papzombie wrote:robysue wrote:
Some of your problems seem to be related to anxiety in general: It appears you are a worrier.
That's correct, I'm a worrier and pessimist.
There's
good worrying and there's
bad worrying. If you are worrying about things that you can genuinely control and actively working on fixing those things, that's good worrying. But if you are worrying about things that you cannot control or cannot do anything about---particularly at the time you are actually
worrying about them, that's
bad worrying. And if you're doing a lot of
bad worrying while trying to sleep, it aggravates the insomnia problems.
About arousals: It seems I am not a "sound sleeper", meaning that it takes much less time (say 30% comparing to normal persons) for me to change from sleeping to fully awake. That's noted by my wife. My wife got to know me after I started OSA, so probably my easily-awaken brain had been trained by OSA, and now that brain seems still to be too much alert.
This is a common problem in insomniacs. And untreated OSA adds to the problem. You are probably right: Your brain is still being too vigilant when you are asleep because it's having a hard time believing the OSA arousals are no longer happening frequently enough to matter AND because you've got a natural insomniac's problem of just giving in fully to a good, solid continuous sleep. And
bad worrying can contribute to the problem.
I don't seem to be sleepy much after CPAP, only that I always have a feeling of not having slept enough: pressure at the forehead and top of the head, feel just weird.
Don't follow what you mean here.
...
Pressure on the top of the forehead and top of head could be from the mask not being properly adjusted: Review the proper fitting instructions for your mask and make sure it's not over tight.
The worse night, the more visible I see the weird feeling as described here:
viewtopic/t81294/viewtopic.php?f=1&t=11 ... 0#p1103260
The headache pain you describe over on that thread sounds like a plain old garden variety tension headache. As for why it finally goes away around 13:00? I don't know, but tension headaches usually don't last all day.
Why would you be waking up with a tension headache most mornings? Could be from worrying. Could be that you are sleeping in a weird position. Could be you've got trigger points (small muscle knots) in your neck or back that are the real cause of the tension headaches and that your sleep position encourages those knots to form. And there's still the possibility that the mask straps are a bit too tight and putting a bit too much pressure on certain spots of your head.
As for the "brain fog" that accompanies the headaches: Chronic headaches of any sort can make it difficult to concentrate on what you really want to do. Pain, even dull pain, has a funny way of interfering with thinking clearly.
Are you ready and willing to get up after a night of CPAPing at your normal wake up time? Or do you have to be dragged out of bed because you are still exhausted and tired?
Like I said, it's easy for me to get up from bed (I need max 2-3 minutes to actually want to get out, comparing to my wife with 15-20 minutes), but I know I would have the brain functioning only 50%-70% .
Lots of people take a long time to become fully awake in the morning in terms of "brain functioning". And if you are getting up at a time that is not when your body wants to get up, it can take even longer.
What is your usual sleep schedule? When do you usually get to bed? When do you usually get up for the morning?
And if there was nothing at all forcing you to sleep on your usual sleep schedule, when would you prefer to go to bed? And when would you prefer to get up? Are you more of a night owl or a morning lark?
Can you describe the "weird feeling on your head" in more detail? Is it pain? If so, where is the pain located? Is it more an unsettled mood like disorientation from a bizarre and bad dream?
During the whole morning: 9:30 til 12:30, I have a
physical feeling on my forehead and head top: a bit like pressure, a bit like numbness.
Any chance you are sleeping in a weird position that puts pressure somewhere on your shoulders, arms, or back in an unnatural way?
With that there comes a logical feeling: that my thoughts move around in my brain through fog. It seems like there is fog between the neurons, that one neuron does not "see" the other neurons easily, so the signal being transmitted need to reduce it's speed. And actually thinking speed is very low (one time I measure several times a simple calculation like 71-13 = 58 and see the duration of 17 seconds, this I could have done in 1-2 seconds at age 20 (now I'm 40))
I think you are conflating two issues: The physical feeling is most likely coming from the physical position you were sleeping in. The "logical feeling" is most likely coming from whether you are waking up and getting up at a time that best fits your circadian rhythm and/or whether you are just someone who takes a long time to "wake up" on a typical morning.
As for the actual time it takes to do a simple arithmetic problem: I'm not sure that's the best test of "thinking ability." And I think that you've added this to your long list of things to worry about. In other words, if you were less worried about how long it takes to your brain to "think" in terms of things like simple calculations, the better your thinking might actually become. In other words, you may be asking your brain to do too many things at one time because you are asking it to do the
worrying about the thinking/calculation at the same time as
measuring the time the thinking/calculation takes to do and at the same time as
doing the thinking/calculation.
And how did you feel before you started PAPing? Did you wake up feeling awful back then? Do you feel as awful now as you did then? Is the "awfulness" different in some kind way that you can describe in words?
No, the weird feeling on my head stays the same. CPAP only helps reduce sleepiness.
[/quote]The only thing the CPAP is designed to do is to treat the OSA. And if the CPAP has reduced the sleepiness, then it's likely the CPAP is doing its job (and doing it well) when it comes to keeping the OSA under control. My guess is that what you are describing as the "weird feeling on your head" is probably coming from chronic tension headaches. You may want to talk to your doctor about whether you might have chronic tension headaches, and if so, what kinds of things can be done to bring them under control.
Again just to talk about my own medical history for a bit: I have suffered from a number of different kinds of chronic headaches for most of my life---going all the way back to my childhood. I have been officially diagnosed with chronic migraines, chronic tension headaches, and TMJ headaches. I also have seasonal sinus headaches, and a number of things can trigger either migraines or tension headaches including weather changes, noise, light, forgetting to eat a meal, eating too much, too much caffeine, too much alchohol (which can be as little as drinking one full 12 oz bottle of beer or one mixed drink), too much variability in my sleep schedule, and worrying too much about things I can't do anything about. Shortly after starting CPAP, the migraines exploded in terms of frequency and started manifesting themselves as severe vertigo as well as headaches and the TMJ also exploded. It took a good 6-8 months of work on both of them to bring them properly under control. About 12-15 months, the tension headaches exploded. I and my doctor are still working on getting the tension headaches properly controlled. So-called "trigger points" seem to be the root cause of my tension headaches, and so I get regular trigger point injections designed to help release the muscle knots. I also get regular massages for the same reason. With the trigger point injections and the massages, the frequency of the tension headaches has been reduced, but I'm not where we (me, the PA, and the massage therapist) want me to be yet. We're making progress, and in time I am confident that my tension headaches will be as well controlled as my migraines and TMJ headaches are and I will once again be mostly pain free.
