$$$$????

I am now armed with more info after getting a call back from the sleep study lady (Beth).

My overall AHI for the study was 15.6 while at the REM level it was 56. She stated that relatively speaking my apnea could be considered mild. Also my Sleep Efficiency Index was 85%. And that my leg movement events were 72 per hour (seems like a lot to me.) She believes the leg movements are likely related to the apnea.

It seems my problem, and it feels that way to me, is the inability to fall into and/or stay in the deep sleep realm. I do dream a lot and I know that that happens at the first level of sleep (REM stage).

Interestingly she said insurance companies do not place as much value on the AHI at REM as they do on the overall AHI number. Personally I place a lot value on being able to get deep sleep, so the REM number seems quite important to me. I do not have any trouble falling asleep most nights and only fully awake on average once per night but almost never feel rested.

She said that my insurance would pay 100% for my CPAP and mask since it was being handled by a physicians office and not direct buy from a DME. She was very enthusiastic and seemed dedicated to her job. She has a husband and a child who both suffer from apnea.

By the way, I took a sleep aid (Benadryl) before bed last night and feel better (more rested and energetic) today than I have felt in a long time. It happens occassionally but more often not. Whadaya'll think about all this.

Drowsyjim wrote:I am now armed with more info after getting a call back from the sleep study lady (Beth).

My overall AHI for the study was 15.6 while at the REM level it was 56. She stated that relatively speaking my apnea could be considered mild. Also my Sleep Efficiency Index was 85%. And that my leg movement events were 72 per hour (seems like a lot to me.) She believes the leg movements are likely related to the apnea.

It seems my problem, and it feels that way to me, is the inability to fall into and/or stay in the deep sleep realm. I do dream a lot and I know that that happens at the first level of sleep (REM stage).

Interestingly she said insurance companies do not place as much value on the AHI at REM as they do on the overall AHI number. Personally I place a lot value on being able to get deep sleep, so the REM number seems quite important to me. I do not have any trouble falling asleep most nights and only fully awake on average once per night but almost never feel rested.

She said that my insurance would pay 100% for my CPAP and mask since it was being handled by a physicians office and not direct buy from a DME. She was very enthusiastic and seemed dedicated to her job. She has a husband and a child who both suffer from apnea.

By the way, I took a sleep aid (Benadryl) before bed last night and feel better (more rested and energetic) today than I have felt in a long time. It happens occassionally but more often not. Whadaya'll think about all this.

You can actually dream in ANY sleep stage.....not just REM.

Be cautious of (sleep) doctors who dispense the hardware, too.
(do the math on this one and find out all the costs before signing anything)

Den

How good a deal that is depends on the xPAP they want or ARE WILLING to supply for you. Anything less than a fully data capable xPAP is a pile of horsepuckies. Don't let them snow you w/that one!!! BEFORE you agree to accepting ANY xPAP check it out thoroughly at cpap.com for full info on its capabilities. You can't always believe people who are selling things. They are especially good at the "sins of omission" and "seller speak".

You can't trust a politician, a lawyer, a horse trader, a used car salesman and those that sell DME equipment aren't all that far from the top of that list either.

You can actually dream in ANY sleep stage.....not just REM.

Most importantly to psychologists, this is the stage of sleep most associated with dreaming. When a sleeper in a research lab begins to exhibit the physiological indices of R.E.M sleep, and they are awakened, the great majority of the time they will report that they were having a vivid, story-like, dream. During other stages, on the other hand, they normally do not report dreaming.

Interestingly enough, it was not until 1953, that Dement and Kleitman discovered that the fact that this unique stage of sleep was associated with dreaming. This was very exciting and profound to the researchers, since dreams were so important a subject in the study of psychology. Dement describes it as follows:

The vivid recall that could be elicited in the middle of the night when a subject was awakened while his eyes were moving rapidly was nothing short of miraculous. It [seemed to open] … an exciting new world to the subjects whose only previous dream memories had been the vague morning-after recall. Now, instead of perhaps some fleeting glimpse into the dream world each night, the subjects could be tuned into the middle of as many as ten or twelve dreams every night.

(Dement, 1978, p. 37; quoted in Pinel, 1993)

In a normal night's sleep, a sleeper begins in stage 1, moves down through the stages, to stage 4, then back up through the stages, with the exception that stage 1 is replaced by REM, then the sleeper goes back down through the stages again. One cycle, from stage 1 to REM takes approximately ninety minutes. This cycle is repeated throughout the night, with the length of REM periods increasing, and the length of delta sleep decreasing, until during the last few cycles there is no delta sleep at all. (Figure 3 illustrates this cycle.)

Maybe with "normal" people and in theory.
However, many/most people as they get older, experience less stages 3 & 4 sleep. Also, with the "sleep-deprived" crowd (apnea sufferers) we also get less of those stages AND REM.....and that's what many of those have reported here from their sleep studies. (although it's amazing that we got ANY sleep then)

Hopefully, with our flow generators, we're getting better and more stages of sleep.

Den

Wulfman... wrote:Maybe with "normal" people and in theory.
However, many/most people as they get older, experience less stages 3 & 4 sleep. Also, with the "sleep-deprived" crowd (apnea sufferers) we also get less of those stages AND REM.....and that's what many of those have reported here from their sleep studies. (although it's amazing that we got ANY sleep then)

Hopefully, with our flow generators, we're getting better and more stages of sleep.

Den

Hello wulfman, I've been wondering why I seem to remember dreaming a lot during my nights. I am 60 btw. When I was married I almost never remembered dreaming (divorced 7 years) but now I am very aware of dreams and a lot of them (seemingly) during the night. If I have to go to stage 4 and back to dream then I wonder, am I really going into deep sleep. Must be at least some of the night. Leg movements during REM, or the dream stage, would seem normal to me since the body, though somewhat paralyzed, appears to move more during this stage.

Just rambling here

Here's a link to a discussion about REM and dreaming that you might be interested in. If you scroll down to my post in that discussion, you will see a link to a tutorial about sleep and dreaming. It's an overall interesting discussion.

viewtopic.php?t=19761&highlight=rem+sleep+thoughts

The tutorial is kind of a fun animation and distinguishes betwee what some people call "sleep thoughts" which occur during any stage and REM dreaming, or "true dreams." There is a difference between what's going on in the brain during these different stages, though what we might call "dreaming" may go on in any of them.