Sleep Study and Sleeping Disorders

my hubby is having a sleep test done some time in the next few weeks. he is NOT looking forward to sleeping in a strange place, with strange people and wires and gadgets hooked up to him....

I hope you figure out what is going on with your sleep...such a bummer when you don't sleep.

I sleep - to deeply, since my illness.

That is sort of how my husband is. He can't fall asleep but once he gets asleep, you CANNOT wake him up. It's crazy.

I had 2 sleep studies a couple of years ago, and I am slated for another one in a week or two. The place for the study is very comfortable, (it is like a nice motel room). If you want, they give you a mild sleeping pill.

I think that I slept for a few hours, got up, and went back to sleep for another few hours. The first sleep study determines whether you have a sleep disorder. If you do, you go for another sleep test using a C-Pap machine. The techs adjust the strength of the air, and determine which one is best for you.

So I got home yesterday took a small 1/2 hr nap about noon yesterday, last night and it took until 1:00am or later to fall a sleep. frustrating

sleep srudy said I was out 239 minutes in the 10 hour period

Re: Sleep Study and Sleeping Disorders



lol

A friend of mine used to work as a doctor with a sleeping test ward.

So his stories are my only experiences so far.
I would have sincere difficulties, I think.

Friday pm Doc sent me home with the trial CPAP (sp) the one that monitors and adjusts for demand and records so they can download the data. I slept until about 3:00am and awoke with a massive headache so stopped using the CPAP.
Night 2 about an hour away.

I have gone to sleep easily enough some nights and tossed and turned many others. No matter how well the sleep, I usually wakened and was miserable from about three to waking at five. Then I discovered walnuts and milk. Two to four ounces of ground nuts blended with an equal amount of low fat or skim milk. The first three or four nights I did barely better. But since then I sleep really well.

Why did you try milk and walnuts?

I read about it in an article by David Williams, of Alternatives Magazine. He suggested experimenting with added ingredients, such as a tad of honey, ground flax seeds, whatever. But the walnuts are the essential ingredient.

husker- The C Pap takes some getting used to. I will sometimes take a tranquillizer, if I have a problem getting to sleep with the CPap on. All in all, I DO feel much better, and perkier sleeping with the CPap. (BTW, my new test showed that I needed to raise the air level just one notch from the first test)

Sometimes you have to experiment with different kinds of masks until you find one that is most comfortable for you.

night #2 welcome to my present hell
awoke about 4:00am - felt like my nose was burning (wind burnt), inside and out. Looked in the mirror and my nose is swelled up. debating today if I should try it again tonight.

Wondering if that was a reaction to the rubberized nose fitting??

That sounds horrible, Husker.

Ran across the New York Times article on sleep deprivation, think it's in tomorrow's paper. Link -- I think people need to register to read the nyt on line.

http://query.nytimes.com/mem/tnt.html?pagewanted=1&tntget=2004/10/12/health/12snoo.html&tntemail0

I'm not a member

OK, it's not toooooo long, I'll cut and paste. I don't like to register at a lot of sites either, though I do for the NYT and WPost.

It's not exactly your situation, Husker, but an allied subject...



The New York Times

October 12, 2004

Snooze Alarm Takes Its Toll on a Nation
By MARTICA HEANER

When his clock-radio goes off at 7 a.m., David Epstein's latest wake-up strategy roars into high gear: he stumbles out of bed, walks across the room and pushes the snooze button. Then he climbs between the sheets.

A few minutes later, his travel clock rings. He presses snooze and rolls over for more sleep - until the alarm on his BlackBerry goes off. Sitting up, he punches keys to reset it for 10 more minutes, then it's back to the pillow.

The pattern repeats amid a cacophony of assorted rings until his real wake-up time, 8 a.m.

In a nation that clocks around six to seven hours of sleep a night when an average of eight hours is recommended, it is a rare person who wakes up without an alarm. And because it is usually a struggle, pushing snooze to delay the day has become as much a part of the wake-up ritual as a cup of coffee.

But is a bumpy arousal for 30, 60 or even 90 minutes a way to recoup much-needed sleep? Or is it a recipe for exhaustion?

Although scientists have not specifically tackled the question, sleep researchers agree that short bouts of sleep are far from ideal. The restorative value of rest is diminished, especially when the increments are short, said Dr. Edward Stepanski, who has studied sleep fragmentation at the Rush University Medical Center in Chicago. And a teeter-totter effect of dozing and waking causes shifts in the brain-wave patterns.

"Even a subtle noise that doesn't actually wake you up is disruptive enough to affect the sleep quality," Dr. Stepanski said. "That's why someone who falls asleep with the TV on may wake up exhausted. So, if a person is rousing themselves enough to reset a clock, there's likely to be an even more profound effect."

