Question about zeo

[MaxDarkside]

The information I get from my Zeo had enabled me to track down and "fix" other sleep issues beyond OSA. I knew I was still tired and my AHI was great....getting a Zeo showed me how fragmented my sleep was and that I wasn't getting hardly any REM or deep sleep...

I'm a newbie, but I sense the same thing. My first quest was to get my AHI down, but I still felt groggy. AHI is but one important metric. I knew something else was "afoot" so thus I got my nice collection of "toys" to help understand the "groggy vs. data" then tweek. You point out something important that I missed. I was going to look at %REM and %Deep, but I should look at the amount and fragmentation of each vs. how I feel. Thanks.

[jazzer4]

I have a Zeo but I'm can't figure out how to wear it with my nasal mask.
Any one figured this out yet?

(Where your suppose to place it is right under the forehead brace on my headgear)

[MaxDarkside]

I have a Zeo but I'm can't figure out how to wear it with my nasal mask. Any one figured this out yet? (Where your suppose to place it is right under the forehead brace on my headgear)

I'm guessing this is why Jay Aitchsee wrote: "Wearing the Zeo with a FFM is a little tricky, but I've modified my Quattro and it works just fine." Maybe Jay will offer some suggestions. I don't have that brace with the Quattro FX so I don't have that challenge.

[MaxDarkside]

The information I get from my Zeo had enabled me to track down and "fix" other sleep issues beyond OSA. I knew I was still tired and my AHI was great....getting a Zeo showed me how fragmented my sleep was and that I wasn't getting hardly any REM or deep sleep...

Another thing I'm curious about ... I wonder if there's any differences in brainwaves between "groggy" and "not groggy" in the morning or during the day. It would be neat to have a "grogometer" LOL.
"Gee, I feel groggy today" (brainwaves look like this)
"Gee, I feel GREAT today" (brainwaves look like that)

Just curious. I should get my USB/Serial cable parts tomorrow... and hunker down in my secret underground lair to begin my brain transfer experiments (Bwhahahaaaa.... flash of lighting, clap of thunder). "Igor! Here, put this on!!" "Nooo Master..."

[Jay Aitchsee]

jazzer4,
See this and see if it makes sense. My mask is similar to yours. viewtopic.php?f=1&t=72254&p=664757#p664757

Jay

[robysue]

I'll admit it: I got my zeo on a lark back in mid November. But I did have a real question in mind: I wanted to determine whether I am getting into deep sleep on a regular basis.

And why is this an important question for me? Well, my first diagnostic sleep test showed me getting to both REM and deep sleep for half-way decent amounts of time---particularly given the moderate apnea. But my first two titration studies showed no deep sleep at all: Nada, nil, zip, zero, none. And during those first three miserable months on CPAP (that included both those first two titration tests), I could tell something was amiss with my sleep and it wasn't apnea events anymore because the S9 Autoset was regularly recording AHI numbers in the 0.0 to 1.5 range. And I could tell I was still dreaming (I've always been able to tell when I'm dreaming or not, even if I can't remember the dreams.) And the problem was more than just the burgeoning insomnia monster---because even on those rare occasions when I "slept" with the mask on for seven, eight, or nine hours, I'd wake up feeling like I hadn't really slept at all. So in doing some reading about sleep stages and arousals and such, I kept coming back to those titration tests with no deep sleep. And I started to wonder whether that was at least in part responsible for my great crash and burn of Fall 2010 that started with my starting CPAP therapy.

The third titration study, which was done a month and a half after I was switched to BiPAP showed a lot of deep sleep (and plenty of REM). And by this time I'd started to have the random nights (including that third titration study) where I would wake up feeling pretty decent. As spring and summer wore on, those few random nights of waking up feeling pretty decent started to become more numerous. And the question about deep sleep kind of receded into the background because I sort of guessed I must be getting enough.

But this fall I've had some significant issues in other areas of my life that have triggered the insomnia raising its head off and on yet again. And on some mornings, the AHI data would be fine and the insomnia would be "under control", but I'd still feel horrible when I woke up---as in I'd feel like I'd gotten very little real, restorative sleep even though I had enough "sleep time" and my AHI was less than 2.5. So hubby and I started talking about stage 3 sleep and how we never were able to get a straight answer from last year's sleep doc or the PA about whether a tough time adjusting to CPAP could (temporarily) disrupt your sleep architecture as much as moderate OSA itself does. And then a friend told me about the Zeo. And so we decided to indulge my curiosity and get one.

I've enjoyed it the last month and a half. As near as I can tell, it's reasonably accurate for scoring deep sleep. But for me, it has trouble distinguishing REM and wake. There are often long periods of "wake" on the sleep graph that can't possibly all be wake given the pie chart numbers. (The documentation does say that if there's any "wake" scored in a 5 minute period the whole 5 minute slice is shown as "wake" in the graph.) Much of the time these long "wakes" that I don't remember occur at the time you'd expect a REM cycle. And much of the time there's "missing" REM---in other words, the pie chart numbers show much more REM than is shown in the sleep graph. And a bit of REM that's shown either right before, right after or during the middle of one of these long "wakes". And that's why I tend to assume they are in fact REM cycles that are misscored.

