Slept 14 hours straight still tired

[OCNorsk]

I wasn't diagnosed with thyroid problems by an MD. I went to an alternative health care provider. It's not normally what I would do, but I'd had it. I took some homeopathic supplements, and it helped. It's like when I knew I had apnea and needed an intervention but I couldn't get it, I just kept getting suggestions.

Just a smoking note: A couple years ago, a friend of mine, a 23 year old smoker, went on a big vacation trip to China with the whole family. They went to the Great Wall of China and this guy's aunt, 60 years old climbed up with no problem. My friend, huffed and puffed and was really winded, and embarrassed. He quit smoking after that, because he figured at 23 he was in worse shape than a 60 year old. He joined the Mud Run at Camp Pendleton this year.
Maybe that's contributing to your fatigue.

[OCNorsk]

PS

Allergies. Sometimes the only symptom is fatigue. I get a little zap of Astelin every day.

[fidelfs]

Just one more thing, take a look at this website http://www.stopthethyroidmadness.com/

I am lucky that my home practice doctor, listen to me and he allowed me to have different blood test like free T3, etc. He does not go all the way, because I still have some symptoms with my thyroid.

I started my journey in 2002, (I am male, 48). First I was concern that I was loosing my short term memory. My mother died of Alzheimer hence my concern. I went to several doctors, they always mentioned sleep apnea but I didn't pay much attention.

In 2006 it was terrible, I couldn't remember a simple thing, I didn't make sense when I was talking, because I was using the wrong words. i.e. I was talking about dogs and I was calling them buildings, I was terrified.

That year was when I discovered my hypothyroid problem, I felt much better after taking thyroid medicine, but not fully cure, I was diagnosed with pre-diabetes (One of the worst Endo doctors, I have met. She saw me overweight and she could not see pass that and misdiagnosed), my family doctor ran some diagnostics and found out of my low testosterone, low testosterone creates sugar blood problems so after treating it my pre-diabetes went away.

Finally I am in CPAP, my sleepiness was to much so I went to the sleep study.

I am not trying to hack your post, but I want to show how hormones can create havoc in your body and sometimes you get misdiagnosed, the only person who really cares about you, it is you. Ask questions to doctors, if you don't like the answer, ask again or get a new doctor. The best gauge to measure your health is body symptoms. Hope you find your problem a solution.

[sagesteve]

Also, with that many hours of sleep? You build up carbon dioxide in your blood. This too leads to your feeling like 1000 pounds. I also felt similar when I started. I use oxygen in my cpap therapy. I get 7 hours straight sleep. I USED to sleep 12, 15 hours in the old days when I was younger...I felt like you did. I was able to sleep like that because I basically retired by the time I was 32 and then completely retired at 43 (I'm 62 now). I've worked out the problems over the past 2 years using this forum and researching everything on the net. (Don't be affraid to type in ANYTHING in your search engine that you want to find out about [always cross reference]). Now I feel FANTASTIC!! Here's something new on the scene I just found and WOW!! It WORKS:
http://www.iherb.com/Madre-Labs-CocoCep ... 21013?at=0

[BlackSpinner]

If your labs are normal, then how were you diagnosed low thyroid ?? I've read where patients had normal labs, but treated according to the symptoms expressed by the patient.

My daughter has thyroid problems. She tested low last year and got meds for it but this year is tested normal when she had all the symptoms again. So the dr increased her meds and she is feeling better. Luckily our Dr also has a low thyroid issue so she automatically tests all her patients for it.

A note about thyroid meds - they MUST be taken on an empty stomach at least an hour before eating and don't take calcium within 4 hours.

[Mtnviewer]

I'd suggest that you start analyzing your sleep data more seriously. If I had your numbers then I too would be very tired. Some folks might be fine with those, or think that they are fine, or feel better than they used to, but you and your body may not be getting regenerative sleep and that is just from one night of data that you shared. Perhaps other nights are better or even worse and without checking you won't know.

My other thought is that if you are in some sort of deeper sleep than you were, or less disrupted, then perhaps you are not noticing your body posiiton during those times of apneas. I found that that suddenly my numbers were as high as yours, I too was feeling more tired and for a while I couldn't figure out how to get the numbers lower, that is fewer apena events. Then by chance, I woke up a couple of times on my back, or even partially on my back and I checked my #'s on my machine at that point of waking and sure enough, the numbers were higher for that session. I started to investigate my body position during sleep more than changing pressures or masks or many other things that I was trying. If I had a video recorder I could have confirmed my suspicions, but after much trial and error, I finally found a way to prevent or seriosly limit being on my back and 97% of the time my numbers are below 1 and very often near 0, and very often with 0 or 1 apneas and a few hypopneas and at a pretty low pressure of 8 (90% of the time) and up to 9 on APAP and I feel more rested.

