So last year I started taking Mirtazapine, and it started as helpful but started to go a bit weird recently.

I was wondering if it was because I take it an hour later every day as my sleep moves as such? Also was wondering if anyone else has the same issues? Or something?

I was told to take it at the same time everyday but i cant as my sleep moves forward bit by bit.

Do I try taking it at roughly the same time or do i keep taking it before i sleep no matter the time?

Is your overall health better if you stay in a 24 hour cycle using any methods or its better when free running?

Just got this place and I didn’t think about needing to black out the bathroom when I did the inspection.

I guess I’m just stuck with it lol.

Around 2.5 meters high, 1.7 meters across.

Wanted to see if anyone here has experience with dealing with non-24 and other health issues like POTS. It's been hard to find people with non-24 that have similar experiences in the medical field as I have. I know I have POTS and VCD. I am working on getting answers on possible Endo, as well as a suspected autoimmune disease as well as suspected diverticulitis. Having non-24 can be hard enough, but then trying to juggle that on top of all of my other health issues just feels impossible sometimes. How does everyone else manage?

whys it so hard to go back to freerunning!! i have no idea where my circadian rhythm naturally is currently but i need to get back to it by the end of this week. how the hell do you guys get back to freerunning after a long period of not being able to?? i havent freerun in years (was in therapy twice a week for a while, and then i started college) so im really shooting in the dark here

I saw my third sleep specialist today and it went poorly, leading me to reflect that things have never gone anything but poorly between me and these people, at least where seeking help or even minimal understanding about N24 were concerned.

The first I saw clearly knew and cared nothing about it. He told me I likely had apnea (correctly), sent me to get a sleep study, and promised to assess me for circadian problems after the apnea matter had been settled. Then when I’d gotten a CPAP machine from the supply store he’d recommended and I went back to see him he told me there was no point in getting an N24 diagnosis until an employer asked me to prove accommodations were needed and he sent me away. He later had his license suspended for having an illegal financial interest in that supply store he’d recommended. His name was Awad and a wad he was.

In lieu of Awad I then saw Dr. Liu. Dr. Liu was also all about apnea and barely listened when I described the circadian problem, especially after I told him melatonin controlled it fairly well in my case. I went back to him annually, though, and he eventually started preaching at me that he’d heard melatonin could actually make you stay up later and I should stop using it. I reminded him that I’d reported on each of my last seven visits that that had not been the case for me, and that it’s controlled my forward roll since 2012. I had to repeat this a lot of times, in fact, and even then he shook his head doubtfully. My best guess is that he’d heard, in some garbled rumor version, of the finding that very tiny amounts of melatonin taken very late can cause phase delays in some people. The answer there is to just take your tiny dose earlier or take a larger late dose, not throw out our one medication!

My bigger problem with him (I’m glossing over lots of tiny ones with all three of these people and sticking to substantial malpractice) involved Quviviq. I explained to him that the Dayvigo my GP had prescribed for times when I had to recover from the significant sleep debt caused by occasions forcing me to stay up late (e.g. our good buddy Spring Forward) had the Achilles heel of sticking around in the system way too long. A cousin drug with a much shorter half-life had been approved a few months before, so could I try that? He hemmed and hawed, said he didn’t prescribe things himself, recommended all the sleep drugs I’d already told him hadn’t worked for me, said he only liked to prescribe things he’d tried himself and that Dayvigo hadn’t worked for him. Most amazingly, he said that no drug company representative had come around to explain Quviviq to him and give him samples.

Finally he told me he’d send my GP instructions to let me try it. When he still hadn’t done that after two weeks I called to politely remind him. His receptionist called back to tell me she’d told him, and he’d responded by saying, “He doesn’t get to decide. I decide.”

I naturally assumed that was that, but the next time I saw my GP, about eight months later, she said he’d sent instructions after all. They were for a dose of the pill that does not exist, and he’d also said I should chop it up into small pieces. I do this with Dayvigo to try to reduce its half life problem, was I guess his logic, but as Quviviq is not scored this is apparently not something doctors are allowed to endorse, so my GP said she couldn’t follow this instruction.

When I went back to see Liu he told me he did not treat insomnia. I asked him to refer to someone who did, preferably someone with experience with circadian disorders. He said he knew of one, Dr. Chan.

