Help reading wifes data

[Mutation0579]

My wife says it feels like she gets 0 sleep no matter how long she actually sleeps. We can't get her in for an in person sleep study, so I am hoping someone here can help understand the data.

[Okie bipap]

Some people are disturbed by the pressure changes. Looking at the data, I recommend raising minimum pressure to ten and try that for a few nights and see how she does.

[Miss Emerita]

Welcome! Could you provide a little more information?

Does your wife use a PAP machine because she had an earlier sleep study? If so, what did the study show?

Could you repost the chart and include the flow limitation graph? After you position it below the leak graph, you can make room for it in the screenshot by grabbing the horizontal gray bars that separate the graphs and pushing them up a little.

Would she say she is mainly sleepy during the day? Or mainly fatigued (like flu)? Or mainly weak or low on energy? Whatever answer fits her experience best, has she discussed her condition with her doctor and received a work-up to look at possibilities beyond the quality of her sleep?

[Mutation0579]

Welcome! Could you provide a little more information?

Does your wife use a PAP machine because she had an earlier sleep study? If so, what did the study show?

Could you repost the chart and include the flow limitation graph? After you position it below the leak graph, you can make room for it in the screenshot by grabbing the horizontal gray bars that separate the graphs and pushing them up a little.

Would she say she is mainly sleepy during the day? Or mainly fatigued (like flu)? Or mainly weak or low on energy? Whatever answer fits her experience best, has she discussed her condition with her doctor and received a work-up to look at possibilities beyond the quality of her sleep?

Yes she is on it based on a watchpap study. Her pAHI was 5. The notes say ": Mild obstructive sleep apnea., No hypoxemia. and Sleep fragmentation."

She said that she wakes up feeling very sleepy for a couple hours and then just has no energy the rest of the day. We have talked to her sleep doctor and they said "everything is working as it should" meaning they just looked at the events the machine is reporting. She has talked to her PCP about it, and they have run some blood tests. Everything is coming back normal. She does have depression and the PCP said that could be part of it, but shouldn't cause it to be this bad.

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[Pugsy]

Is she taking any medication? If so, what?

[Mutation0579]

Is she taking any medication? If so, what?

Vit D 5000 IU
benadryl
Woman's probiotic (trunature)
Lexapro 10 MG (generic)

[Pugsy]

Google the side effects for Lexapro.
Research several hits as well as google "SSRIs and effects on sleep"

Nasty side effects.

[Mutation0579]

Google the side effects for Lexapro.
Research several hits as well as google "SSRIs and effects on sleep"

Nasty side effects.

she had the issue before switching to Lexapro. That said I think it was another SSRI that she was on.

[Pugsy]

All the SSRIs and those sorts of med like SNRIs etc all mess with sleep and thus how a person feels.
They all mess with sleep quality and/or sleep stages. Some depress REM.
Not to mention just the usual side effects of those kinds of meds.

Damned if you do and damned if you don't with those meds.

There's nothing real exciting on those reports from the machine. I don't think that the problem is something that can be fixed with tweaks of the machine settings.
I know it isn't what you wanted to hear but I think you need to look elsewhere for the cause of the unwanted symptoms and medication side effects is going to be number one on the list.

[Miss Emerita]

To follow up on Pugsy's post: did your wife's regular doctor test for all of these: thryoid deficiency, B-6 and B-12 deficiency, autoimmune diseases, especially in the connective-tissue-disease family, Lyme disease, anemia?

It can be hard to diagnose the cause of fatigue, and the patient can wind up in the position of having to push. That's hard to do when you're wiped, so you may play an important role in helping your wife get the medical care she needs.

On that subject, I'd recommend that you accompany your wife to doctor visits, if that's OK with her. It can be helpful to have another pair of ears in the room, and if the two of you work up a list of questions or observations, you can help to make sure everything is addressed.

Also, though I hate to say it, some doctors take the word of a man more seriously than the word of a woman, so communicating to the doctor your own sense that something is wrong with her health may carry some weight. Ditto when it comes to the word of a depressed person vs a non-depressed person.

[Mutation0579]

We were camping so it took me a bit to look up all the info. Yes she was tested for most of that. She also has really bad PCOS.

Our current Primary listens and will basically run any test we ask for. Picked her for a reason.

Anyways I adjusted her minimum to 11 and a few days later she told me she was feeling like she was getting some sleep. I’m going to look at her data again after a couple weeks