The Family

I had the second part of my sleep study last night. The first half went poorly, worse than it really should have. They rated me at an average of 76 “episodes” an hour. As i understand it, an episode is anything from snoring to leg movement to a disruption in breathing so it is not that big a deal. I asked what was so bad about movement and they said that it disrupts rim sleep. Well… ok… i guess if that is true, too much movement is not good, but some movement is good. Not moving when i sleep means i wake up all stiff and sore.

So, last night they hooked me up to the cpap and changed the setting and watched me sleep. This morning they showed me the graph generated from my sleep. It was interesting… Some things surprised me… like that i tend to breath fast.

I did not feel like i slept well, but when they showed me the graph, i saw that, though early in the night something always interrupted me when i started to go into rim, early in the morning, i went into long periods of rim.

I woke 3 or 4 times in the night with my back hurting. If i had been home i would have moved to the recliner; the recliner always makes my back feel better. But there i pretty much had to try to find a comfortable position and stay in bed. This morning my back hurt pretty bad. It did after the first session too. After the first test a came home and relaxed into the recliner and went right to sleep – slept for 4 hours. This morning i relaxed into the recliner and my back feels much better, but i could not relax into sleep.

You know…. it is not good that i fall asleep during the day. It is not good that there are so many days when i feel like a semi-zombie… the walking asleep. But, it feels so odd when i cannot relax into sleep. I like the feeling of relaxing into sleep. When i relax and remain alert is is odd and unsatisfying. I guess it is normal, though. Perhaps i will get used to relaxing without dozing.

I asked what pressure i slept best at. They showed me my sleep as they gradually raised the pressure and I could see the difference. I started sleeping best at 11, and slept well up to 13 which is as far as they went. That’s probably why i take my cpap off in the night so badly now. It is set at 6… and frankly, when they started me out at 5, it was blowing stronger than my unit at 6.

Frustrating thing is now many times i have tried to get my current unit in to be checked. I know i could have done it if i tried harder, but it seemed like nobody really thought it was important. They would fuss at me for not wearing it, but nobody gave me much reaction when i told them i thought i should have it checked out. Even the people who would be paid to check it gave me the run around. Last night they told me that i should not only have my unit checked every 6 months (though some insurance companies say a year), i should have a new sleep study every year. It has been about 6 years since my other one. I should have been more aggressive.