Normal to need MORE sleep than usual when starting CPAP???

[TheChuckster]

So I got my Resmed S9 and just got a REALLY awesome mask (SleepWeaver elan -- feels like I'm barely even using a CPAP machine at all). I've been sleeping for around 7-8 hours a night like usual. When I had apnea, I found that I could spring awake right away for work at 7 AM sharp. Now, my body feels like it needs to stay in bed more and craves more sleep. Is this normal? Is it sleep debt? Have any other forum members experienced this? I've been needing to go to bed much earlier. My data is just about perfect. My AHI ranges from 0.3 to 1.5 a night, and I sleep a good 7 or 8 hours a night with the mask on. I was thinking about getting a Zeo to track my sleep quality and stages as well to see even more data. Good news is, since I've started CPAP, my perpetual dull headache is gone (which is amazing), and I can see visible improvements in my skin -- I look much younger and "awake" with no dark circles under my eyes and more of a reddish hue to my skin. My brain fog is clearing up, but it's not 100% there yet (I used to be much better at creative problem solving, remembering obscure facts, and reasoning about abstract math before my apnea got really bad). How long does it take for your mental faculties to return?

[chunkyfrog]

Good sleep may seem addictive; but you may just be feeling the effect of
NOT having a huge dose of adrenaline in your bloodstream and brain (from suffocating in your sleep)
Just get to sleep a bit earlier until your body gets used to "normal" amounts of stress hormones.

[TheChuckster]

Yeah, everyone at work said I've been acting more "livelier" lately and that's WITHOUT telling them about my sleep apnea/CPAP. It's crazy!!! Also, I read your equipment list, and elan is an awesome mask! I can sleep eight hours straight without waking up every few hours and needing a 10-15 minute "mask break" before putting it back on and going back to sleep with my old claustrophobia-inducing uncomfortable hunk of plastic with tons of straps.

[borgready]

It varies from person to person how long it takes you to adapt to the machine. Unlearning the snoring and struggling for air is the part doesn't get mentioned much. My guess is that that your body can detect the pressure change from using the machine and may act as mechanism to alter your sleeping patterns. It basically kicks you out of sleep or keeps you from going there. Its sort of like an annoying noise or lights and how that works to keep you in lighter sleep. If your machine has features that auto adjust pressures or pressure relief then that may create a sort of a bump or bounce feeling in the lungs which may act as an arousal mechanism. You should get you a decent pulse oximeter and monitor your oxygen levels from time to time. There is a lot little stuff that can get out of wack for one reason or another and its good to check things at that time. Maybe you have weird dream. Maybe you took some medication. Maybe you ate food before sleeping. Maybe your sick. Maybe your nose gets stoppled up. I have found that if you start consuming more (faster breathing) oxygen than at normal rest the breathing mask can't keep up and you get a CO2 build up which elevate you heart rate and breathing rate. You wake up with you heart racing and maybe even been having a weird dream. I take the mask off and wait for things to go back to normal and try to figure out what went wrong. Its a good idea to have a machine that collects and stores data on your breathing that you can check to see what is going wrong. If you use these cpap machines, something will go wrong or get out of wack.

[TheChuckster]

I absolutely agree. For something as elusive and immeasurable as sleep, you GOTTA have data. My old M-Series did not even have a smart card... Sleepyhead + my S9 is like a gift from God. I participated in a pre-release Zeo study at my University in 2005 while taking a psychology class taught by a world expert on sleep research. Back then, they loaned me the alarm clock model for a month or so (I found that I was getting lower sleep scores than my friends even with the same quantity of nightly sleep for obvious reasons), and they didn't have the raw data library that they do now (one of my classmates was actually the person who hacked the EEG/ADC hardware, and he ended up getting hired at Zeo). I am strongly considering purchasing a Zeo and a pulse-blood oximeter. The more data you have, the better you are able to figure out exactly what's going on, how your treatment is doing, and how it could be doing better.

Which pulse-blood oximeter works well with SleepyHead and is low cost but still has a lot of nice features? I heard there's a wrist one that seems like it would be much less invasive than the usual "pinch your finger" variety that they force you to wear during sleep studies and ER visits.

