Untrain my Awakenings

Lori...if I am permitted to use your first name From the first night...I decided I must sleep on my back So I resisted the desire to move about . I have managed that now for 6 mths but except for the dry mouth and throat I am doing fine. I bought that weird pillow at Walmasrt for 15 bucks that cradles the neck as I am on my back..maybe that is sdome idea you should look into. Force yourself to use aids that will help you sleep flat out on your back.

Barnaby,

First of all, of course you may call me by my first name, but thank you for being so polite and asking. You were obviously brought up with manners!

Second, I have always been a side sleeper and could never sleep in any other position. HOWEVER, lately I wake up, usually the last segment of my fragmented sleep, before the alarm goes off, and find myself sleeping on my back. The first time it happened, I was surprised but thought it was some sort of fluke. Lately, it seems to be happening more and more.

I think, once again, my subconscious is taking over when I sleep and I started doing that because when I was on the Swift, I knew that I might dislodge the pillows if I leaned on the barrel on my side. So my subconscious took over and started allowing me to sleep on my back to eliminate this problem from troubling me.

I will definitely give your suggestion some consideration. I was kind of hoping that now that I don't have that problem with the Aura that I did side sleeping with the Swift, that eventually my subconscious will take note of that and stop worrying and waking me up whenever I reposition myself. But it is a very interesting suggestion and I welcome any ideas, such as this, that may correct the problem. This is certainly one I would have never thought of myself. Thank you for mentioning it.

I was 54 last March. I stopped sleeping through the night when I was about 44 or 45. Of course, I had untreated sleep apnea then also. I would love to sleep from 11:00 p.m. to 5:30 a.m. every day also but it has only happened once last summer when my grandson was having such terrible problems with colic and I had been up for about 2 weeks almost day and night with him. I've never sleep that long without awakening before or since then. I've even tried Lunesta. Sleeping pills don't work very well on me. I find it harder to get to sleep and I wake up more often when I do take them. They just leave me really groggy the next day so I don't take them anymore. I'm a side sleeper too and I can hardly sleep at all on my back. Sometimes I think doctors are just trying to blow you off when they say it's caused by age. Doctors also told me my extreme fatigue before cpap treatment was caused by age too. I literally had to go to a doctor and demand a sleep study after my sister and I spent a weekend together and so told me I had terrible sleep apnea (her husband had been diagnosed and was treated with cpap therapy five years earlier so she knew what she was talking about) and to please get to a doctor and have it treated. Doctors had just been telling me it was part of aging so I don't know if I fully accept the growing older theory anyway.

Tater pie,
You're not much older than I am. I happen to agree with your theory that perhaps doctors find it easier to just say you're problems are associated with aging than to really delve into your complaints and give you a thought-through reason. Not too smart on their part, though. Just a sign of the times when doctors overbook their appts. to make money and then compromise on the quality of care they give their patients because they just don't have enough hours in the day to take the time to be thorough. I am a court reporter and I take so many medical malpractice suits that I guess I'm kind of tainted. I stay as far away from hospitals as I can unless it's an absolute necessity. I was told I needed surgery a few years ago, put it off, and thank goodness didn't really need it. I just have seen cases that had nothing to do with why that person was even in the hopt. and yet the person ended up with...well, let's not go there. They're just very eye-opening so I stay away unless it's an emergent situation. Even with doctors, the same thing. You have to be your own advocate and really try to learn as much as you can about the things you are told you have. It might not even be the correct diagnosis after all.
Sounds like we are in the same boat of not sleeping as many hours as we would like. I am just starting to now feel that it is compromising my results with this therapy. At first I was full of energy; and lately, as days go by, I am losing that energetic feeling even though the numbers on the software say it's not the OSA which still reacts very positively to the treatment. I have to think it's probably the fact that my sleep is framented every single night; and although these awakenings aren't long, they are mutliple and every single night. Oh, well. I guess as long as it's not causing me a health problem like the OSA was, I'm better off. Got to pull the good out of there somewhere.