Post
by Mr Bill » Sun Dec 18, 2011 11:56 pm
I think we blower users have made excursions into sleep deprivation that most people have never experienced. Most of us have probably become somewhat adapted to sleep deprivation and probably also physiologically adapted in our circulatory systems to expect lower SPO2 and possibly higher CO2 levels. According to my respiratory therapist, it can take six months to a year to reset those physiological changes. Consequently, its easy for us to be careless and allow ourselves to get sleep deprived again.
So, I suggest that maybe you are experiencing vertigo because you are just now well rested enough to perceive vertigo. Before, you were so sleep deprived that you were numb to that perception.
Here is some supporting evidence from my experience...
Hmmm, A couple of years ago, I told my doctor I was experiencing vertigo, and odd perceptions that the room dimensions were shifting when I was not looking. It would usually happen when I was standing up, which I am all day long in our lab. I would go to turn slightly and there would be the vertigo. I was also complaining of tingling in my feet. So, we did the whole nine yards. I saw an ENT specialist, then the neurologist who additionally did a nerve conduction test, then an opthamologist. Conclusion, could not find a cause. Around a year later....
In the fall of 2009 I got new cats two kittens who disturbed my sleep quite a bit. I became nearly sleepless just exhausted. I reported to my doctor with symptoms of whole body numbness, extreme lethargy, depression, and vertigo. Another round with my MD and the neurologist who advised me that there was nothing wrong that a little exercise would not cure (I made a point of dropping off a copy of my sleep study later). Well, this gradually passed. Then, finally in fall of 2010 the final crisis of sleep apnea came on with crushing thoroughness and there was no doubt in my mind that I was not sleeping.
My thought, is that all these have an underlying cause, that my sleep efficiency was gradually slipping. When I finally got my ASV it was just in time. I told my sleep tech I had just the day before getting off the parkway stopped in a left turn lane at a traffic light. I closed my eyes just for an instant and fell totally asleep. I woke up in a panic, the turn arrow was green. Nobody was behind me. But for a moment I had no idea how long I had been asleep. It freaked me out but good.
Anyway I felt like I got a weeks worth of sleep in 1.5 hours that I slept in my ASV titration and got my ASV a week later. It was a horrible night falling asleep, but I did. I woke feeling great and then spent the next several months with both insomnia and feeling super tired. I think I had to get enough sleep just to realize how very very sleep deprived I had been. Then I had to overcome the problem that 4 hours of ASV sleep was probably twice what I had been getting prior to therapy (24% sleep efficiency) even if it was not totally restful sleep. Now I cannot really say that I went through a vertigo stage in getting better. But I do get a little tipsy on my feet when I stay up too late. The numbness however, does reoccur. If I have a cold or for whatever reason get less than 4 hours a night on my ASV for say three nights, then I start feeling the numbness in my arms and face. So that is my ding ding alarm that I need to pay attention and get more sleep.
EPAP min=6, EPAP max=15, PS min=3, PS max=12, Max Pressure=30, Backup Rate=8 bpm, Flex=0, Rise Time=1,
90% EPAP=7.0, Avg PS=4.0, Avg bpm 18.3, Avg Min vent 9.2 Lpm, Avg CA/OA/H/AHI = 0.1/0.1/2.1/2.3 ... updated 02/17/12
