Tag Archives: Sleep

Our Purple Mattress Review!

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So if you’ve been on facebook for the past any-amount-of-time, you’ve probably become victim to hilarious new marketing campaigns like this one for VidAngel. And this one, by Purple mattress. I’m just a down-home makeup tutorial watching facebooker like you, and I have to say I don’t mind the new marketing angles. Hilarious is key when we are in information overload every day and it’s probably why I bought the mattress I did. What can I say? I have a soft spot for smart business.

Okay, maybe it’s not all because of the funny marketing. I also think that the Purple Mattress looks really, really, really cool. And I really like the color purple – though that didn’t influence my decision to get this bed as much as smashing a raw egg that never breaks did.

My fiance (that’s Ray…ask me about him anytime…he’s so fun to talk about!) has narcolepsy. There are some other writings about that on this blog. Here’s one in case you’d like to read that next. What I mean by that, though, is that we take sleeping pretty seriously around here. It’s already hard enough for him to get good quality sleep fighting allergies, noises, roommates, and the decision of his meds to work or not each night, so we don’t need the basic nuisance of a bad bed to make things worse.

That’s why, like every good millennial, we scoured the internet for days reading reviews about which mattress will keep us the most satisfied with our sleep. I will also say – he’s not the only one that needs good sleep. I don’t even like hanging out with myself when I’m tired.

There are a number of mattresses that sell exclusively online. They give you options to try their mattress for 100 days (generally speaking) and then if you hate it, be done with it and get your money back. Usually those things appear to be gimmicky, but with Purple, it really sounds like it’s true. (See the note at the end about how responsive they are on facebook – this is where I learned these facts)

So, that all being said, we bought a Purple mattress! It’s currently wrapped up and sitting in my living room, counting down on its 100 days, but also waiting for us to be able to move into our new apartment. I will be moving in first, so I’ll get to do all the major deciding, and we’ll update you when we give it a try. From what I’ve heard, we’re about to start sleeping on a cloud. I hope that’s true!

The mattress itself was $999 for a queen. That appears to be a ton of money, but in reality, for a good bed, it’s not. Of course it will be if sleep isn’t a top priority in a home, or you have great sleepers using your mattress, but for us, like I said, quality of sleep is a huge game changer in our life. And it is much cheaper than most available memory foam mattresses.

There are a couple other costs that come with it as well. First, I have a normal box spring right now, so that must be replaced. Memory foam mattresses must be put on a firm foundation, so a normal box spring won’t work. This isn’t a huge deal for us either, because I’ve recently discovered that I am pretty darn allergic to dust mites and I know my box spring is full of them because it’s been used – and just about everything we use is full of dust mites.

That being said, we recently purchased this box foundation. Purple requires something like this to host the mattress to keep the warranty in good working effect. This foundation will be sufficient, right Purple?

It is recommended that sheets used for the mattress have stretch to them as well. We didn’t buy the exact kind recommended by Purple because they were out of our price range and because we need to wash our sheets in hot water (for the dust mites) which many of them did not recommend for their fabric. I was sure, though, to find some that are said to “give” to some degree as well as were potentially a bit over-sized for the mattress. We’ll see how that goes. We also chose an over-sized allergen and waterproof protection mattress encasement because that should give us plenty of room to use the effects of the fancy Purple polymer as well.

All of that being said, the first night trying the mattress will be late next week. I’ll update you then – hopefully with raving reviews!

If you’d like to check out Purple’s facebook page do so here. They also get points for being amazingly responsive on there!

Sleep well all!

…because love wins.

Narcolepsy Diagnosis: Details

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happyThis bright-eyed guy was diagnosed with narcolepsy two weeks ago. For those of you who do not know what narcolepsy is, here’s a short explanation…

Essentially, the part of the brain that tells us when to sleep and wake up is a little confused (or a lot confused) in someone with the disorder. That means that while it appears often that someone with narcolepsy is sleeping a lot, they actually rarely, if ever, go through a long sleep cycle including the deep sleep that our bodies need.

The understanding by most people is that REM (rapid-eye-movement) sleep is our deepest, most refreshing kind of sleep, when that actually isn’t the case. There are three phases of non-REM sleep that happen before most of us hit REM, about 90 minutes after drifting off. Those stages are essential for immune system strengthening and repairing our bones and tissues. REM sleep is when we dream, and often when our brain processes information we didn’t during the day.

In short, someone with narcolepsy is generally sleepy all day long. And all night, unless they have insomnia, which is also possible, but I’ll talk about that in another post.

Backstory:

Because this is all new to us, I’m going to document our journey as it goes along. To start, here’s how we got to this point.

In 2013, BF (that’s my boyfriend), was diagnosed with ADHD. He was in a doctoral program at the time, graduated a high level university with a big degree in 3.5 years, and graduated with a high GPA in high school. He didn’t fit all the bill, but he had a hard time paying attention, and staying awake, in lecture. So we went with that.

He tried Adderall, which made him like the hulk. Not physically, though he is strong, but in a “I have too much intense energy and this is bad.” kind of way. Then onto Concerta and Ritalin, which helped. He was on 27mg of Concerta with a booster of 10mg of Ritalin at night after the Concerta ran out its 12 hours. (Though it doesn’t work this long for everyone)

Fast forward – he was still experiencing a fair amount of anxiety, so ended up going off of Wellbutrin, which he had been on for a couple years, and onto Lexapro. That did the trick – no more anxiety.

But then he was still reallllllly tired.

He would come home from work and sleep before eating dinner. Then would eat, and then fall back asleep. Weekends would be sleep-a-thons with lots of napping. And he just always felt crabby and tired. He couldn’t get his work done at a pace he was happy with, and had a hard time staying awake for conversations. We weren’t sure what it was, so we were just riding it out.

Diagnosis:

Then one day he fell asleep driving to work, and almost went in the ditch. That day was the end of guessing. He went in to see his general practitioner, who mentioned that he might have narcolepsy. He’s already been treated for sleep apnea, so we got his CPAP numbers checked at sleep med a week later, which were fine, and got a formal narcolepsy diagnosis. Thanks Mayo Clinic!

He also has cataplexy, which means when he feels a strong emotion, his muscles go weak. We didn’t know what that was at all, and thought it was funny that he would fall down when getting scared. (think fainting goats) But, most people who have cataplexy, if not all, have narcolepsy. So we got a name for that too.

Treatment: 

He was already taking stimulants for what now is likely a void ADHD diagnosis, so that dose was doubled to 54mg of Concerta with a 20mg booster of Ritalin in the evening. His doctor said that most people with narcolepsy take a bunch more than that, and he’s certainly not awake enough now, so we’ll see where we go on this front moving forward.

Because we requested that he be able to sleep well and not just be pretend awake his whole life, his doctor wrote him a voucher for Xyrem. It’s one of the most protected drugs in the world, and is often known as the miracle drug for people with narcolepsy, allowing them to hit non-REM deep sleep stages. We’re two weeks into a discussion with the drug company and insurance right now. It is delivered straight from the company, and has to be signed off on by many people before it is delivered to the patient. Stay tuned for updates.

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I think that’s long enough for now – no one likes overly long posts! I’ll write more soon. If you have any questions or would like any more details, please comment or send me a message!

…because love wins.