Falling Asleep - Does This Sound Weird?

[Madalot]

I'm curious how others describe the way or "feeling" when they fall asleep. Something I've noticed in recent months....

I get hooked up and lay down on my side. The air from the vent feels good and usually, my breathing has eased and I'm comfortable. I'm relaxing. All is good. I go to my "happy place" in my mind to help myself ease into sleep.

Frequently though, I get this sudden feeling of, I don't know, dizziness. It reminds me of the time I was in the hospital and they gave me pain meds via IV. It's fast and hard.

Anyway, within a minute or less, I'm gone. Asleep. It's not gradual, but a sudden onset of that overwhelming feeling and then I'm out.

Anyone else have this kind of experience? Or am I unusual on that front too? LOL

[bap40]

I have never hear of that problem before. When I go to bed, I am literally out of it within a minute or two. Maybe it's a reaction of your brain getting the oxygen
It needs. I am really just guessing.

[Madalot]

I have never hear of that problem before. When I go to bed, I am literally out of it within a minute or two. Maybe it's a reaction of your brain getting the oxygen
It needs. I am really just guessing.

Thanks for the input. I'm just curious what people think about this. It doesn't feel right to me.

[DocWeezy]

Now I usually twitch and "fall" right before really going to sleep...I'm in a bit of a twilight area for a few minutes, then twitch, feeling like I'm falling, landing with a thump on the bed, then asleep.

Before my APAP I had feelings kind of similar to yours, but they were ALWAYS connected with a voice in my head telling me that if I didn't breathe I would die, or the voice telling me that I was dying and it really wasn't so bad after all. Literally. Dizzy, feeling heavily sedated, and the voice. I'd wake up panting with my heart racing...and often was awake for the rest of the night. Those incidents always happened about 30-60 minutes after starting to doze off into sleep.

Thank goodness I haven't had one of those since APAP.

Weezy

[Madalot]

Now I usually twitch and "fall" right before really going to sleep...I'm in a bit of a twilight area for a few minutes, then twitch, feeling like I'm falling, landing with a thump on the bed, then asleep.

I have those occasionally too. Jerking, twitching, but they always make me more awake.

Before my APAP I had feelings kind of similar to yours, but they were ALWAYS connected with a voice in my head telling me that if I didn't breathe I would die, or the voice telling me that I was dying and it really wasn't so bad after all. Literally. Dizzy, feeling heavily sedated, and the voice. I'd wake up panting with my heart racing...and often was awake for the rest of the night. Those incidents always happened about 30-60 minutes after starting to doze off into sleep.

Thank goodness I haven't had one of those since APAP.

Since I NEVER lay down at night without being hooked up, these episodes are occurring on the ventilator. The way you describe it -- dizzy, almost heavily sedated, is exactly how it feels. Very, very weird.

Don't care for it. I wish I knew why it was happening.

[KimberlyM]

Madalot, what you describe sounds like I felt untreated. I would feel like I wasn't getting enough air and I could just slip away. It wasn't a real dizzy feeling, but a sedated feeling, but without air! Are you being sufficiently treated? I know you have muscle weakness and other issues going on. I wonder if that plays a role in this.

[Madalot]

Madalot, what you describe sounds like I felt untreated. I would feel like I wasn't getting enough air and I could just slip away. It wasn't a real dizzy feeling, but a sedated feeling, but without air! Are you being sufficiently treated? I know you have muscle weakness and other issues going on. I wonder if that plays a role in this.

You're the second person to say this feeling is one they've gotten UNTREATED. Describing it as "slipping away" is another excellent way of describing it. But it kind of scares me now.

My ventilator is running S/T AVAPS, with a minimum IPAP of 14, but it goes as high as 23 if necessary to maintain the set tidal volume. But I've said over and over that I may be adequately treated most of the time, but I don't feel like we've got the settings just right.

[Janknitz]

When I'm fighting sleep a little or I'm stressed and not sleeping well I have felt that sort of odd feeling myself. It's a weird sensation of your body "going offline", and sometimes I have to remind myself not to fight it and to let my body sleep. It does feel like an IV drug that has just hit my system!

It's different from that tonic-clonic jerk that sometimes happens, but I have sometimes felt slightly like that the second before one of those jerks happens. I was having those tonic-clonic jerks consistently every night before CPAP. Now they are a rare thing.

