Waking up early and anxious

[RJeffa]

I have been using my CPAP for 6 weeks for an average of 7 hours per night. I go to bed and fall asleep well but wake very anxious 5 hours into sleep. Did anyone else go through this? I have my mask fit where I think it should be. It used to be too lose and would wake me when it leaked. This seems to be resolved.

Also, how do I know which software program I have?

[moondoggy]

I'm not sure about the anxious part but I too went thru a phase where I would go to sleep and suddenly wake up in the 3-4 AM range. My DME said that most people experience this. He said that in most cases the sleep apnea has caused us to get little real sleep and our bodies have gotten use to not sleeping like we should. Now that your being treated your getting plenty of sleep and your body is telling you that you've had enough sleep because you were use to so little in the past and that's why you're waking up. My DME said that your body will take time to re-adjust to sleeping more and in my case it took about 2 1/2 months. I'm going to take a guess and suggest that the anxiety is due to the fact that this is all new and your concerned over why you're waking up. I know I was concerned but after talking to my DME I just let nature take it's course.

[slacker361]

what are you number like, I am betting your AI or HI are still high what is your pressure setting???? Waking with anxiety is usually because your brain is still suffocating

[Lizistired]

Welcome, I wake up anxious if I have oxygen desaturations. If you have the results of your sleep study it should tell what you O2 desturations were.
You can use ResScan or Sleepyhead to view your data. Check my signature for ResScan links.

[Heavylids]

what are you number like, I am betting your AI or HI are still high what is your pressure setting???? Waking with anxiety is usually because your brain is still suffocating

I agree with this. Before treatment I would wake up every morning or middle of the night with anxiety and sometimes have panic attacks. This basically went away when I started CPAP.

[Matty332]

Hey RJeffa,

Oh YES! This happened to me but I have an underlying mental illness and was experiencing activation syndrome from the wrong anti-depressant. Do you suffer from an Anxiety disorder?

[DavidCarolina]

I know all about this, and have asked many questions about it on this forum. But I also have an immune disease that makes me anxious (i call it agitated).......as if i want to jump out of my own skin. This occurs with 3 triggers: sleep apnea, food intake, and a sudden exertion that spikes my blood pressure.

Doctors, of course, call it "generalized anxiety". Which is a joke because i went 50 years without it until apnea was finally diagnosed.

A few comments, but Im in mor or less the same position as you. But sometimes we need to know other people walk down the same path

---i awaken most nights at 2 am. The poster who said 02 desaturation could cause this may be right.

-It could also be mild apneas, snoring, hypopneas. NObody knows, especially when your data shows a clean AHI record, etc.

-i use a medicatio known as clonazepam (lol, once again, a doctor always thinks this is for generalized anxiety when actually the med was developed as an antihistamine and then used later as an anti seizure medication). But it calms the central nervous system effectively.

-you may still be having apneas (people on here would disagree). You may have a leak issue. You have have mild brain damage from late diagnosis. It could also be a c02 issue. It important you figure out exactly whats happening in your case.

-you could be experiencing another physical ailment caused by OSA such as food allergy caused by intestinal permeability. How late do you eat anything before bed?

-it could be caused by back sleeping depending on your anatomy and airway thickness. My wife says I snore sometimes on my stomach with the mask on a pressure of 13. I just have bad genes.

-it could be correlated to your weight.

-it could be a reaction to your diet (gluten, msg, caffeine, etc).

Sorry i cant give definitive answers, im only saying that there are others who suffer the same. Ive been doing what youre doing for 1.5 years.

[RJeffa]

My AHI is usually around 0.3
My pressures are set at 4-8
The sleep study found 31 hypopneas per hour but no apneas and no O2 sat below 90%

My diagnosis was mild obstructive sleep apnea caused by nasal obstruction. I may just get the surgery.

[snuginarug]

I notice you are using pillows... how do you like them? Do they cause any discomfort or anxiety, in themselves? I found my nasal mask extremely anxiety producing and would wake up miserable and anxious. I switched to FFM, and now I wake up happy.

Alternately, you min pressure might be too low. 4 is very low, most people feel "starved" anywhere below 6. Do you notice any anxiety specifically about breathing when you wake?

[Gerryk]

I agree with the possibility of the pressure possibly being too low. Have you talked to your dme about this and they checked your data? When you first start out 4 may feel high, but once you get used to it, you should be able to have it higher. I felt like I was being suffocated when my pressure is that low. You may be waking up becuase you could be starting to dream and taking deeper breaths and your machine isn't providing enough.

It could be something that simple. If you aren't dreaming yet, just wait. You will wake up feeling weird yet excited when you begin to remember your dreams again.

[portiemom]

I've been on Apap quite a while and I agree that 4cms may be too low for you. That said at times I still wake up, and find that I am anxious, and I'm not sure that is the correct adjective. I wake a few hours after I go to bed, ready to shower and get to work, only to find it's several hours earlier than I thought. Sometimes, I do some housework which is crazy because I usually don't feel well enough in the a.m. to do it! I find the anxious feeling comes as soon as I find out I've only had maybe 3 or 4 hours of sleep. I can not fall back to sleep, believe me I've tried, then by the time I do leave for work, I'm exhausted, even if I don't do any housework. Never have been able to find out why this happens, but it does, sometimes a least once a week. My numbers are good too, I've just accepted that it is, what it is. Just wanted to share my experience with you, do you feel RESTED when you wake up? Worth looking at how rested you feel.
You're anxiety may need to be looked in to deeper to find the cause, I wish you the best!

[portiemom]

I forgot to ask you if you've tried straight using the straight CPAP mode? You may want to zero in on you're needed pressure and try using cpap mode, it works better for me as the change in the auto causes me to wake up whenever the cms. increase or decrease. Good Luck my friend!