When I told Dr. Chan I have Non-24 Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder she explained to me with great assurance that no I don’t, as only blind people have that. She made up a different name for what I had, and explained it in a way that seemed closer to Delayed Phase to my ear. When I asked if that’s what she meant she said yes, and then talked about how teenagers have it. I very politely objected that that was more about falling asleep at 2 AM each night, whereas mine— and she interrupted that many of those teenagers went on to college and stayed up too late, till 4 or 6 AM, or, um, maybe later. We then moved on. She proceeded to recommend every treatment under the sun for Non-24, despite my explaining as often as possible and with as many different phrasings as I could think of that melatonin has worked for me for 12 years and I wasn’t seeing her about a front-line N24 treatment but instead about making up lost sleep on a few occasions per year. She did what Liu did, go through all the hypnotics one by one that I’d already explained did not work for me, then added another, Ativan, the benzo formulated to treat panic attacks, on the grounds that I sure seemed anxious about my sleep. She eventually decided to refer me to a clinic downtown where the person who’d taught her “all about circadian disorders” worked. Googling it in front of me, she noted that he seemed to have retired and they don’t have any psychiatrists any more, just a psychologist, so who knows if that will get me anywhere, but by then I was happy enough to be dealing with anyone who wasn’t her. I did ask her her thoughts about Quviviq at that point. She said she wasn’t familiar with it because she mostly treated people who slept too much.

I was lucky that I didn’t need help with N24 proper from any of these people. They seem to listen very little, know even less, and admit their lack of knowledge essentially never. Their terror at the prospect of learning anything about newer sleep drugs, even ones no one’s found any dirt on, is matched only by their cheerful diligence shilling old ones actually known to be fairly dangerous on any long-term basis. The best thing I can say of them, past that they know where you can buy CPAP machines, is that they’re happy to pass the buck. I’m sure there’s competent sleep specialists out there. Perhaps I’ll meet one someday.

Hey, I tried to search to see if anybody made a post like this but when I use therapy as a search term it just comes up with a bunch of posts about light/dark therapy (understandably). But I'm wondering if anyone has figured out how to do meetings with a therapist when you have non-24?

I used to do therapy before I knew what was wrong with my sleep and I missed a lot of appointments and that's not good because the paper said they are entitled to remove you as a client if you miss too many sessions. That was back then, I quit therapy but I want to start again with a different therapist.

Problem is obviously I have trouble predicting my sleep cycle so I can't guarantee I will be awake at certain times and I really despise sleep deprivation, so I don't want to have to keep using energy drinks to keep my awake to meet appointments on the regular.

So is there a solution to this dilemma? I'm not doing well mentally and I really don't think it is going to get better if I don't get help. So is there a way I can talk to a therapist through email or something so I don't have to necessarily be awake during the scheduled time? I can write it when I am awake and they read and respond when they are on the job? Is this a weird accomodation to ask for? Is there a better way? I feel kind of lost here.

Thank you.

I really can’t imagine a life outside of it, I spend most days inside, it gets isolating but I’m honestly quite content. I’m also autistic, so having every other week to completely cool off in dead silent night, with low light intensity & no one to perceive me, I feel so content with this part of my life.

Yea it gets in the way, way more often than not. And I would have probably loved having a normal life, with a job & actual income, it would’ve been really nice.

But that’s not something I could’ve kept up with in the SLIGHEST due to my other disabilities, (ie autism adhd + chronic pains + 2 suspected syndromes that are period pain related)

Is it wild for me to say I don’t want a cure for n24? I will always put curing my other syndromes and illnesses above curing n24, (I did not feel this way before, I have shown clear n24 since I was 12, and I have been resentful and upset and grieved the life I could’ve had countless times. But after I got my diagnosis, there’s been an immense sense of peace)

I ‘lose’ 3 weeks every single month minimum, due to n24 and my period pain, but the moment I can finally get my pains resolved I think I will be really happy with where my life is at, I am happy living like this.

I’m not sure if tagging this as success story is quite right, but coming to terms with this disorder & realizing I can still be happy with my life, and even learn to benefit from the parts I dreaded feels like a success

I've used it for years for the "charts, graph" which showed the hours I had slept, to keep record for my neurologist and to try to do math for myself to predict my schedule a little.

they now removed that feature and have "actigraph" instead.

is there any other app that has the simple graph showing sleep hours over weeks, months, years? I don't know what to do now. I can't remember to keep a paper log and haven't found any other way to keep track.

