Bio-chemistry, B6 and Better sleep

I must confess I was nervous to return home after a long stint away, in so much that negative associations with my 'non-sleep-inducing-bed' would manifest themselves once more in long, sleepless nights. However, this has not been the case. I am definitely sleeping, dare I say it, better.

Something I think I've forgotten to write about (which could be instrumental in my overall improved sleep) is my meeting with a bio-chemist in Andover at the end of 2008. My mother in law found out about her through a friend who's young granddaughter went to her for sleep problems. Even though this little girl was only eight or so, apparently she'd never slept properly and this bio-chemist managed to 'cure' her with relative ease. Naturally, I agreed to give the appointment a go. I'm afraid I would have needed a PhD in chemistry to have fully understood what I was being told about various chemicals in our body and how they affect the brain, nervous system, behaviours etc BUT to cut a long story short, I have been put on 2 sets of natural medication - Vitamin B6 and Magnesium. After being asked many questions, my body then 'reacted' to her questions by displaying acceptance or resistance. Whilst this was going on, small vials of various chemicals were placed on my bare stomach which then helped my body to respond. It was well and truly weird and wonderful. This woman spoke with such enormous conviction, authority and confidence that it was hard not to believe her. People come to her from all over the place, even America so she must be fairly unique in what she does.

Anyway, I am taking quite a large daily dose of B6 and a smaller dose of magnesium and the idea is that I have, apparently, a large 'pot hole' that needs to be filled and when it does I can reduce this high dosage. She said I have an easily-solvable chemical imbalance in my body as indeed all of us have, displaying themselves in various ways, mine being my inability to sleep. After the first month, I did indeed go down from 7 B6 pills a day to 5 and it was this same day that Andy came back from India and I had a bad patch of insomnia. I didn't make the connection at all at the time but before I ordered more pills (they are crazily expensive) I wanted to talk to her and find out why, in her opinion, I wasn't sleeping despite her assurances. In her typical confident manner, she quizzed me 'Have you decreased your dosage yet?' When I said I had, she told me that I can't have been ready and to take it back up to the original dose for a further fortnight. This is what I did and....hey presto, I am sleeping again.

I'm not saying this is the holy grail of all my problems, but somehow it feels closer than any treatments I've tried before. I think the reason I hadn't mentioned any of this before on my blog was because I have become a little blaise about all these treatments I've had over the past couple of years, so great are their number. Of course I always hope that one may work,but can't put any pressure on this and just go from one thing to the next.

We shall see. In the meantime, we begin to pack up our lives in Godmanchester and prepare for our new chapter in India and I feel truly, truly thankful for each day that I wake up, pull back the curtains and don't want to cry.