I dont want pills off the Dr

[catz1963]

I don't want to go to the Dr again about sleep problems as he just offers sleeping tablets. I have tried everything to improve my sleep short of moving to a separate room. I have replaced the mattress twice! I have swapped my night time reading to a paperback.I have turned the heating off overnight. I dont drink alcohol, I only have one caffinated coffee and thats to help wake me up in the morning.
Most nights I go off to sleep quickly but an hour or so later I'm awake and find it hard to get back to sleep. If I haven't got back of by 3 am I usually get up have a milky drink, read for a bit and then return to bed and try it all again. My average night of deep sleep is 4hrs but this is made up of 20 mins sometimes less here and there not solid sleep.
In the past I had a frozen shoulder and I also have trapped nerves in the neck along with athritis in the neck. I cannot lie on my back as my hands go to sleep. I can only lie on my side (either side) for a limited time as it affects my neck so I toss about all night long. Usually by 4am my knees will start complaining too so then I have more pain to contend with. I have tried over the counter medications which aim to get me back to sleep if I wake up in the night but they arn't working.
Last night for example I woke up 12 times after falling asleep at 11:40.
I go to bed around 11am and aim to get up at 8am but other house memers are up from 6am to 7.30.
I don't think I can avoid seeing the Dr for much longer but I'm not looking forward to it.

[Dr Neil Stanley]

It would seem that your pain is a significant contributor to your poor sleep, so I would suggest going to your GP and stressing this aspect rather than the poor sleep as there are treatments that can successfully treat paid and well as helping your sleep. Also if you think separate bedrooms would help, then go for it, sleeping separately is a perfectly pragmatic solution