Question:
Since I had my surgery I can not sleep through the night.

I can not sleep at night, I toss and turn all night. My legs are always moving and it feels like my skin is itching inside the skin. Weird hah! I can't nap in the day. I have all this energy and no to go. I post op and have gone back to work yet. I went and brought some sleeping pills but I still don't sleep all night I wake up about 3am every morning. What's going on with me?    — Allison A. (posted on November 17, 2003)

November 17, 2003
It sounds like you may have restless leg syndrome. If so it is treatable with medication so ask your doctor. It could also be that you still aren't completely able to get comfortable yet as a result of the surgery. Ask the dr. for a mild sleep aid.
   — Tawnda C.

November 17, 2003
Hello. How far post-op are you? I know the first week or so I couldn't sleep. I would take the pain medication just to sleep and then could only sleep 4 hours at a time. I also get the jumpy leg thing when I do not get enought sleep. Maybe that is what it is. Anyway, I would call your doctor and ask him about the sleeping pills.
   — AmyWollet

November 17, 2003
I find that now that I've lost a lot of the weight that I no longer need as much sleep as I did before. The energy abounds! I'm not sure how much you've lost, but it could just be an excess of energy (especially since you're used to working and aren't right now). As for the skin crawly thing could very well be that your body is working the anesthesia out of your system. It does weird things to some people!
   — [Deactivated Member]

November 18, 2003
Hi! I had the same problem after my surgery. I could not fall asleep so I spoke with my surgeon who gave me an RX for AMbien. I had no trouble sleeping after that. I asked my GP why I was having the trouble and she asked if I was stressed and I said "no". She said that the surgery and the fast weight loss IS stress and that may have been what was keeping me awake even tho' I did not feel like I was stressed. I did have to wean myself off the Ambien and now i am fine. Good luck!
   — Louise C.

November 19, 2003
My husband had the skin itching inside the skin and it was a liver enzyme problem. It was not related to WLS but thought I would share this anyway.
   — Beverly B.

November 19, 2003
As the prior poster said, you may have restless legs syndrome. I have had it for years. A good nutritional fix for this is to take about 600-800 mg of Magnesium per day. I have seen several studies on this and there is a web site called restlesslegs.com. This is the best way to take care of this without taking prescription pills that can have side effects. I have been taking this level of Magnesium daily for about 15 years now and if I stop taking it for any reason, within 5-7 days I have all the symptoms again!! And it takes a couple of days for the Magnesium to build up and get rid of the symptoms, so I don't miss it for more than a day or 2 at the most anymore. I first read about taking this in a Saturday Evening Post about 20 yrs ago. Be sure to talk to your md about this so he can rule out any more serious causes. Good Luck!! karen (open rny, 9/6/01, 297/147)
   — Karen M.