Lack of concentration, trouble sleeping, weight loss

Ever since about december, my boyfriend has been complaining about feeling very sick almost everyday. It started off with him unable to sleep more than about half an hour a night. He's always had some trouble with insomnia, but he takes sleeping pills regularly (which he knows is a bad idea but he just cannot sleep without them). Suddenly in December, they seemed to stop working.

Around the same time he started losing a bit of weight. He's already very thin and losing weight caused him to be in what doctors would refer to as anorexic. However, he eats a LOT and I am positive he is keeping the food down. Things started getting worse when he began feeling much worse symptoms. He wakes up nearly every morning with a feeling somewhat like a hangover-even though he hasn't had a sip of alcohol in months. He says it is so hard to concentrate that thinking something difficult makes his brain literally hurt.

He said he felt a lot of pressure behind his eyes and the concentration problems were getting so bad that he literally could not see anymore. He decided to go see an optometrist where he was prescribed a very weak prescription of glasses, but that didn't help at all. He wakes up nearly every morning feeling incredibly drowsy, which goes away a LITTLE bit as the day progresses, but not much. He says that he feels the way that most people do when they first wake up all day, kind of like sitting through a heavy cloud.

We thought that it was all related to sleep, so he decided to go and see a sleep specialist. The specialist told him that his "sleep hygiene" wasn't very good. Basically what this means is that he was not going to bed and waking up at consistent times, and he was spending too much time in his room. He was also told he was not getting enough exercise.

So he started exercising and working on his sleep hygiene extremely stringently. His sleep has improved, he now gets at least 6-8 hours of sleep a night, and he has begun to gain weight again. However, his worst symptoms are not going away. He has incredibly bad headaches, pain behind the eyes, trouble concentrating, and extreme drowsiness. The doctor has told him that he is just a hypochondriac. We wondered if perhaps there was something in his vents, some sort of toxin, that might be making him sick, but we really don't know.

If anyone has had a similar experience and has ANY advice to give, it would be extremely appreciated.

Thank you.

[Dr. Kokil Mathur]

Hi
Thanks for writing to the forum!
Well, sleep disorders seems to be the major component of his problems. The good thing is that your friend is on the road to recovery. It will take some time.
However there are some other conditions that may be associated and need to be ruled out---diabetes, thyroid disorders and anemia. All the three conditions are notorious in playing havoc with one’s body system. Do discuss this with your doctor and get the investigations done.
Hope this helps. Do let me know if there is any thing else and keep me posted. Take care!

[Mandilanthier]

Thank you so much. It does seem that he has been having a few more good days than bad, but it's just so worrisome to be plagued with something and no one seems to know what it is. I know he's been tested for thyroid conditions, and that test came back negative. I'll let him know about anemia and diabetes. Thanks so much!