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Sleep, fatigue and a medication that also causes fatigue

Started 13 April 2026 · 16 replies · 110 hearts · read 1.2k times

OdileMontreal, CA · 13 April 2026
3 months ago

Something I have been sitting with: Sleep, fatigue and a medication that also causes fatigue Not looking for advice so much as other people's experience.

The logistics of this are defeating me more than the medicine is.

Every piece of advice I read appears to have been written for somebody with a completely different week from mine, so I am asking people whose weeks look like this.

I would rather hear one person's actual arrangement in detail than five general suggestions, if anybody is willing to write theirs out.

My household has adjusted to about half of this and the other half is causing small daily friction that I have not known how to raise.

Thanks in advance. Practical detail welcome, however dull — the duller the better, honestly.

37

NettieBarrow, UK
#1

Nights were the hard part. Working out what counted as a day when my days ran from nine at night took months.

5

TychoLeiden, NL
#2

Reading Nettie, I recognised more of that than I expected to.

I do mine on the same weekday regardless of what shift I am on, and I gave up on the time of day entirely about a year ago.

3

KikiFacilitatorGlasgow, UK
#3

Thank you for the honesty about how hard the logistics have been. The accounts that admit the planning is exhausting are the useful ones.

13me too 9

NolwennRennes, FR
#4

Coming back to say the anchor day held through two rota changes and a ward move, which is more than most of my habits have managed.

6

TorrinAberdeen, UK
#5

Building on what Kiki wrote rather than answering the original question.

The rotating pattern meant my sleep was already a mess, and separating that from anything else was more or less impossible.

4

BrackenHexham, UK
#6

My rota comes out a month ahead and I now plan around it properly rather than reacting to it, and that alone fixed most of my problems.

4me too 4

AshSunderland, UK
#7

Eating on nights is its own subject and none of the general advice covers it. I eat before, once during, and something small after.

8

OrsolyaBudapest, HU
#8

What helped was a fixed anchor that had nothing to do with shifts — mine is Sunday, whatever Sunday looks like that week.

7

SamPortland, OR
#9

The 3am circle here is not a joke. I have used it twice and both times somebody was awake and it mattered enormously.

7me too 8

BethanPontypridd, UK
#10

Agreed, and I have nothing to add to it.

9

KezWigan, UK
#11

Picking up Bethan’s point rather than starting a new one.

My appetite on nights is completely different from my appetite on days, and I stopped trying to make one plan cover both.

9

SunnivaBodø, NO
#12

Something I got wrong was doing it on my first night back. That combination was reliably difficult and moving it fixed it.

4

RillaAberdeen, UK
#13

This is the post I wish had existed when I was looking for it.

5

BoazHaarlem, NL
#14

The thing nobody writes about is that a bad reaction on a night shift is much harder to manage than one at home on a Saturday.

7

KikiFacilitatorGlasgow, UK
#15

If you come back later and say what you actually ended up doing, that is the post the next person reads. Threads that stop are the ones that leave somebody stranded.

14me too 3

RenataKraków, PL
#16

Building on what Kiki wrote rather than answering the original question.

My colleagues know, which I resisted for a year, and it has made covering a difficult hour much simpler.

5