Biggest concerns when going for your night study?

[Jaywolf]

My biggest fear was that there would be no results at all, I would be told I did not have sleep apnea and there would be no help in sight for the hell I was going through. I honestly felt like I was dying.. believe I was. It is 17 days in and still tired and sleepy but not as bad every day.

The lady who did my test was lovely, explained things well, they gave me a video to watch, she asked me what temperature I wanted the room to be. I was surprised to hear people complain about the wires, I had read up on it and nothing happened I didn't expect.

[Rustsmith]

I will second Jaywolf's concern about no results. I had been experiencing terrible insomnia problems. My fear was that I would get there and immediately fall asleep without experiencing any of my "normal" issues. Fortunately, or unfortunately, I had a horrible night's sleep and was diagnosed with two different sleep disorders.

My second issue was the fact that although the room was comfortable and quiet, they left the fluorescent lights on in the hall. That means that every time the tech had to enter the room during the night, I was hit by a bright burst of light. Since I was sleeping so terribly during both my first test and later during my titration, this meant that they rarely woke me up (I think that they timed it that way). But the bright light certainly didn't help me get back to sleep very easily.

[Lukie]

My biggest concern was not being able to sleep long enough to document the horrible apnea attacks I'd been having. I had a sleep study 20 years ago during which I did not sleep a wink and was sent home with no recommendations as I had not slept long enough. The lack of sleep gave me irregular heartbeats and I ended up in cardiac care.
So now 20 years later with untreated sleep apnea all these years I did not want to repeat the above horrendous experience.
The sleep doctor assured me that they would give me sleep meds if I did not fall asleep within an hour. This relieved my anxiety a lot.
My concern during the titration study was that they would turn the pressure too high and blow me away. The sleep tech reassured me that
this would not happen.
So all in all, this time the whole experience was not bad and they did give me a CPAP machine which has helped me a lot. I wish I had gotten one way back 20 years ago when they would not give me anything to sleep.

[Ruinednose]

1. and 1 only.

DO they test for every/any sleep disorder. including UARS

[sleepstar]

I find it interesting that a lot of people have posted that they were worried that they wouldn't find sleep apnea on their sleep study.

If this was found on a sleep study in the USA, or if the AHI was found to be borderline, would this make you ineligible for a trial of CPAP? (is this an insurance issue?)

Over here, even if your AHI was 4 or 5 and you were tired and wanting to try CPAP, the doctor would be happy for you to. Sometimes these people respond the best to CPAP! It definitely doesn't preclude them from trying a machine. It's unfortunate if that's the case in the USA.

[zoocrewphoto]

I find it interesting that a lot of people have posted that they were worried that they wouldn't find sleep apnea on their sleep study.

If this was found on a sleep study in the USA, or if the AHI was found to be borderline, would this make you ineligible for a trial of CPAP? (is this an insurance issue?)

Over here, even if your AHI was 4 or 5 and you were tired and wanting to try CPAP, the doctor would be happy for you to. Sometimes these people respond the best to CPAP! It definitely doesn't preclude them from trying a machine. It's unfortunate if that's the case in the USA.

Most insurance companies have a minimum set of requirements. For example, some companies will not pay for a cpap machine if your sleep apnea is mild unless you have co-morbidities to go along with it. That is stupid of course, as untreated sleep apnea will lead to those. It would be cheaper to prevent it than wait until it appears. But that is how some of the requirements are.

I was told before my sleep study that if they did not get at least 5 hours of data, my insurance company would not pay for the sleep study. I had asked in advance about sleep medication since I am a severe night owl, and normally don't go to bed until after 4am. I also have trouble sleeping in hotel settings. They don't provide sleep medication, but recommended that I ask my doctor for an ambien and not take it until the sleep tech tells me to. My tech was great. Since my study would possibly be a split night study, she set me up with a mask before bed time and had my sit with it running on lower pressure for about 10 minutes so that I would be familiar with it. I got 2 1/2 hours of diagnosis phase and about 6 hours with the cpap machine. They didn't get as much sleep time on my back as they would have liked, but they were able to estimate a good setting based on what they had, and it has worked perfectly for me. I also appreciated that they told me to sleep any way I wanted. The only thing they requested was that I not sit up, resting on the headboard. I am used to sleeping a bit propped up, so that was a little different, but that was probably one of my coping techniques of avoid apnea events without realizing it.