Not sure if this is exactly the right place to post this, but hoping that people will be able to offer advice or point me in the right direction. I know that many people on here are v. knowledgeable about the human body and how it works.
I’m 22, female, non-smoker, infrequent drinker. I don’t drink coffee, tea or carbonated drinks, I don’t take recreational drugs. Living in the UK.
I have had chronic insomnia roughly since the beginning of the year. I find it difficult to fall asleep, and more often than not my sleep is interrupted - I keep waking up, falling back into a light sleep, etc.
I’m leaning towards thinking it could be due to a physical cause rather than a mental block on being able to fall asleep, as I have tried many sleeping aids, graduating from mild to fairly extreme: herbal Nytol, Kalms sleeping tablets, Melatonin capsules (going from 1 capsule to 3) and the latest is Phenibut. I’ve had varying degrees of success with these, Phenibut being the most effective but still a little hit and miss.
In addition to this, I rarely if ever get headaches, but this year I have had them regularly and they last for a long time. From what I’ve heard from other people, they aren’t migraines - no swimmy vision, bright lights are okay, etc - it’s just painful and usually lasts around a week.
I usually take Paracetmol to combat headaches, but it does nothing for these. I tried Ibuprofen, again nothing. I haven’t tried Asprin, but I drink a lot of water when they come on. Nothing really seems to help - it just has to run its course, it seems.
I feel hot almost all the time - its now winter in the UK, but I still find myself with the fan on and the window open at night, as I am much too hot. I thought perhaps my blood pressure was up, but I’ve had it checked 3 or 4 times this year and it is normal to low.
A month or so ago I started losing weight. Not so noticably that people would comment, but I’ve comfortably lost a dress size. I was certainly eating no less than the usual amount, and felt as though I was constantly eating - being so tired from not sleeping I was trying to throw some fuel on the fire, as it were.
A couple of weeks ago I was ill, nothing serious, just a normal cold. I lost my appetite almost completely, and felt no hunger at all. In a week I had next to nothing to eat, and it’s taken me until now really to get back to a normal appetite.
Then, on Thursday last week, I noticed a brown vaginal discharge. This last until Sunday, it started a darkish brown and got progressively more reddish. It was just like the sort of tail-off you would get at the end of your period.
My period was due on the Monday, I still haven’t got it, but that is quite normal for me, I’m usually a week or so later than the date I should be. I’ve not had unprotected sex, and I’ve taken a pregnancy test that was negative.
I’m concerned because I don’t know if these symptoms are related at all, obviously losing weight for no apparent reason is not a good sign, and consistant headaches are not good either. This last thing has me really concerned. My periods are usually later than predicted, as I mentioned, and really quite heavy.
I should mention that I went to the doctor regarding the insomnia prior to being ill. She told me that she could not prescribe any sleeping tablets as they are not allowed to do that anymore.
She seemed unconcerned about the headaches, and just asked if I’d had my eyes tested (twice this year). I didn’t get a chance to mention that I’d been losing weight as well. She didn’t believe me when I told her that I don’t drink tea or coffee. The only thing she did do was to take my blood pressure, though she started doing it as I was in the middle of explaining that I’d had it checked a few times previously, and it had been fine.
I’ve been looking at stuff on the web, but without a good understanding of the human body, it’s a bit of a minefield.
So really my question to any poor person who managed to read all of that and is not yet asleep from sheer boredom is: do you think that any of these symptoms are related to each other, or caused by each other? Do you have any suggestion of an underlying cause? Any ideas of how to treat any of it?
Thanks in advance!