[TheChuckster]

One thing that would be nice is if SleepyHead runs an EEG arousal detection algorithm on the Zeo data to identify apneas (just from the brainwave data alone). It actually looks VERY easy to code (do an FFT on a time-domain chunks of EEG data, segment off into frequency ranges, and then compare against thresholds). I could augment the apnea events with tagged data corresponding to the apnea severity and length (as detected using this algorithm). See [Matsuoka, et. al 2009] "Automatic detection of apnea and EEG arousals for sleep apnea syndrome": http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp. ... er=5332952

I'm sure there's more robust research out there as well since the parameters they used seemed highly empirical. Expect a SleepyHead patch from me now that I can actually think. Hopefully, this helps other board members. Also, I've heard that there is no 60 series + Zeo patch for Mac or Linux users. I will take care of that as well.

[Todzo]

One thing that would be nice is if SleepyHead runs an EEG arousal detection algorithm on the Zeo data to identify apneas (just from the brainwave data alone). It actually looks VERY easy to code (do an FFT on a time-domain chunks of EEG data, segment off into frequency ranges, and then compare against thresholds). I could augment the apnea events with tagged data corresponding to the apnea severity and length (as detected using this algorithm). See [Matsuoka, et. al 2009] "Automatic detection of apnea and EEG arousals for sleep apnea syndrome": http://ieeexplore.ieee.org/stamp/stamp. ... er=5332952

I'm sure there's more robust research out there as well since the parameters they used seemed highly empirical. Expect a SleepyHead patch from me now that I can actually think. Hopefully, this helps other board members. Also, I've heard that there is no 60 series + Zeo patch for Mac or Linux users. I will take care of that as well.

Hi TheChuckster – very glad to see you here!

Concerning the Zeo - looking at the prefrontal lobe instead more back toward the parietal areas where most of the pads are placed during polysomnograms may yield data inconsistent with your goal, which I believe is to find arousals and awakenings. I think you might do well to hook up with the OpenEEG project ( http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/ ). And you should look into the iBrain.

There are other ways to find arousals and awakenings. The WatchPAT was designed to look at Peripheral Artery Tonometry to infer arousal. When an arousal occurs the blood tends to move away from the extremities so the arterial tone at the finger tip decreases. Well now, any LED based pulse oximeter uses the blood perfusion signal to determine heart rate. And if the tone is less I think one can assume that the perfusion also decreases. On my wrist worn recording CMS-50F I have noticed that if I raise my arm up above my head the pulse signal moves off scale for a few seconds. I think that if you looked for data moving slower than the pulse you may be able to infer arousal from that in similar ways that a WatchPAT does. I understand that SleepyHead can use CMS-50F data.

I have run across a vein of research that looks at heart rate variability as a way to find sleep breathing events whose effects are notable on the persons sleep. Perhaps the OpenECG project can become a friend ( http://www.openecg.net/ ). It appears that they can detect events which would not show up on a polysomnogram but which do affect sleep quality.

Have a lot of fun!

Todzo

[BlackSpinner]

I slept like the dead 10 hours a night for a month, then it let up. Now I do 7 - 8 hours.

[Darth Vader Face]

For me, I was actually happy to be sleeping more. Before, even when i wanted to sleep in, I couldn't. I couldn't get back to sleep. Or I would have a headache which would totally prevent me from sleeping any more. Now that I don't have these troubles, I've been able to sleep in like I haven't done in 15-20 years. But I do see a little truth to the adrenaline part of it. I think I did kind of wake up feeling sleepy in the morning. But I'm sure more awake during the day.

[TheChuckster]

Concerning the Zeo - looking at the prefrontal lobe instead more back toward the parietal areas where most of the pads are placed during polysomnograms may yield data inconsistent with your goal, which I believe is to find arousals and awakenings. I think you might do well to hook up with the OpenEEG project ( http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/ ). And you should look into the iBrain.

You raise a very good point. The electrode placement by Matsuoka places electrodes in the parietal lobe region as well (albeit not at the P* locations).

