The Ashwagandha Experiment: Day Four

I've read in several places now that the Indian herb, ashwagandha, can help quite a bit with fibromyalgia.  Given the price and how other experiments in herbals have had less-than-stellar results, I just didn't even try it.  This last summer, in an effort to get more use out of the herbs I always plant, I started researching herbal tinctures and teas.  I've made holy basil and lemon balm tinctures, and the sage oil is still steeping.  Next up (and last given the turn in our weather) is an oregano oil.

Anyway, I tried taking a blend of the holy oil and lemon balm tinctures.  Bad vertigo.  Really bad vertigo.  Maybe it was too much, maybe it's the alcohol, I'm not sure.  Next, I'm going to try taking them separately and see if I can figure out which one did the vertigo or if both do it.

In going back through some of my fibro resources about herbal treatments, I kept seeing ashwagandha mentioned repeatedly.  It's an adaptogenic herb that has shown some success in helping with fibro symptoms.  When I was at the Natural Health Center (great store here in Kalamazoo) getting my multivitamin that I was out of, I saw they had an ashwagandha blend on sale and decided to give it a try.

I had to look up when and how to take it (not on the bottle), and the results were mixed.  For some people, ashwagandha gives them energy, so they should take it in the morning.  For others, it really helps with sleep and should be taken at night.  Given that most of my reactions lean towards the sleepy side, I decided to try taking it at night.  My first night was this last Friday night.  According to my fitness tracker, I had only a few minutes of deep sleep on Friday night, and I woke up feeling rather refreshed (and so was surprised at the lack of deep sleep, one of the hallmarks of fibro and considered a possible cause).  Given the nasty storms all day Saturday, I was in surprisingly decent shape, and my pain wasn't anywhere near as debilitating as it would normally have been.  I took it again on Saturday night, and according to my tracker, I had absolutely no deep sleep.  I felt like I had slept hard, though, and my husband said that the couple of times he woke up that it seemed like I was sleeping hard.  Weird.

Sunday, I had a bit more energy than usual despite the lack of deep sleep the night before, but then the fatigue and pain hit hard again in the last afternoon like it always does.  My headache was bad, and so I had a Pepsi with dinner in the evening, and then I took another of the ashwagandha pills with my bedtime pills.

It hit hard last night after I took it, the energy and total inability to sleep. I couldn't fall asleep for hours (not tired in the least though I should have been). According to my tracker, for the second night in a row, I had zero deep sleep.  I did finally get some deep sleep when I fell back asleep this morning, after I think it wore off because I suddenly became exhausted.

I've changed the time I'm taking it to the morning to see what happens during the day. Oddly enough, my fibro-induced occipital neuralgia these last few days has been more annoying (feels like pop rocks going off on the top of my head, and it feels cold but isn't), but the pain has been less.

Today is the first day I've taken it with my morning pills, so we'll see what happens.  So far, I feel more awake, but it's like part of me is still tired and in pain.  It feels weird, but we'll see what happens.