#62

That is just adorable!!

#63

Yes, I don’t quite follow his reasoning.

If I understand correctly, ADH or anti-diuretic hormone (vasopressin) is important because it slows the release of urine when we are sleeping. If we don’t slow the release then the bladder fills. The amount of ADH in the system decreases with age. So to prevent nocturia, we would want to increase ADH to inhibit releasing urine into the bladder during the night.

Put another way, Berg’s thesis is that eating late somehow inhibits ADH, resulting in the filling of the bladder during sleep. And that is the real cause of nocturia.

Unless I could find some clinical or logical support for this idea, I’m very reluctant to change my eating habits.

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#64

I love pets and am convinced that they make us live longer.

We have both cats and dogs but I agree, cat’s are much easier to look after…and the purring - who can resist the purring??

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#65

Even if they don’t affect lifespan, pets augment the quality of our lives tremendously. They’re like children.

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#66

At least that seems to be true for dogs and their owners:

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#67

“Dog ownership has been associated with decreased cardiovascular risk”
Duh! :smile: Because you have to walk the dog!

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#68

Another reason for the bladder to fill is sleep apnea. It’s not just for fat people. When your airway plugs, your heart puts out a signal to take water out of the blood. I am obviously not an expert, but look it up. Very hard on your heart and sleep.

#69

Thanks, I knew and yes I do have positional sleep apnea which seems to be corrected if I sleep with my head at an angle. If I sleep facing the ceiling, my mouth falls open and my airway shuts off enough to wake me up gasping. I’ve tried various oral devices that are too unpleasant to let me fall sleep. I seem to be fine if I sleep with my head at an angle since I dont wake up until my bladder is full and I can tell that my mouth hadnt fallen open during sleep.

The same age-related lack of ADH (anti-diuretic hormone) that I believe is a significant part of my problem is often the same thing that causes bed-wetting in children (and adults). Your ADH, vasopressin, is normally more active during sleep, restricting the amount of fluid that goes into your bladder. If there isnt enough ADH, more fluid is released to your bladder. There is a drug for that, desmopressin. Desmopressin has an action that mimics vasopressin, and has been shown to be effective for nocturia as well as for bed-wetting. By signalling your kidneys to keep more water inside your blood vessels, you thereby prevent release of urine into the bladder. The effect lasts 7 to 10 hours.

I think my doctor would prescribe it for me but my next appointment is some months away, so I think its better that I go in with having tried it and found the minimal effective dose. Maybe he will suggest an alternative. However, I can find no interactions or contraindications so I’m going to try it.

Meanwhile I remain optimistic that rapamycin and senolytics will eventually fix everything. :slight_smile:

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#71

Sorry for your sleep problems. Mine increased gradually as I got older along with the size of my sleep stack. After ~7 months of fairly high doses of rapamycin, my sleep problems disappeared.

Taurine increases sleep time by 50%, at least in fruit flies.

The anecdotal evidence is fairly compelling.

Plus, taurine has a lot of health benefits including possible life extension.

Do you take Flomax (Tamsulosin)? If not, I would give it a try. It helped quite a bit in reducing my nighttime bathroom trips.

"Taurine 1000-2000mg daily before sleep. You can repeat the dose if you wake up at night to help you get back to sleep.

“L-tryptophan, taken with taurine, helps promote sleep. Taurine has a calming effect and L-tryptophan has a more hypnotic effect. Take 500-3000mg before sleep. Begin with 500mg and increase every third day by 500mg as needed. If you wake up at night, take half your nighttime dose.”

Vitamin B6- 100-300mg/day with food.

Magnesium glycinate 400-1000mg/day with food. Begin with the lowest dose and increase by 100mg/day. Reduce your dose if your stools are loose.

Valerian root extract—use as directed on the label."

(BTW, magnesium glycinate is unlikely to cause loose stools.)

This article contains some rather unusual tips. :joy:

How to Treat Insomnia Naturally

Consider these natural remedies for insomnia.

