Can't fall back asleep after waking up w/cpap

[telecast]

Hi folks, I've been using Cpap now regularly for probably 15 years. For the past six weeks I've been waking up in the middle of the night, every night. My problem is I can't fall back asleep after waking up. Because I'm using the cpap, I just don't feel tired when I wake up. It's gotten to the point where four or five hours of cpap sleep is so solid that when I wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning, I feel wide awake and can't doze back off. I then end up feeling extremely tired by the time the early afternoon rolls around because I've only gotten half a night sleep. Has anyone else experienced this, and if so, what did you do? Thanks!

[rcobourn]

Hi folks, I've been using Cpap now regularly for probably 15 years. For the past six weeks I've been waking up in the middle of the night, every night. My problem is I can't fall back asleep after waking up. Because I'm using the cpap, I just don't feel tired when I wake up. It's gotten to the point where four or five hours of cpap sleep is so solid that when I wake up at 3 or 4 in the morning, I feel wide awake and can't doze back off. I then end up feeling extremely tired by the time the early afternoon rolls around because I've only gotten half a night sleep. Has anyone else experienced this, and if so, what did you do? Thanks!

The usual advice is to get up and do something non-stimulating for about 20 minutes, then go back to bed. As someone who got up at 4am and couldn't go back to sleep either, I can't say it really works for me.

[chunkyfrog]

You have not mentioned your age.
As we get older, and activity levels drop off, we tend to need less sleep.
We also get awakened by minor aches and pains.
I sleep better if I take a couple ibuprofen with my evening drugs.
I expect to wake up a couple times or more during the night--it's a noisy world.

[telecast]

Sorry, age is 51.
I've tried going downstairs to read for a while to get me sleepy again. Sometimes that helps, sometimes not.
I hear ya about needing less sleep as we get older, but my problem is I have a tough time making it through the day with multiple weeks in a row of only 4 or 5 hours of sleep a night.

[rcobourn]

Are you getting exercise? Usually if I'm having repeated days of inadequate sleep it's due to getting into a pattern of being too tired to exercise leading to another night of poor sleep. After waking up at 4, less that 5 hours sleep, I did 1.5 mile hike this morning (old dog and Arizona heat cut it a bit short) and a few laps in the pool and got back to sleep long enough to total out about 7 hours.