Insomnia

What is insomnia?

Insomnia happens when you have difficulty falling or staying asleep. You may also wake up too early and be unable to fall back to sleep. This prevalent sleep disorder can affect your life in many ways:

• Drain your energy level
• Negatively affect your emotional and physical health
• Impair your work performance
• Decrease your quality of life
  
  

Dr. Michael Blubaugh and Dr. Sanjay Kumar diagnose and treat two types of insomnia at Carolina Medical Center:

Primary insomnia

Primary insomnia is when your inability to get a good night’s rest doesn’t result from another medical condition.

Secondary insomnia

Secondary insomnia either results from or co-occurs alongside another health condition. This type of insomnia is a common side effect of prescribed medicines. Most men, women, and youngsters diagnosed with chronic insomnia have secondary insomnia.

What causes insomnia?

Two main factors contribute to insomnia:

Biological

Several biological factors associated with health conditions, medications, and commonly used substances can play a part in your developing insomnia.

Environmental

Unfortunately, insomnia often persists after treatment for the initial underlying cause. For example, unhealthy habits, like falling asleep while watching TV or in a room other than your bedroom and then going to bed, can cause insomnia to persist.

Sometimes, your past inability to fall asleep becomes a mental distraction as you try too hard to fall asleep and worry about not getting enough sleep, making sleep even more difficult to achieve.

How is insomnia diagnosed?

Expect your appointment to start with a physical exam and a review of your medical history and symptoms. Before your appointment, you should keep a sleep diary for a few weeks to help Dr. Blubaugh and Dr. Kumar make a proper diagnosis and formulate your personalized treatment plan.

If it’s difficult to pinpoint a cause for your insomnia, or the doctors observe signs of another sleep disorder, they may prescribe a sleep study. Sleep studies call for you to spend a night at a sleep center, where a variety of your body’s activities are monitored while you sleep.

How is insomnia treated?

The doctors at Carolina Medical Center often recommend cognitive behavioral therapy for insomnia (CBTI) as a first step. CBTI teaches you how to develop good sleep habits and avoid behaviors that prevent good sleep.

Notably, not all sleep issues result in a diagnosis of insomnia, because it’s common to experience occasional sleep disturbances. If you suffer from insomnia, call or make an appointment online today with one of the doctors at Carolina Medical Center in Walterboro, South Carolina.