not neglect...exhaustion

I didn't post anything yesterday. I am simply exhausted. I have not gotten more than five hours of sleep for so many days that by yesterday I felt physically weak and mentally blank. I have had insomnia for so long; I remember in graduate school, now almost twenty years ago, I would sleep only three hours a night, which enabled me to finish my AM and PhD in four years. But in the following years, when I did not have such a gargantuan workload, I would try to sleep, and the strangest thing would happen: right at the point where your brain passes from wakefulness to sleep, my body would be jolted by what felt like an electric shock, sometimes so strong that I would leap from the mattress. Then I would be wide-awake again, and the cycle would repeat itself until finally, usually at 5 am or so I would fall into a sleep that only lasted two hours. I wake with the sun, no matter what time I have fallen asleep.

This situation has improved because of some of the medication I take, but now it is getting more troublesome. But an increase in the dosage of desyrel that I started two weeks ago leaves me with excruciating headaches in the morning. I am at wit's end. I feel so desperate for sleep, and yet it eludes me. Help! I know I have written about this before, but nothing I have tried (melatonin, ambien, lunesta, sonata--what funny names these sleeping pills have--valerian, no caffeine after noon, etc.) has worked. I know it is a sign of bipolar disorder, but I seem so resistant to the standard therapies that I need something else. I exercise and try to take good care of myself, as doctors recommend, but it does not seem to help me sleep. I wonder if hypnosis would work. Please, if anyone reading this has some ideas, let me know. I am afraid my general health is suffering.