AWKWARD ZOMBIE

Yea, I've already started listening to music quieter, so hopefully that helps. I'll get it checked out sometime within the next few weeks. Really, I don't even notice it most of the time, just randomly throughout the day when it's either quiet, or when I'm not really focusing on anything else. Once I notice it though, it doesn't go away for about an hour.

I've never heard of tinnitus going away. Once you get it I'm pretty sure it's there to stay.

Oh hey, I forgot this thread exists.

So there's a chance I might have diabetes. This might suck...

So like

I have this lump on my neck

it's not where any of my lymph glands are, at least I don't think so, and it's about a couple inches below my right ear. It's hard and it hurts a little when I press on it. I'm thinking/hoping it might be a cyst or something? Does this sound like something I should have checked?

Yes. Yes it does. Even just for peace of mind.

Edit: Not sure if you're a college student or not but IF YOU ARE then there should be a student health center (and I don't mean a fancy name for a gym, I mean "where the med students practice") on campus, I would start there.

That sounds like a lymph node and there should be one in that area. You should get it checked anyways, but most likely you have some kind of infection in that area if it's tender.

Cysts aren't usually tender unless they are right against a nerve or are putting pressure on the tissues around them. Doesn't mean this can't be a cyst but it's kinda unlikely.

I looked it up because I've felt something similar behind my left ear lobe. A very small bump under the skin right where the jawbone hinges on the skull. Benign blockages are common, but it won't hurt to get it looked at. I can do exactly that now that I have some form of health insurance.

Unrelated, does anyone else use melatonin as a sleep aid, regularly or irregularly?

I do. You should use it irregularly, about 3 days in a row at most (usually 1 day is enough for me) and try not to do it more than 1-2 times a month, otherwise it can fuck with your natural ability to produce melatonin and give you sleeping problems, kinda like being diabetic.

Only reasons to take it more regularly is if you have a glandular problem and can't produce melatonin yourself. My cousin's kid has a disorder like that that she won't be able to grow out of until she's a teenager at the earliest, so she's on a daily melatonin regimen.

what if you like, can never actually sleep good? i wouldn't call myself insomniac but it takes me fucking AGES to fall asleep unless i'm exhausted and i've considered trying it to see if it helps me not take bodaciously an hour or longer to fall asleep. but this is like......every night

Do you happen to watch TV/use PC/tablet/smartphone w/e before bed?

It's 3 am and I am reading this thread on my tablet in bed. Woops lol.

It's 4:30 AM and I have shit to do tomorrow woops lol.

sleep depends on a lot of factors, like when you eat your first meal of the day and whether you have a "designated place to sleep". Skipping breakfast can mess up your internal clock because if your first meal is noon your body is going to want to stay up until a time where when you fall asleep you'll get up around noon (probably my biggest problem because eating too soon after waking up messes my system up). If you spend a lot of time laying on your bed to watch TV or do things other than sleeping you train your body not to treat the feeling of being in bed with "I'm tired" but rather with "I'm doing things other than sleeping" which can fuck up your sleep. Meditation also helps because we've increasingly gotten to the point where we can't shut down our minds because they're so overstimulated. White noise and quiet music helps in the same way by making the body calm down and let your mind focus on something simple other than thoughts before you drift to sleep. Also try to avoid eating too soon before sleep. Good rule of thumb is to sleep 3-4 hours after a big meal and at least 1-2 hours after a snack/dessert. Otherwise the food can keep you awake or if you do fall asleep you'll sleep poorly when your body is split trying to process your meal while also fixing up things that broke down. Even a solid 8 hours of sleep through this can make you feel lethargic when waking up.

Melatonin works and isn't dangerous, but it shouldn't be used as a cure all to make up for other bad habits. It essentially floods your system with melatonin to "flush out" the system like you would with an oil change, putting you to sleep quickly. When you wake up, be sure to eat, and then take the melatonin again the next night around the same time to try to get a cycle going. Don't take it regularly or else it can mess up your body's natural melatonin drip (your body constantly makes melatonin and once it reaches a certain threshold your body begins to want to sleep, and sleeping flushes the melatonin out, resetting the drip).

If you're having a lot of problems sleeping and it's not really due to habits, melatonin might help, but it might be unrelated aswell. You might have a sleeping disorder and need to seek help fixing it.

yeah i have pretty much all the ~good habits when it comes to sleep....i don't lounge in bed, i pretty much only sleep in bed, i lay in bed in the mornings with my phone but not all day, i frequently miss breakfast but i don't notice a difference when i do eat, i don't eat right before bed, etc etc :< i use a fan for white noise but there's still nights i have to sleep on the futon in another room so i can play an audiobook on my laptop because i can't shut my head down. if there's any kind of irregular noise like a dripping faucet or like in winter when the heat turns off the ducts will pop as they cool and it keeps me awake because i hyperfocus on the sounds. any little light like from a tv or wall charger will keep me awake, not because i can really see it but because i KNOW it's there and for some reason my head's like 'stare at this light for HOURS' so everything has tape on it lmao.

i've never been able to sleep well, even as a kid. like once i GET to sleep i sleep i'm fine, but getting there is a process that's only gotten more touchy as now i have to share a bed with someone who falls asleep normally and makes all kinds of weird noises >> the weird part is that if i'm taking a nap i can bodaciously fall asleep anywhere within seconds. it's for some reason SPECIFICALLY going to bed at night that is a problem.

i probably should see a sleep dr tbh. i never really thought of it as a problem til i started sleeping with kyle and realized that not everyone takes an hour to fall asleep like i do.

weirdly enough, that's also how i found out that having a period for two weeks and passing out from low blood sugar wasn't normal either. my habit of just assuming Things That Are Wrong with me are normal is going to get me killed one day.

I've had the exact same problem and it eventually just went away on it's own. Idk, maybe it's stress-related?