Irrumator

Strangely enough, last night we did just that after a long break due to a cracked radius in my right wrist and voila, I woke up at 5.45 am this morning, the latest I have woken in months! I did wake a few times due to nature calling but went straight off back to sleep. Now I need to persuade my wife that's the cure ... ????

I prefer the answers in this sleep study - https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5689397/ You'll see that sleep is divided into 5 phases, and the critical time for waking is after stages 1 and II, when you enter REM sleep. That's when many people, and it seems me too, wake up - after about 180-220 minutes of sleep. Excerpt from the study - 'In the elderly, reduced homeostatic sleep pressure decreases the amount of slow‐wave sleep.16 Additionally, reduced circadian signals in the elderly result in reduced core body temperature and a phase advance of wake and sleep times. Sleep is divided into non‐rapid eye movement (NREM) and REM sleep. NREM sleep is further divided into light sleep (stages N1 and N2) and slow‐wave sleep (stage N3).6 REM sleep occurs periodically in cycles of approximately 90‐120 minutes of sleep. In polysomnographic studies, four consistent changes related to aging are observed: decreased total sleep time, sleep efficiency, and slow‐wave sleep; and increased waking after sleep onset.17 A meta‐analysis of 3577 subjects aged 5‐102 years demonstrated age‐related changes in sleep architecture (Figure 1).17 In adults, total sleep time, sleep efficiency, percentage of slow‐wave sleep, percentage of REM sleep, and REM latency all decreased with age. Sleep latency increased with age, but this change was very subtle. Only sleep efficiency continued to decrease after 60 years of age.' This is shown in the figure below, and I seem to wake after stage 1 and stage II just as the study suggests. I seem to usually wake after about 3 to 3.5 hours of study. Read the figure upwards from the bottom.

I never eat after 5.30 pm. Haven't for 6 years. Part of my winding down routine

I think I've managed to have developed a bedtime routine after 74 years thanks. The problem is that some unknown factor has recently upset that routine, all probably age-related. Now I need to find the missing link, which is why I'm here.

Thanks for that. I see they come in different dosages. I assume it would be better to start small and test it out rather than before starting on the maximum dose? Or could you suggest a recommended starting level for a 74 year old male, 65 kgs body weight?

I've heard a lot about this in America where it seems very popular. I'm not sure if it's legal or available in the UK, but I'll check. However if Lazada or Shopee has it, I'll give it a try. What sort of price for how many?

Xanax doesn't touch me. Even 4 mgs Rivotril only has me out for 3-4 hours.

About 4 weeks ago I started having problems with sleep. I'd get off OK (with some clonazepam (Rivotril), which has had to creep up and up), but I have constantly starting waking up about 2.45 am. Not always for the bathroom, but once I was awake, it was very difficult to get back off. I'd normally wake about 6 to 6.30 which was fine. However, recently I went to the doc and explained the problem again. I have had to increase the clonazepam to 4 mgs a night, pretty high yet I always wake up after about 3 to 3 1/2 hours sleep and can't get back off at all. I know older people sleep less (I'm 74) but this sudden onset is a real PITA. The last few days I've just got up (this morning 1.45 am, yesterday 2.15, the day before 2.45. I potter on my PC, maybe watch a film and after breakfast go for a snooze. However this is really getting to me and I'd be interested to hear if anyone else has this problem and how they deal with it. Tips very welcome, but please don't say have a skinful before bed!

Don't eat the fruit then. Rice and oats? Yogurts? Forget it, you'll never lose weight that way.