There are 2 glasses that LRQ3000 recommends in the protocol (laser protector and uvex blue light blocker). Is there anyone who bought these from the links in the protocol? These are only 13 dollars (uvex blue light glasses) and 10 dollars (freemascot laser safety). Frankly, they seem very cheap. and I wanted to get confirmation from people here about whether it really works or not. I talked to lrq3000 in a post, but I think he couldn't get back to me because he's busy right now.

There are 2 glasses that LRQ3000 recommends in the protocol (laser protector and uvex blue light blocker). Is there anyone who bought these from the links in the protocol? These are only 13 dollars (uvex blue light glasses) and 10 dollars (freemascot laser safety). Frankly, they seem very cheap. and I wanted to get confirmation from people here about whether it really works or not. I talked to lrq3000 in a post, but I think he couldn't get back to me because he's busy right now.

Are any of you guys on SSRIs and have gone off of them? Has it helped. Is there any link of ssris to N24? Are there a lot of people with N24 on antidepressants? I’ve been on them most my life since I was a teenager. I went off for a little while a couple years ago and it didn’t seem to help. There’s another med I’m thinking of trying that isn’t an SSRi (vybrid) but is similar as an antidepressant.

I could also try Abilify, Modafinil, or something else. I know those are 2 very different meds. I’m on fluoxetine and a very small dose of Caplyta which actually helps me stay asleep somewhat. I take that off label just as an add on (I don’t have bipolar that I’m aware of). I would assume I’d need to go off that to get on abilify since it is similar. I also take Quivivic even though it doesn’t do much for me. I’m on a generic allergy over the counter med too. I don’t want to be on a lot of meds even though I am now. side effects seem to usually get me.

I am diagnosed with N24 and have been free running for a couple years. I failed at entrainment, probably my own fault because I just can't stand hours of light therapy. I have had a fairly predictable 1.5 hour change every night. In mid August I got COVID and as I expected, my sleep was pretty disordered for a few weeks. And then for the first 2 weeks of October I had visiting relatives so I did my best to get up in the morning to be with them. I expected a couple weeks of chaotic sleep after they left. But it's been almost 2 months and I can't get back on schedule. Sometimes it seems like I just woke up and my body demands that I sleep again. I can't find the right time for sleep. This is my chart since October when the chaos began. Does anyone have any suggestions?

From all of my research and finally realizing how important it would be to track my sleep, I think I’ve figured it out.

I believe I have n24. Here’s a screen grab of my sleep tracker from Fitbit. (I love seeing everyone’s sleep cycles, so if you have yours please share!)

I’m not sure how to go about getting diagnosed. Do I just go to my primary doctor and ask them to refer me to a sleep specialist? Is it even worth it?

I am female, sighted, age 28, and have been free running for 6 years.

What causes it? I’m sort of not talking about n24, I’m talking about yes24

Hey everyone, I’ve been on Hetlioz for about a month now, and I wanted to share my experience so far. The good news is that my circadian rhythm seems to have stabilized—I’m actually falling asleep around 10 p.m. and waking up at 6 a.m., which is a huge change for me. But the downside is that I’m feeling completely drained during the day. The fatigue is pretty intense, and it’s making it tough to function.

That said, I’m sticking with it for now, hoping that the daytime exhaustion will improve over time. I really want this medication to work and help me feel truly rested. If anyone has questions or wants to share their experiences, I’m happy to chat!

Ignore the big gap I got a new phone and lost data

I'm so tired of this. I'm 16, but i havent gone to school since June. I'm a dropout. I can't get a GED or anything similar where I live. I don't know what to do.

Im mostly sure that waht i have is N24, since it cycles around the clock, but I think it stays in its like DSPD like phase much more than its ASPD phase. kinda like how those loading loops on websites kind of like slow down at one part of the circle then whip through the next part quickly if that makes sense.

I don't have access to a doctor. From 2022 to 2024 (when my school was finally reopened after lockdown) I had to spend multiple days awake just to go to school. Or I just wouldn't wake up. I sleep very very deeply and no amount of alarms or shaking me awake or anything short of kicking me out of bed will wake me up, and even the hitting had only a 30ish% success rate. I went to school for 2 years, during y9 and y10, in agony. We had compulsory saturday classes so that just made it worse. For exam weeks I'd stay awake for up to ten days or I would've failed the whole year. No accomodations and my parents hate me for being like this so they won't do anything but punish me and put me down. I had a mouth full of ulcers, a good ten of which are still here like 6 months later. I think I really fucked up my digestive system too. I would throw up near daily, had horrible brain fog, was forced to eat even when I felt so sick I was dizzy from it, and overall I never want to go back to that.