Because of the tendency for my sleep graph to show so much less REM than the pie chart REM number indicates should be there, I've gotten frustrated with that 5 minute interval on the sleep graph. Frustrated enough where I've learned to download the data from the web site and I've spent a bit of time writing a Mathematica graphing function to draw my own hypongrams with the 30 second data instead of the 5 minute aggregated data used for the Zeo graphs.

And I've been pleased to see that I am getting reasonable amounts of deep sleep on a regular basis. The amount of REM is hit or miss, but, as I indicated above, I think that's a function of the zeo misscoring stuff in my sleep. I've also been pleasantly surprised at how accurate my own estimates for "latency to sleep" are. I regularly write this down in my insomnia log before checking the Zeo details. I also use the Zeo as a reality check for my insomnia log's "total sleep time estimate". By reality check I mean this: Most of the time the zeo's estimate of my total sleep time is less than mine---sometimes significantly less. And I typically write this off to a combination of Zeo misscoring REM or light sleep and my own documented (via PSG) tendency to overestimate my sleep time. (I am a weird insomniac;) ) But every once in a while, the zeo will say I was asleep more than I thought I was. And low and behold, if I stare at the wave form data in SH, I'll find that there really is less of the erratic stuff that is usually associated with my known wakes.

The other interesting thing I've been doing with the Zeo data is looking at the Zeo's sleep state for the nasty clusters of events that I still get now and then. And rather like the data on my diagnostic sleep study, the worst of my clusters seem to be when I'm transitioning from wake to sleep. Almost every bad cluster I've looked at seems to occur in the periods scored as light sleep just after a wake that I know is real (because of turning the Kaa off and on to fiddle with something or to get a drink of water). The REM periods and the deep sleep periods that are scored by the Zeo are largely event free in SH, as are the long wakes that I suspect are misscored REM.

[Patrick A]

Interesting I guess I will look into this.

[deltadave]

Here's my controllable factors and results / performance variables in a "Mind Map" (handy tool) as I sort out what I can control and what metrics I have or can create. Not finished yet, but probably mostly there:

Well, if your Zeo is accurately staging your sleep:

Here is my Zeo sleep chart from last night...

You have Sleep Onset REM (SOREM), a hallmark sign of Narcolepsy (which would make your "Mind Map" a "Yossarian").

[tschultz]

I have a Zeo but I'm can't figure out how to wear it with my nasal mask.
Any one figured this out yet?

(Where your suppose to place it is right under the forehead brace on my headgear)

I'm using the Soft-Gel Nasal mask and found that if I remove the rubber pad from the upper part of the mask (the one that goes against your forehead) that I can wear the headband as it sits in the same place as the forehead rest. You will need to adjust the height setting and play with the xPAP mask straps a bit but should be able to find what works.

For me it has been OK, but I intend to make a few modifications to keep the headband and mask in place as they are not linked right now. If you don't toss and turn at night much it should work without too much trouble. For now I've been doing that for the past 15 days and things have worked out well enough.

I'll let you know what I do with my final modifications to do something more permanent.

[MaxDarkside]

Well, if your Zeo is accurately staging your sleep: You have Sleep Onset REM (SOREM), a hallmark sign of Narcolepsy.

Do you know what? I look at all my sleep charts and there's REM at the very beginning. All of them, but I attributed that to the "if your Zeo is accurately staging your sleep" = False. Maybe it is and I do. In looking at my pulse/oximetry/breathing I cannot say that I'm not in REM at onset, now that you mention it. Something to see if I can discern.

(which would make your "Mind Map" a "Yossarian")

I presume you mean a Catch-22? I haven't watched the movie in a long time. I should (LOL) Most everything I do seems circular. Escher would be proud of me.

[MaxDarkside]

Now that I read-up on narcolepsy you may indeed be correct and one reason that I still feel groggy after 2 months of apnea treatment, still drink too much coffee and there are auto-immune diseases both in my parents and children and I have body aches that may be auto-immune (narcolepsy is suspected to possibly be genetic and auto-immune related). If I do, I think it to be very mild, none of the severe symptoms, just enough to hassle me through out the day and arouse briefly during the night. Interesting idea. Thanks for pointing that out, you may have just answered a bulk of my questions about issues that continue after SA treatment.

One of my sons experiences excessive sleep and daytime sleepiness. Interesting idea.

[MaxDarkside]

Here's last night's Zeo chart. Notice the sleep onset REM too... I wonder if the Zeo is classifying it correctly going from wake to sleep? I thought it wasn't, but maybe it is!

[MaxDarkside]

Well, if your Zeo is accurately staging your sleep: You have Sleep Onset REM (SOREM), a hallmark sign of Narcolepsy.

THANK YOU DELTADAVE! Oddly enough, my Neurologist/Sleep Dr's nurse called ME (!) just now (obviously she is very perceptive ) and I explained everything and she agrees with you. I will wait 30 days, gather some facts, then go in to get some help. She wanted me to book the appt. now.