So perhaps another clue is to check out your data more often and figure out a way to check your body position during the apnea events and see if like me, they are causing your events and so your disrupted sleep.

As I improve my sleep, I find that smaller changes cause me to sometimes feel more tired than before PAP therapy, as now I know the difference, whereas before, I thought that chronic fatigue was my normal. So at least for me, AHI's of 5.6 would not be good.


Good luck in solving your mystery, but I hope that you don't give up on the detective work, as really, only you can figure it out for yourself.

[jodierex]

Hi,

I used a CPAP for years and never stopped feeling crappy. I also take medication for Thyroid stuff which also never made me feel better. Recently I had another sleep study and my pressure changed from 6 to 16. I may have started to feel better if my ears, eyes, nose and throat hadn't become so dry and painful. I stopped using it when I woke up one morning choking on drool. I'm on this forum trying to figure out what to do next. I tried different masks, ramping, no ramping, went back to my old machine, a mouth wash that is suppose to keep everything moist, sleeping pills - natural and un-natural(prescription), merciless nagging from my doc, etc. I'm thinking of trying the paper tape over the mouth trick but not sure how that will go with the drooling and maybe I'll have my turbinators checked out because my nose does get very stuffy in the am with or without CPAP. I never had that problem when it was set at 6.

Somebody mentioned having dreams - when I did manage to get some sleep on the CPAP, I had no dreams. When I'm off the CPAP and not getting any air, I have the most vivid, adventure, action packed, sci-fi type dreams you can imagine. So I know that if I'm dreaming and I'm using the CPAP, for some reason my brain is not being lovingly bathed by O2 molecules.

The good part is, that around July my very last hormone dried out and I crashed. My mind just went away. Fortunately I knew it was the hormones and I started taking dhea and pregnenolone along with prescription estrogen and progesterone. Those made all the difference but I still have some fatigue and mindlessness which I think will be taken care of with the CPAP as soon as I figure out how to handle the wind tunnel.

Good luck!

[Spirit]

Spirit, what's you mahcine set on?
Some people's sleep get interrupted when the machine changes pressure. The sleep better when their machine is on fixed pressure.
Have you tried a single pressure?

At the moment 8.4cm. Single pressure did not work for me, woke up feeling more tired. Seems more pressure makes me more tired. Only last possibility that could be causing airway obstruction is my enlarged thyroid. It's about half the size of a baseball. It may have swollen larger, since my sleep study. Will need to discuss with doc. But If I have it removed, I'll be hypothyroid, once again tired !!!!
Thanks

[SnoozyWoozyCat]

Hi Spirit -- sorry you are having fatigue issues. I'm also struggling with intermittent physical fatigue which is a frustration. Just a thought -- have you had your B-12 levels checked? When mine were at their lowest, my muscles were so weak I didn't feel I had the strength to do anything and all I wanted to do was sleep; this was concerning enough to get me to go to the doctor for tests. Good luck in finding the source of your fatigue.

[Spirit]

Hi Spirit -- sorry you are having fatigue issues. I'm also struggling with intermittent physical fatigue which is a frustration. Just a thought -- have you had your B-12 levels checked? When mine were at their lowest, my muscles were so weak I didn't feel I had the strength to do anything and all I wanted to do was sleep; this was concerning enough to get me to go to the doctor for tests. Good luck in finding the source of your fatigue.

Hi SWC,
No, I never had my B12 checked. But you described my fatigue perfectly, only don't feel sleepy. But lots of people contribute fatigue to deficient B12,. That's another test on my list. Don't know if it's the same, but I took B12 vitamins for awhile, and they didn't help. I was still tired and anxious from restless energy. Thanks for suggestion, I'll definetly look into it my pcp visit.

[Spirit]

Wow, didn't realize I had so many answers, need to go back through and read them all. Thanks everyone

[Muse-Inc]

Things to check: thyroid antibodies, testosterone & dihydrotestosterone, cortisol (AM for sure if not the saliva test that cks 4 different times throughout the day, Epstein-Barr virus, B12, vitamin D.

What is causing the high white blood cell count? Maybe a course of IV antibotics might be in order to kill the bug that might be causing the increased white blood cells. Maybe some alternative treatments for infection like olive leaf extract or beta glucans along with probiotics. Things to consider.