need help/advise

dear friends,

i have been suffering from the following disorder.

i get to bed at regular time..say 10.30 pm..i knock off off easily.

i wake up in about 3 hours fresh and easy.

im then tossing and turning for the balance of the while and getting a very restless kind of feeling awake....something like im still awake.

any advise on whats happening to me.

thanks rats

Insomnia?

Welcome, ratsood.

What you're suffering from is called "sleep maintenance insomnia" (as opposed to "sleep onset insomnia"). Search this forum or the web for information. You may be able to address it on your own (through better "sleep hygiene," another thing to research); you may need professional help.

ratsood wrote:dear friends,

i have been suffering from the following disorder.

i get to bed at regular time..say 10.30 pm..i knock off off easily.

i wake up in about 3 hours fresh and easy.

im then tossing and turning for the balance of the while and getting a very restless kind of feeling awake....something like im still awake.

any advise on whats happening to me.

thanks rats

Sure sounds like sleep maintenance insomnia to me---assuming that (1) you're NOT dealing with untreated OSA and are wondering whether this might be related to untreated OSA and (2) your PAP therapy is going well.

If you are wondering whether this might be a symptom of untreated OSA: Yes, insomnia of all types can be a symptom of untreated OSA. But it can also be just plain old insomnia caused by any number of other things, including stress. In general if you are wondering whether or not you might have OSA, it's worth getting tested for it. Because if you have OSA, things won't really get better in the long run until it's treated.

If you are already using a CPAP to treat OSA and this stuff started immediately after starting PAP, then it's worth looking at the data (if your machine records any efficacy data) to see if the PAP therapy is actually managing the OSA appropriately. If adjustments to therapy need to be done in order to get the AHI below 5 or in order to keep the leaks under control, those things need to be done FIRST to see if that fixes the insomnia problem.

If you know for sure (from a sleep test) that you do not have OSA or if you have OSA, but it is well controlled by using CPAP as directed, then the problem may indeed be garden-variety sleep maintenance insomnia. The usual first thing to try for sleep maintenance insomnia sound counter-intuitive and it's sometimes hard to do, but it usually works: When you wake up in the middle of the night and you're WIDE awake and can't get back to sleep quickly, get out of bed and go into a different room and do something quiet and relaxing until you are sleepy enought to go back to bed (and mask up if you're a PAPer) and get back to sleep rather quickly.

The tossing and turning all night long is lest restful and less relaxing than just getting up for a while is. If you don't fight to get back to sleep once you go back to bed, you will likely have more high quality sleep after spending 30 minutes to an hour out of bed that you will if you just lie there tossing and turning and fighting to try to get back to sleep while watching the clock ....

You might find the tips in Sound Sleep, Sound Mind by Dr. Barry Krakow useful.