Just a couple of questions

I hope maybe some of you experts out there can help me with a couple of these questions.

First of all I have an APAP (Remstar) set from 8 to 14. I spend most of the night at 8 with sometimes going up to 9 or 10. When you (or I) look at my results from several nights of use this is what I see: On some nights there are small peaks to 9 every little while but nothing major and no long periods of time. Then there are other nights that I see peaks of 30 min or an hour at 9 or 10 and clusters of events. Now to me that indicates that I am in REM becuase that's when events are the worst (and I don't sleep on my back my husband even tells me so.) So does that mean that there are some nights that I'm NOT getting into REM? Is there anything that would cause that? My AHI numbers are very well under control with the machine. any explanations?

Secondly, even pre-CPAP I have always felt like I slept really deeply. In college (only a few years ago) I would sleep through fire alarms (I mean like loud blaring ones) and now my husband gets up during the night (he doesn't sleep well - insomnia) and I never hear him or even know he's getting up. Could this also be causing me not to feel well rested? Is there something that could cause me to spend too much time in the deeper stages of sleep? I don't know... this is all speculation, but I'm really wondering what's going on. I wish this were more of an exact science.

I have not been using the APAP very long at 100% every night (only about 6 days) and will continue to hope that things straighten out but am looking to see if there is any explanation for these things. As far as pills the only thing I am on is birth control. I am only 24 so I'm relatively young.

Oh and I just wanted to say that you guys are great and I enjoy reading about all your inventiveness and you are all amazing. Thanks for any help/insight you can give me.

In college (only a few years ago) I would sleep through fire alarms (I mean like loud blaring ones) and now my husband gets up during the night (he doesn't sleep well - insomnia) and I never hear him or even know he's getting up. Could this also be causing me not to feel well rested? Is there something that could cause me to spend too much time in the deeper stages of sleep?

According to everything I've read about sleep stages, a person in the deeper sleep of stages 3 and 4 is difficult to awake and comes up "groggy" if awakened during one of those stages.

Children and young people (you're an adult, but you're still young, HS!!! ) spend more time in stage 3 and 4 than do "older" adults". As we age, less and less time is spent in those deeper stages of sleep. The "elderly" (whatever that means nowadays! I don't much like that word since I'm 60!) may have little or no stage 3 and 4. We make up for it in perkiness, though!

Anyway, it may be your relatively young age and "normal" amounts of stage 3 and 4 for your age that have you sleeping deeply quite a bit. Sounds like a good thing to me, but I'm no doctor.

Regarding your question about the peaks and clusters of events showing up on some nights but not on others...you asked, " So does that mean that there are some nights that I'm NOT getting into REM? "

Again, not a doctor, but I don't think that connection can be made. There might be some times when the machine is able to ward off events better than other times. That could apply even to a whole night. So, the absence of events being marked wouldn't necessarily mean you were "not getting into REM" on those nights. It more likely means that the machine was reading the precursor signals in your airflow characteristics and was doing what it's supposed to do... preventing those events.

If prevented, there's no event, no tick mark -- just a night of practically "nothing" showing up on the data except what pressure the machine is proactively using to keep the throat open and what the leak rate is. That's the way it should be....with you sleeping peacefully right through the REM periods. Ideally when you are in REM where its more likely to have apneas and hypopneas, the machine is doing its job behind the scenes making sure events don't slip through, have to be dealt with after the fact, and thus show up on the data.

It sounds to me like you are doing pretty darn good, except for one thing that I and many others do too, and that is worry. It is very difficult to eliminate worry, but it is worth trying. I think that it why I like this forum. I can see that I am doing better than some people and worse than others. I can share my problems and concerns, being able to share what is troubling me greatly reduces my worry. I hope it helps you too!

I guess I forgot there for a little bit that the machine is actually supposed to prevent the apneas/hypopneas BEFORE they happen. How silly of me. That would definitely explain the REM thing. Wish you could get the things that the sleep lab has to record which stages of sleep you were in, but I guess I'm just one of those people that like to be over informed.

I do not think you can be over informed. No one can possibly know everything about our treatment and the associated problems with it. Especially since there is so much variation to how each person responds to it. I think it is very important to keep asking questions. The more you know the more control you have and the less I think one worries.