I'm so scared for the future. Here, colleges don't offer online courses unless youre doing masters, and they don't have later course timings. If i somehow ridiculously even pass the like A Level equivalents and get into a college, I know it's only going to be a matter of time until I drop out because I can't do a 4 year course. That's impossible. If I tried I would end up dead, and I am serious when I say that. My body won't survive that and my mind wont either. When I was younger I still got a good 4 hours of sleep, so throughout primary school I was tired but it was doable. When I started year 7 about 7 months before lockdown hit it was significantly worse and my good days consisted of 2 hours of sleep and they were so rare. I skipped school regularly then. During lock down I never attended online school, just slept through it. I was punished for the way I slept starting 7th grade because that was when it got bad. I got very good grades all my life, thanks to my ability to cram everything on the night of an exam, but this year I haven't been to school. I have textbooks but I don't see the point of setting myself up for more disappointment and pain. I doubt I'll even be able to give final exams in 12th grade, because they're 6 days in a row and I know damn well that I'll inevitably miss at least one exam. I can't stay up for that.

I don't see a way for this to work in my country. nobody i know in real life is supportive or understanding. I am shunned, ridiculed, blamed and abused for this. doctors where i am say i just need to exercise and nobody will believe me when i say that doesnt help. im not even sure they know n24 exists tbh.

I've reached rock bottom. I genuinely really really don't want to be alive anymore tbh. I don't want to live like this. I hate it, i hate myself. So many times I've contemplated just ending it. So many fucking times I've watched the clock tick to 6am 7am 8am 9am 10am and sobbed in the bathroom because why cant i just do something as small as sleeping right? I used to be so firm about this not being a personal flaw, and rationally i know it isn't, but I've endured so fucking much and have listened to my parents and relatives say such horrible hateful things and i know it's gotten to me because my thoughts say the same things they do. I just don't want to live like this. Im sorry this post is so depressing but I don't know where else to say this cuz nobody gets it.

I wish It was possible for us to live a normal life. I wish timing didn't matter so much. I wish everything was 24/7 and you could just walk into any place and do what you gotta do even at 3am. Im not even allowed to leave the house after 6pm cuz it's dark and im a girl. I hate this stupid fucking system and this stupid fucking society.

Im sorry im being so whiny im just so so tired. :(

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New member here! I wanted to share my story and be a little vulnerable since Reddit offers a little more anonymity than the Facebook support group does. I’m clinically diagnosed with Non24 as of early 2021 but I believe I have had it since I was in my early 20’s. I believe I “caused” my Non24 from my DSPS when I would use Chronotherapy ( I didn’t know that was a thing when I did it) to “reset” my sleep. I have always struggled with my sleep even as a child. As a teenager (about high school age) I started to see a therapist who prescribed me sleep medications and told me I had insomnia. Ever since my teens, I have completely relied on sleep medications to sleep. I do feel like using sleep medications are looked down on a bit in the non-24 community so I have been hesitant to talk about this. I do know using sleep medications is the only reason I am able to hold any kind of job. But I also know that it also is responsible for a lot of other problems that affect my job and daily life. For example, sleep medications make it slightly easier for me to entrain for several nights at a time but I am usually groggy and sleepy most of the day after I wake up. I know it also can cause me to oversleep which really delays my sleep even more. I am wondering if anyone else has a similar experience and if they were able to kick the sleep medications and how that affected their Non24. I’m really struggling with balancing my sleep cycle and jobs at the moment. For a while, I was working 2 jobs: 1 a contractor job where I could be hired any day and time I have availability set for and a graveyard shift at Walmart for 2-3 nights a week. This worked for me relatively well because I could try to have a day walker schedule for a few days a week while my cycle would shift to later and later wake times and then I would switch over to nights completely when I worked my shifts at Walmart. Then after my shift, I would do a hard “reset” where I would stay up as late as I could and start over. As unhealthy as it sounds this worked for me for several years. I have recently left Walmart and have started a new job that is basically gig work. I can bid for jobs when I want which is great but I also still have open availability for my contractor job to try to get as much work as possible. So sometimes I get booked for an appointment at 11am when I am on a day sleeping schedule.   Without the opportunity to shift my schedule like I was doing when I worked both a day and night shift I feel like I have lost all control of my sleep. I try hard to hold it where I am going to bed around 2-3am but I’m usually struggling to keep it around 4-6am and I have been waking up 2-3pm. My therapist has suggested that I try to apply for disability so that I can supplement my income so that I can freely rotate without worrying about losing out on possible income. I am trying to start the process but reading about all the frustrations and stories people share about it I am starting to lose hope.

it really gets depressing after a while :(

I haven’t been diagnosed with Non-24 but i strongly suspect I have it or some other sleep disorder.

