Why do I find it
QI AM 80 years old and haven’t had a good night’s sleep for years. I toss and turn all night and the most I ever get is three to four hours. I function but I always feel tired and yet when I go to bed, it’s the same thing. I have tried over-the-counter medication but nothing works. My doctor doesn’t think I should try anything stronger because of my age and the fact I have dealt with it for so long but I’m at my wits’ end.
ADOCTORS are generally reluctant to prescribe sleeping tablets to older people because they can make you so drowsy that if you had to get up in the night to go to the toilet, you could be unsteady on your feet and fall over. How long their effects last can be unpredictable and this can mean you feel odd and unsteady in the morning.
One of the best ways of trying to improve your natural sleeping is to do quite a lot of exercise every day, so you are physically tired by the time you go to bed.
You should also avoid eating after 7pm and certainly not have any drinks containing caffeine after 5pm if possible.
As you get older you generally need less sleep, so if you are lying awake, try not to fret about it but rather read a book or listen to the radio. If the problem persists, it may be worth trying an antidepressant with a weak sedative, such as amitriptyline. This is only available on prescription, so you will need to
QI HAVE recently been diagnosed as having ischaemic heart disease and diverticular disease. I am struggling to understand what these diseases are and how serious they might be. Can you explain them in a simple way? Your help and advice will be much appreciated. I am 71.
ATHE heart is a muscular organ that pumps blood and nutrients, including oxygen, to the tissues of the body. When you do any activity, the muscles need more oxygen, so the heart has to beat faster. To do this it needs a good blood supply.
In ischaemic heart disease (sometimes known as coronary artery disease or CHD) the coronary arteries that supply blood to the heart are narrowed by fatty deposits in their walls.
This means the blood supply is limited and when it beats faster, the heart muscle may become short of oxygen. This can lead to chest pain and also means the heart can’t speed up, so you can get breathless on slight exertion.
If the heart cannot pump efficiently, it can lead to fluid retention around the ankles. The narrowed coronary arteries are more at risk of being blocked by a clot cutting off the blood to the heart: a heart attack.
How serious CHD is depends on the extent of the narrowing of the arteries. Slight narrowing may lead to a small amount of breathlessness when you are walking uphill but severe narrowing can make it difficult to walk even on flat land.
It is treated with drugs to aid heart functioning, usually ACE inhibitors such as ramipril, along with beta blockers such as bisoprolol and a low dose of aspirin to help prevent clots.
It is also important to keep cholesterol levels as low as possible, so a statin is usually prescribed. Even if you cannot exercise much it is vital to try to be active every day and also to have a low-fat diet and, very importantly, not to smoke.
Diverticular disease is a totally different condition and is not