Effect of taurine and caffeine on sleep–wake activity in Drosophila melanogaster - PMC.

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#72

Tried 2.5 g of taurine last night. Threw it in with the rest of my stack. Slept a good 10 hours with little interruption.
Will try a little less tonight. I like 9 hours.

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#73

Thanks for the suggestions. I see a couple of things I havent tried and will definitely do so.

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#74

I had been using Magnesium L-Threonate, L-Theanine and Apigenin to good effect for a while, but after a while nada, and I added 12.5 or 25mg of trazodone (used sporadically before), 3-mg melatonin, and 1/2 to 1 doxylamine succinate sleeping pill. I would like to get off the trazodone and the sleeping pill, so I definitely will try taurine and L-tryptophan (which I used years ago before the EMS issues traced to a Japanese supplier in the late 1980’s).

#75

Yes, the tryptophan issue was strictly a contamination.

Consider also adding glycine. It definitely helps. Even a little ashwaghanda can be a nice addition.

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#76

Most of the time I didn’t have trouble going to sleep, but staying asleep or going back to sleep.

The most common problem with going back to sleep was, that when I woke up in the middle of the night, my mind would start racing, thinking of tomorrow’s projects, etc, etc.

Also, l-theanine helps to calm the mind.

Michael Lustgarten, Ph.D. has a very good video on getting back to sleep in the middle of the night.

Middle-of-the-Night Melatonin Supplementation: Better Sleep, Improved HRV and RHR?

This is not medical advice, but if I were taking low-dose trazodone as you are, I wouldn’t give it up if it was helping unless I found something to replace it.

“RESULTS: Evidence for the efficacy of trazodone has been repeatedly demonstrated for primary insomnia, as well as secondary insomnia, including for symptoms that are a result of depression, dementia, and being a healthy man.”

This review article has found that trazodone can be an effective option when treating insomnia with little to no risk in most cases.

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#77

Quick update on my post above. I tried Trazadone for a month but it didn’t work for me so reverted back to Mirtazapine. Since reducing my caffeine intake to <100mg/day I’m now only taking ~3.75mg which is a quarter of the smallest UK tablet available. Probably nothing more than placebo at that dosage tbh so may try and wean off in the next month or two.

Unfortunately it’s not really a drug you can take as a one off because of the side effect profile.

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#78

I didn’t find Trazadone very effective either, but it is fairly fast acting, ~30 minutes or less on an empty stomach, so I mainly used it to get back to sleep in the middle of the night.

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#79

I’m very interested in your stack - it near matches Huberman’s advice:
'* 145mg Magnesium Threonate or 200mg Magnesium Bisglycinate

  • 50mg Apigenin
  • 100-400mg Theanine
  • (3-4 nights per week I also take 2g of Glycine and 100mg GABA.)’

What doses do you take? And what impact does the Apigenin have?.

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#80

Just to give everyone a non-pharma, non supplement approach to sleep issues that is very well validated and tested:

Strong Support for CBT as First-Line Treatment for Insomnia in Seniors

https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/989581

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#81

CTStan, Did you ever find relief from nocturia and did you try desmopressin? If you used desmopressin what were your results? So far rapamycin hasn’t helped me, but I’ve looked at DesertShores suggestions several times and may experiment with his ideas. Thanks

#82

Well, nocturia requires a continuing effort but it has gotten much better.

The desmompressin, which I got from India, had zero effect at any dose that I tried.

I discovered that a DMI Side Sleeper Pillow and Body Pillow could be arranged in a way that substantially solved my sleep apnea. This has resulted in better sleep quality and prevents apnea induced wake ups.

When tadalafil was added to my other BPH medicines (finasteride and alfuzosin), I had an immediate significant reduction in full-bladder wake ups. On average I now have one wake up.

I also found that sleep supplements have made it so that when I do wake up I usually fall back asleep more easily.

No reason to think that rapamycin or senolytics helped, though it could be they are responsible for the stability of my PSA.

Good luck. Please let us know if you come across any break-through.

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