I am extremely lucky to have a 9am-5pm office job and a boss who is extremely lenient. I often show up 2 hours late, but it’s never been mentioned as a problem because I get my work done and stay late if I need to. But if I have an important meeting at work in the morning, I’m usually able to wake up and get there on time. I’m not able to fall asleep any earlier, but I can wake up. (If I don’t have anything scheduled, I just sleep through the alarms and don’t have any recollection of turning them off when I DO wake up.)

Does anyone have a similar experience? Or does this not seem to line up with the N24 experience? (I’m hoping I can get an appointment with a sleep specialist soon to discuss all of my symptoms holistically, but I just wanted to know if anyone else was similar to me in this way.)

I don't understand how you can run a study like this and NOT mention people with N24. I mean, first of all, what kind of people are just pushing their bedtime around on a permanent basis because wow, it would be nice to have a choice, and second... no mention of blind people or... these studies are so damned bad it makes me upset. Ugh. /*rant off

I have not read the study myself, but judging from the scientist speaking in this article, I don't even need to bother. -_-

https://www.theguardian.com/society/2024/nov/26/irregular-sleep-pattern-raises-risk-of-stroke-and-heart-attack-uk-study-finds

I'll 'fix' my sleeping, as in it will go back to the normal time by staying up for a good couple of days maybe 4-5days then it will slowly switch back again, like I'll stop having deep sleeps in the night and wake up early so that I'll start sleeping throughout the day, so then I won't sleep during the night and then it just completely goes back to normal of having no set routine. This genuinely feels unbeatable. I'll enjoy it, but I know that it's creeping back up, and it will switch back. It's tiring. I can feel my body just not wanting to be in a normal routine( its never a consistent sleep/wakeup time eithe), and the nights I sleep on the normal times, im detached throughout the day like my body is still asleep. So it's not even that when it is fixed, it's 'fixed, I'm just still suffering with the shitty effects of this throughout the day anyways, the groggy detached shittyness of it all.

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Did you go through an attorney? How did you find the right attorney? What documentation did you compile for them? What was the process like? What benefits did you get?

In January 2024, I had the privilege of being interviewed by Zeit Wissen, one of Germany’s most respected science communication magazines, about my experience living with the sighted form of the Non-24-Hour Sleep-Wake Disorder. To mark the International Non-24 Awareness Day (November 24), I am excited to share these publications, which I have transcribed and translated into English with the help of artificial intelligence and some manual corrections. Here’s what you can explore:

• A 20+ minutes podcast episode:
  You can download the audio file here and add English subtitles here or German subtitles here.

• An in-depth article from the magazine:
  You can read the English translation here or the original German version here. This piece delves into the scientific aspects of how our behaviors and health are influenced after midnight (or by circadian misalignment), featuring perspectives from several esteemed sleep researchers and physicians.

These publications are notable as it is extremely rare to see stories about sighted non-24 in mainstream medias, and here the sighted nature of my condition was not only mentioned but especially emphasized.

Please note that I do not necessarily endorse all the information presented regarding sleep mechanisms and disorders, as my experience was just one among many sources they consulted.

Also please note I did not proofread everything and I do not have the linguistic proficiency in German to be able to ensure correctness of the translation, so these are only provided for information, and they do not necessarily reflect the quality of the original Zeit Wissen works and there is no guarantee of accuracy or of correctness.

I would like to extend my heartfelt gratitude to Dr. Max Rauner, Nina Lennartz, and the entire Zeit Wissen team for the interview and for the permission to publish these documents. Their openness, professionalism, and deep engagement made this collaboration truly exceptional. They were very open and actively listening to what I had to say with no preconception. It was an honor to work with such a talented and scientifically rigorous team.

If you appreciate these works and are German-speaking, please support the journal Zeit Wissen by reading them or with a subscription:

https://www.zeit.de/wissen/zeit-wissen/index