Gambling on Life: Chronic pain and lack of sleep

This post, like others that will follow it, is a continuation of my Gambling On Life series.

Getting a decent nights' sleep is like playing the worst game ever conceived, and the rules keep changing on how to win.

When I was a kid, I preferred sleeping on my stomach.

In my 20s I had to switch to sleeping on my side and using an expensive pillow due to my TMJ disorder.

In my mid-30s I had to start cuddling with a stuffed animal under my arm to help position my shoulder while I slept on my side with my legs specifically arranged to reduce pressure on my knees.

At the start of my 40s I had to sleep with something between my legs to help keep my knees separated.

This week the rules have fucking changed, yet again.

I now can't sleep with something between my knees, and also have to be even more specific on how I position my legs as I sleep on my side; I'm now getting severe pressure pain inside my knees and hips if I place anything between my legs. We're talking about pain so bad - that lasts so long - that I am not going to be able to sleep for at least 12 hours.

This is a song and dance that many of my fellow spoonies are well acquainted with, and we haven't even talked about temperature (cool, but not the mattress itself, just my head/pillow), sheet texture (nerve pain is a bitch, high thread count pls), comforter weight (lightweight, not down), and noise (I sleep with pink noise every night).

I'm also not a cuddle sleeper.. Well, when it comes to living, breathing sleep partners.

The whole stuffed animal thing? Yeah, that's as critical as everything else I listed above, and now I need to buy a new one because the super long stuffed goth axolotl I sleep with is no longer a viable cuddle buddy.

When I cuddle my stuffed animals, I have to curl my arm a very specific way, and the cuddle buddy in question needs to have a certain degree of firmness and a thicker shape in order to help my shoulder hold the right position.

I even have to make sure I have my fingers relatively straight so I don't end up getting them stuck in a fist (and agonizing pain) when I wake up.

Oh, and that expensive pillow I mentioned in my 20s? I keep buying new pillows to attempt to replace it with no success because it absolutely must be this exact firmness and size or I I'll have even more pain.. So I'm still using the second one I bought in my 30s, because they stopped making the thing.

Now I have to go on the hunt for both a new pillow and a new stuffed cuddle buddy.

FML.