You should have a high component of fat in your diet if you are eating keto. You re going about it entirely the wrong way. You should limit yourself to 20 grams of carb per day - I use 18 grams daily. Salads and many below ground vegetables are high in carbs and even some above ground vegetables. Fruit, apart from a few berries a day is a no-no from the start. One standard medium tomato has 7 grams of carbs so you are eating about one-third of your daily intake of carbs in just one tomato, That;s just one example. Having a plateful of salad daily is undoing all the other goof stuff you may have done. It's also wasted all your prep time. The aim on the standard keto diet is to eat 70% fat, 20% protein and 10% carbs (by those I mean grams per day), which will depend on your pre-keto weight and the weight you wish to attain. Some people do variations of keto depending on their needs and preferences. Try looking at myfitnesspal.com or fatsecret.com for more information and will also calculate your daily macronutients --- protein, fat and carbs) I started keto on 8th May 2017 (so almost 6 years) and I lost a total of around 55 kilos in total and have maintained that for over 4 years. I just changed my entire way of eating from before and have a large late breakfast, a light lunch and a snack-type dinner. I never eat after 5.30 pm. I don't eat again until about 9 am next day. No late snacks, only a pit of lime juice, ice and soda before bed and DEFINITELY no cheat days, which only cheat yourself. The keto diet is the best thing I have ever done for my health and I'll never go back 'normal' eating which is anathema to good health.

Tell me, did this school's name begin and end with 's' with another 's' third from the end?

This was late 2004/early 2005 when I was on Koh Samui for 3-4 months and the internet was absolutely dire. Skype now installed on phone, tablet and PC and just waiting for my pathetic bank to resurrect my online banking and then I'll add some money to my UK Paypal which currently has £0.06 in it! Or add Paypal as a payee and then transfer when needed.

Ah right, OK. Noted. No, haven't used a landline for about 18 years. But thanks for the suggestion, appreciated.

I do have Skype but haven't used it for years because it was rubbish - feedback, wailing and screeching, all sorts. I have now downloaded Skype but need to top up my credit on the Paypal account and the bank have messed up my online banking dreadfully and I'm waiting for 2 letters to arrive with new log on details, so I can't use online banking for now - hence the lengthy phone calls trying to put things right. Oh, and I use a mobile for calls, not a landline, so why would I need an RJ11 to RJ45 adaptor? Also I think my phone is set up for wifi calling so would it be going through the router anyway?

Thank you for a very lucid and detailed explanation. I understand perfectly now. Are/were you in telecoms? ???? However, I suspect that the very nice Dtac girl may not have had the English skills to explain in the detailed way that you did. However, I got the message and now use only the contact list for dialling. I wasn't exactly saying that they cheated me, but at no stage was it ever explained to me that you shouldn't call from the called numbers list so I was a bit twitchy, this being Thailand and all that ... Anyway, there has been a successful outcome in that Dtac first offered me a 20% discount, but I said I had always believed the calls were 7 baht a minute and I was prepared to pay that. They called me back an hour later and agreed so I am 3,000 baht better off - good old Dtac! ????

I have had to call my UK bank quite a lot recently over the last 3 or 4 weeks as they have cocked things up royally. I've had my number since 2004, when I was told to make cheap international calls to prefix the number with 009 or 004. I was shocked the other day to get an SMS with my calls for the last call period - almost 5,000 baht! The rate was 17 baht per minute and not the 5 baht per minute that it used to be to a landline and 7 baht to a mobile. I called about the bill last week and was told that I should use 004 or 00400 (which still gives the same rate as 004). Calls from mobiles and landlines are now both 7 baht per minute. I changed all my numbers and that's fine. HOWEVER, a warning - I called Dtac service an hour ago asking why the bill was so high and learnt something I had never been told before and it's this, so be careful. IF you make an international call prefixed with either 009 or 004 from your contacts list, you get the cheap rate, BUT if you redial that same number from your calls made list, you pay the full rate of 17 baht! As I say, Dtac had never told me about this, so as using the calls list is more convenient, that's what I did and was hit with the full international rate. I have made a complaint because it smacks of sharp practice to me, and told them that I don't mind paying the 7 baht a minute rate because that's the 004 rate IF you dial from your contacts list. The girl was very nice and has referred my complaint to the billing department, and hopefully I'll get the cheaper rate - like I said, hopefully. So this is a warning to others who make international calls - ALWAYS make the calls from your contacts list and make sure you add the correct prefix from your phone provider. I shall report back with the outcome, hopefully positive. Does anyone else know of this somewhat shady practice?