I've built an EEG device very similar to OpenEEG but with a much simpler circuit (less filtering, two stage amplifier that amplifies, differentiates, and integrates the signal, and no transistors in front of the electrodes). I would prefer to have whatever work I do readily usable by others with sleep apnea. Thus, iBrain or even Emotiv EPOC would be better than restricting this work to only others with DIY electronics knowledge (can't imagine sleeping with the latter on your head would be too comfortable though). I will keep this site posted on my progress with this.

[CJay]

I have a S9 auto set which software is best for me to read the data off of the card. The one from ResMed or sleepyhead?

[archangle]

How long have you been doing CPAP and noticing you need more sleep?

[Todzo]

Concerning the Zeo - looking at the prefrontal lobe instead more back toward the parietal areas where most of the pads are placed during polysomnograms may yield data inconsistent with your goal, which I believe is to find arousals and awakenings. I think you might do well to hook up with the OpenEEG project ( http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/ ). And you should look into the iBrain.

You raise a very good point. The electrode placement by Matsuoka places electrodes in the parietal lobe region as well (albeit not at the P* locations).

I've built an EEG device very similar to OpenEEG but with a much simpler circuit (less filtering, two stage amplifier that amplifies, differentiates, and integrates the signal, and no transistors in front of the electrodes). I would prefer to have whatever work I do readily usable by others with sleep apnea. Thus, iBrain or even Emotiv EPOC would be better than restricting this work to only others with DIY electronics knowledge (can't imagine sleeping with the latter on your head would be too comfortable though). I will keep this site posted on my progress with this.

Hi again TheChuckster!

Several years ago the FCC replaced many of thier monitoring stations with a few interferometers spread across the U.S. The nice thing about this technology is that it lets you listen to a very specific point in space (well, not quite that specific). I wonder if the new electronics and abilities to make printed circuit phased antenna arrays could be used to make a much better probe into what is going on inside the brain.

With the current pad based technology it seems to me that a cap could be designed to accept replaceable pads and that the cap would "ratio" by making things move when the size adjustment was being done. Making things thin, light, breathing, and otherwise comfortable are simply development steps away.

Have a great week!

Todzo

[Pugsy]

I have a S9 auto set which software is best for me to read the data off of the card. The one from ResMed or sleepyhead?

Try them both and see which one you like the best.

[TheChuckster]

Concerning the Zeo - looking at the prefrontal lobe instead more back toward the parietal areas where most of the pads are placed during polysomnograms may yield data inconsistent with your goal, which I believe is to find arousals and awakenings. I think you might do well to hook up with the OpenEEG project ( http://openeeg.sourceforge.net/doc/ ). And you should look into the iBrain.

You raise a very good point. The electrode placement by Matsuoka places electrodes in the parietal lobe region as well (albeit not at the P* locations).

I've built an EEG device very similar to OpenEEG but with a much simpler circuit (less filtering, two stage amplifier that amplifies, differentiates, and integrates the signal, and no transistors in front of the electrodes). I would prefer to have whatever work I do readily usable by others with sleep apnea. Thus, iBrain or even Emotiv EPOC would be better than restricting this work to only others with DIY electronics knowledge (can't imagine sleeping with the latter on your head would be too comfortable though). I will keep this site posted on my progress with this.

Hi again TheChuckster!

Several years ago the FCC replaced many of thier monitoring stations with a few interferometers spread across the U.S. The nice thing about this technology is that it lets you listen to a very specific point in space (well, not quite that specific). I wonder if the new electronics and abilities to make printed circuit phased antenna arrays could be used to make a much better probe into what is going on inside the brain.

With the current pad based technology it seems to me that a cap could be designed to accept replaceable pads and that the cap would "ratio" by making things move when the size adjustment was being done. Making things thin, light, breathing, and otherwise comfortable are simply development steps away.

Have a great week!

Todzo

WOAH! That sounds amazing. The big problem with EEGs (particularly with BCIs) is that they don't measure potential differences volumetrically, but rather, they only measure the voltages on the surface. There's a ton of attenuation going on (and now we're talking on the order of microvolt potentials). This kind of new sensor that allows volumetric measurements would be enough to launch a revolution in BCI technology. I am definitely going to continue investigating this further.