got seven hours ...

Yes I did!

Two hours the first time.

Two and a quarter hours the next.

Then two and half hours.

For a total of six and three quarter hours.

Shouldn't everyone try to get at least seven hours' sleep a night?

Last night, I took one of my sleeping aids and went off to get my zzzzzzzz's (they always knock me out fairly quickly ...).

Turned the light out at 9:45pm (that is quite late for me actually but I had had a particularly rewarding day and was catching up on some tv programs ...)

I've developed the habit of not wearing the TENs machine when I initially go to bed because I use the acupen just before turning in and that gives me relief for a while.

When I wake up the first time (after laying on my left side for two hours), I get up and go pee and slap on the TENs machine before returning to bed.  Last night, that wake-up call came at 11:45 pm -- precisely two hours after I had turned off the light!

The next wake-up call came at 2:30am -- two and a quarter hours after the last call (I'm never "up" for more than two minutes so I don't really call it lost sleep time -- just "awake" time).

And the next wake-up came at 5:00am -- a half hour later than what has become my norm of late -- two and a half hours from the previous disturbance.

That makes a total of six and three quarter hours of sleep time.  But because it was not continuous sleep, as any sleep specialist can tell you, it is not restorative sleep and that is why I "wake up tired" -- a common problem for fibromyalgics.

When I was younger, I can remember theorizing that I was tired all the time because I was so busy in my dreams all night (it was always time to get up just as I was "going to bed" in my dreams).  I've always been a very active, vivid dreamer (ask my little chickadee or my husband about some of my wacky episodes).  The pain management specialist told me that would indicate that I'm not going into the proper sleep level, ever -- or at least very rarely.  How can I?  I never stay asleep long enough to properly cycle through the sleep stages!

Surprisingly enough, when I'm asleep, it is and always has been nigh on impossible to wake me!  (Even when / if I nap, however briefly, I tend to immediately go into REM sleep; I dream crazy dreams, and my body goes into what I call a state of rigor mortis.)  It is all sooooo confusing!

Bottom line is:  If we don't find a way to tell my brain that my hips don't hurt, I won't get seven hours of undisturbed sleep because I have to switch sides every two hours -- and I have to wake up to effect the roll over.

But can the brain be told to ignore pain in a specific part of the body and still otherwise function as it should (as I require it to function) -- to give me my life back?  Is that asking too much?