[Bones]

Doesn't sound weird to me Madalot. I often have that feeling just before I fall asleep. I had it before treatment and I still have it 5 years into treatment. Actually, I've never given it much thought until I read your post. Just always seemed "normal? to me.

[Madalot]

When I'm fighting sleep a little or I'm stressed and not sleeping well I have felt that sort of odd feeling myself. It's a weird sensation of your body "going offline", and sometimes I have to remind myself not to fight it and to let my body sleep. It does feel like an IV drug that has just hit my system!

I almost NEVER lay down to go to sleep before I am tired enough to actually sleep. Frequently, I am dozing off watching TV. I usually wait until I start to doze before getting hooked up and laying down.

Most nights, I just doze off very comfortably, and usually fairly quickly because I'm tired. But when this feeling happens to me, I don't fight it. The only way I could fight it would be to get up and move around. When this happens, just as if I have been drugged, I just let it happen. And I am usually "out" within a minute of this starting. There is a brief moment or two that I am terrified I'm going to die, but I give in to it quickly.

This is not a nightly occurrence. I keep trying to figure out if there is something - stress, anxiety, me fighting the ventilator (which I've been accused of) but I swear I can't pinpoint anything different from a night that it didn't happen.

[Janknitz]

I think I fight it because it IS a scary sensation. But sometimes I also realize it's really just that last moment of consciousness before sleep so if I don't fight it I'll be OK.

I don't perceive it too often, either. I'm amazed that my sleep latency has gone from a very long time down to almost nothing. I seem to be out almost as soon as my head hits the pillow, if all is comfortable. I listen to podcasts with my iPod in bed, and I can tell how quickly I fell asleep by the last thing I heard--usually less than 2 minutes in. Even when I wake in the middle of the night and feel like I'm "having trouble" sleeping, I'm only awake 10 minutes or so with CPAP. It was HOURS before.

[Madalot]

Doesn't sound weird to me Madalot. I often have that feeling just before I fall asleep. I had it before treatment and I still have it 5 years into treatment. Actually, I've never given it much thought until I read your post. Just always seemed "normal? to me.

This is really interesting. I hadn't experienced this sensation until the last couple months.

[kteague]

What you describe sounds familiar to me from a few different periods in my experience. Once I was prescribed a muscle relaxer and the sensation it gave me scared me so bad I never took another one. The nurse later said that sensation was the medicine taking effect and relaxing my muscles as intended. Told her it felt like it relaxed way more than my muscles because it felt like I was sinking into oblivion. When I was on Mirapex I had an episode very similar. That med was known to cause sleep attacks in some. When on that med I regularly had the sense of being "overcome" and slipping to an abnormal sleep that could last for hours during which time I was often not arousable. A few times it lasted for a couple days with only minutes of intermittent wake time. There was definitely a difference between the feeling of a sleep attack and just getty sleepy and falling asleep. The other times this happened was early in my treatment when I spent most of my time under the ramp at 4 (gee thanks ex doc), and would have dream-like scenes of being on the brink of death and not breathing.

While I have had similar sensations as you, since mine seemed to vary in cause and your medical situation is unique, my experiences won't shed any light on yours. And yes, it was unsettling.

[Patrick A]

Sounds to me like its drug induced sleep. I take some heavy medications for spinal injuries, sometimes I start to feel like I am floating sometimes I feel warm all over. Some times I lay there for almost an hour or longer before I go to sleep. Some times I wake-up several times a night. i have checked my data card and had my doctor read it and I am not having any apneas. It's the back pain that's waking me up. (not enough drugs).

[DoriC]

I don't have SA but I've had that feeling at times as I'm falling asleep, like a peculiar dizziness, sometimes it passes quickly and I fall asleep but sometimes it jolts me awake and I have to start all over again. I mentioned it to my Dr once and he explained it to me in very basic layman's terms as a sort of vagus nerve vertigo that takes place and is usually caused by anxiety or stress.(BTW, He's not one of those docs who passes everything off as anxiety/stress).When I think about it, it usually does occur when I'm in one of those stressful situations and I realize I'm all curled up in a fetal position as though I were very cold rather than cozy and relaxed. Interesting responses.