Lost Our Cat Last Month, Sleeping Issues Options

[Sibby]

Hello to you all. I'm glad there's a forum to talk to people when it regards losing an animal. I'm not sure how many come on here, or if I'll get a reply, but I need to write this down somewhere.

We lost our cat Tobi on September 16. She was 12-years-old and a maine coon. We got her for my 10th birthday down at a mill. We started to see her limp on her left hind leg in mid-July. We took her to the vets and had to checked out. We thought her limping was due to my mom stepping on her shortly before, but we later found out she had severe spinal arthritis and nerve damage in her leg. She was also given an antibiotic because the vet said she probably had an infection that caused her to urinate more. After nine days she started vomiting. We took her off of it. After that she progressively gotten worse.

She wouldn't eat on her own. She was losing weight. She wasn't walking on her own. Messing herself. Urinating on the carpets. We started syringe feeding her but she was still losing weight. We kept taking her to the doctors. He gave her the equivalent drug of gravol, appetite stimulant and nothing worked. She lost 25% body weight in about a month. We tried giving her morphine and other pain medicine but it didn't work. We found out she had renal insufficiency also. She was put on Convenia because she didn't finish the other antibiotics.

I knew on Wednesday, two days before she was put down, that she was dying. She wasn't walking on her own. Barely purring, not meowing. I knew she was in pain, so I made the decision and told my mom to phone the vets. We brought her up and she was put down between 3:30 and 4 p.m. She died in my arms.

For weeks I was determined we were going to get her back to health. Then I started seeing her deteriorate. A few weeks before her death I would cry profusely when I went to bed. When she died I didn't cry until a few days after, but it wasn't the same. I have no interest in food but I eat, because I have to. No interest in reading, but I do it out of habit. Music, shows and movies don't interest me. Nothing does. i haven't been the same. On Saturday, October 1, I couldn't get to bed until 6 a.m. Three nights after that I didn't sleep at all. I'm not meaning just a few hours of sleep. I'm meaning NO sleep. And when I couldn't sleep I got extremely angry. I wanted to hit my fist into something so I could feel. Either I feel extreme numbness or extreme grief.

on the fifth day I went to a walk-in-clinic to get some help. I was put on Ativan for 10 days. I have 5 1/2 pills left. He told me to try it for a few days then don't take one. I did that but I couldn't sleep. Last night I took a half of one and I didn't sleep all throughout the night. I'm worried I am become dependent on something just to get sleep. I've tried everything. No caffeine. Dark room, silent and cool. Don't eat heavy in the evening. And still I can't sleep on my own. I feel as if I want to put myself in a hospital. What are my options?

[Sibby]

Petunia, I would swear by Melatonin too, but it will interact with one of my other meds. So it's unfortunately I can't take that. lol @ angry birds. I could never get a handle on that game. I always aimed too high. But I was thinking of Unisom, but I'm concerned over the insomnia rebound effect.
Nothing has helped, except Ativan. And I don't want to be on that at all.

@ Missing, I've tried every trick in the insomnia book. I'll go to bed around 2 a.m., stay in bed with my mind racing, and two hours pass with no sleep. I think I have some sleep between 6 a.m. and beyond. But that's it. Not even the cassette with the song that use to put me to sleep work any longer. But I was thinking of sleepy teas, so thank you for reminding me.

@ Moon beam, no it isn't a challenge. I've never had this kind of sleep issue before. I truly hope it's temporary. I've had issues with my sleep since the 2nd, and all I would love to do is to lock myself into a hospital and hock myself up to an IV drip full of sleep meds. With me, night time was when her and I would fall asleep with each other. Before she got sick, Tobi would come upstairs to sleep near my feet or pillow. Two months before she died, she couldn't get upstairs anymore. But i contribute that to my insomnia also.
I've tried the warm shower, change beds, make it darker, reading (I'm a bookworm, so this always helped), writing in my journal (an avid writer, but alas it doesn't help), and any other trick in the book. I'm not a tea drinker, but I'm willing to try.
I find I can have long calming and numbing moments throughout the day, and night doesn't bother me. But I can think of her in my semi-comfortable numb place and not cry. It doesn't bother me to think of her. But like Petunia, my mind doesn't want to shut off. I can think of anything.
The only thing that has helped was crying a night. When I immediately noticed I had sleeping issues was when I didn't cry at night, when I was in bed. I cried profusely a few weeks before we knew we had to put her down, and almost two weeks after her death. Sometimes I can cry and that helps, but sometimes I can't and I'm stuck with this insomnia.

I just wanted to ask, has anyone used 5 HTP for sleep? It's an amino acid supplement that can help with insomnia. I'm curious about it, but I've only talked to one person, -on another forum site-, about it. Just curious on what your thoughts are on it.

And I would love to thank you all for listening and replying to me. It does help.