It is an axiom of sleep research that not all sleep is equal. A night's sleep is divided into five continually shifting stages, defined by types of brain waves that reflect either lighter or deeper sleep. Toward morning, there is an increase in rapid eye movement, or REM sleep, when the muscles are relaxed and dreaming occurs, and recent memories may be consolidated in the brain. Sleep-deprived snooze-button addicts are likely to cut short their quota of REM sleep, impairing their mental functioning during the day.

How tired a person is when the snooze-button frenzy begins is important, experts say. Someone who got a full eight hours of sleep may push the snooze button, but won't nod off again that easily, Dr. Stepanski said. And some people seem to be more tolerant of short-term sleep loss.

But the person who has been getting too little sleep for too long may be a wreck, especially by Friday after racking up a large sleep debt during the week.

To complicate matters, feeling alert is not just a matter of getting the right dose of different kinds of sleep. The body has its own alarm clock, a circadian rhythm in which fluctuations in hormones like cortisol, melatonin, ghrelin and growth hormone regulate sleepiness and alertness, as well as other body functions.

And sleep patterns can run on a schedule different from a person's body clock. Trying to sneak in more sleep when someone is used to getting up early can cause the body to switch to an alert mode, making any extra sleep light and fragmented, said Dr. Timothy Roehrs, the director of research at the Sleep Disorders and Research Center at Henry Ford Hospital in Detroit.

On the other hand, if someone's body is on a later cycle from habitually staying up late, waking up early is that much harder because the body is not yet pumping out peak levels of cortisol and other hormones that help wake people up.

Still, most hard-working people cope, managing to live in what researchers agree is a perpetual sleep-deprived state. They mask fatigue by keeping themselves alert with a variety of stimuli, like caffeine, exercise or simply keeping busy. Some people with sleep debts do not consider themselves tired, believing that they are functioning normally, said Dr. David Dinges, chief of the sleep and chronobiology division at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine.

But evidence is mounting on the behavioral risks of long-term partial sleep deprivation. Not getting enough sleep day after day takes its toll. And it is not only medical interns and truck drivers doing double shifts who can suffer from serious mistakes at work because of it.

In the August issue of the journal Sleep, Dr. Roehrs published one of the first studies to measure the effect of sleepiness on decision making and risk taking.

Dr. Roehrs and his colleagues paid sleepy and fully alert subjects to complete a series of computer tasks. At random times, they were given a choice to take their money and stop. Or they could forge ahead with the potential of either earning more money or losing it all if their work was not completed within an unknown remainder of time.

"The alert people were very sensitive to the amount of work necessary to finish and the risk of losing their money if they didn't," Dr. Roehrs said. "The more work they had, the more apt they were to stop. Without fail, the sleepy people chose to quit when it was optimal to continue, and they gambled losing it all by trying to finish the task for more money even when it was 100 percent likely that they would be unable to finish."

Numerous studies have documented sleep impairments on memory, reaction time, comprehension and attention. Even emotional states can be affected. One of the first signs of sleep debt is irritability and increased depression, said Dr. Arthur Spielman, a professor of psychology and sleep researcher at City College of New York.

"Creativity and a zest for life are also dampened," Dr. Spielman said. "You just don't feel like doing much."

Moreover, there is a growing realization that chronic sleep loss affects health, from minor disturbances like a headache to an increased risk for obesity, diabetes and cardiovascular disease.

So what is a sleepy person to do? Start paying back sleep debt, for starters, experts say. Turn off David Letterman and get to bed half an hour earlier. Night owls who do not feel sleepy should cut off the stimulation: turn off the lights and television and lie in bed with closed eyes for one minute to unmask their sleepiness, Dr. Spielman recommended.

He added that those who still found it hard to get to sleep early at night should wake up early and experience morning light to reset the body clock.

After a couple of weeks, they will feel more tired in the evening and go to sleep earlier, making it easier to get up the next day, he added.

And come morning, setting the clock for only 10 minutes earlier than the optimal wake-up time, allowing for only a single opportunity to press the snooze button, will provide the most restorative period of solid sleep.

Of course, waking at the last possible minute requires a leap of faith.

"I'm not convinced that this would work because I don't trust myself to get up," Mr. Epstein admitted. "Besides, I like to ease myself out of bed. When that alarm rings, I would sell my soul for an extra 15 minutes of sleep.

"So, by setting my clocks an hour earlier, I get to wake up and know that I can go back to bed. It feels really good."

husker- Is it possible that you were given the wring sized mask that caused the irritation? You also could possibly be allergic to the latex.

Does your C Pap machine have a humidifier? Mine did, but it was a pain to keep cleaning it. So I asked my doc if I could do without it. I don't use it any more, and in the morning, I spray my nose with Ayr, which is a simple saline solution, to prevent dryness in the nasal tissues.