They are in the UK as well.

Almost the same as me, except that in Thailand I HAVE to teach English because that's what the students want to learn. My French is too rusty to teach that ad I don't speak other popular languages here, such as Chinese and Japanese. I don't teach under 18s either. And I like the fact that I can pick and choose my jobs.

I've heard exactly the same, and also that they are very ageist - no one over 40 ever gets a job with them.

Quite. Agencies and language schools are robbers. Inlingua used to charge students 1,200 an hour, all payable up front. Teaches for about 450 an hour plus an end of curse bonus of 50 baht/hour, but since Covid they've done away all bonuses and reduced the hourly rate. I left them about 10-11 years ago, went freelance and my salary doubled.

Same here. I have ADHD, as does my son (who manages magnificently) and my grandson is severely autistic as well. The problem is the that grandson hates untidiness, so if he sees post lying on the floor, he just bins it. Also his wife is a bitch extraordinaire and hates me and has in the past deliberately thrown away post meant for me. I'm not too keen on her either ...! ????

Right, I think I finally got to the bottom of this today. I spent 1.5 hours on the phone to Santander (my UK bank) this afternoon and they have reinstated the suspended accounts. They'd had my email with the scanned documents from Friday and went through them while I waited and all was correct, so now I can access my money again. AND we think we've got to the bottom of the phone problem. It looks like the numptie who had a pop at me about not answering was using a old UK number which I asked them to delete about 5 or 6 years ago! I have made a complaint about her, at Santander's suggestion. Good-o. The other CS girls were fantastic, amazingly patient, very understanding and the first one today went through every number they had on file and mentioned one ending 7666, which I didn't recognise until it later dawned on me that it was one of those 30 day sims for £20 ($25-ish?) which I had used on a trip back to see my late mother and my children years ago and had obviously expired. They had never deleted it and I'll bet my balls she was using that, as the nice girl said it was the first number on the list. Then Nice Girl even called my spare phone and it rang, so we know they can call Thailand - except the department which was making all the fruitless calls can't call abroad. So that was it. The Thai number wouldn't work so the CS clerk just went for the first UK number she saw - the expired one which wasn't deleted. Dim or what? It was all about the non-receipt of phone calls but that looks to be resolved now the ancient number that should have been deleted was actually deleted. EDIT - just while writing this someone from Santander called to say everything was sorted and they were very sorry, so were crediting my account with £50 (about $75) for my trouble! Valentine's meal tomorrow - yay! Thanks to all who tried to help but I didn't 'need' so-called 'advice' about Wise or a different phone provider or sim card - all off-topic red herrings. Who'd have thought it was all down to an obsolete number they hadn't deleted? Just call me Sherlock!

That sounds like a damn good idea. I'll look into that ASAP. First I want to talk to the very good techie girl from about 3 years ago though, because we need to see what's happening their end too.

I know about the sim, but I'm hoping to chat to the very good lady techie from about 3 years ago later today so maybe she can confirm what you say. But they have known for years that I live in Thailand and never a peep. Anyway, my mate in the UK says I can give his number to the bank and if they call, he'll just say I'm not available but to leave a name and number and I'll call them back. Bloody stupid that they couldn't email me when they couldn't get through though. That's BAD customer services, everything is done electronically these days.

Nope, I've been using Dtac for 19 years without a hitch. I did call Dtac customer service and asked if there was some reason for non-receipt of calls from the UK and he said no, but did reset my number. Anyway, I get other calls from the UK from various people and they all receive fine, I get the ringtone and vibrate as normal. It's GOT to be the bank's phone system and they admitted as much the first time 3 years or so ago, but had no answers. Despite promising to look into it, obviously they haven't. At least the first time, they gave me £200 for the inconvenience! ????