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Hi- I was just wondering- is there some sort of algorithm for estimating how long it takes to "pay back" your sleep debt due to shift work? I know that with my OSA, there are other issues, but just by working 35 years of 11 to 7 shift, I know that I have a hefty amount of debt from that alone. I read somewhere that even on a good day, the average night shift worker only gets about 6 hours' sleep,so s/he is already about 2 hours short of a regular NIGHT's sleep- which I found to be true- when we came in at night, we usually asked each other how we slept and if someone got 6 hours- that was considered wonderful sleep!
If anyone has any answers or articles, etc, I am eager to know more. Thanks
~joan

You take the number of years you went untreated, times the hours you are being treated correctly, mulitipy by 467 and 3/4 then divide by 21.023651. This only works if you keep your leak rate under 35 to 40 LPM. The correct answer is, when you get the treatment correct, you will start to feel better when you feel better.

Over the years your body has taken abuse, it has to repair it's self, in it's own time. Jim

Trinity101 wrote:Hi- I was just wondering- is there some sort of algorithm for estimating how long it takes to "pay back" your sleep debt due to shift work? I know that with my OSA, there are other issues, but just by working 35 years of 11 to 7 shift, I know that I have a hefty amount of debt from that alone. I read somewhere that even on a good day, the average night shift worker only gets about 6 hours' sleep,so s/he is already about 2 hours short of a regular NIGHT's sleep- which I found to be true- when we came in at night, we usually asked each other how we slept and if someone got 6 hours- that was considered wonderful sleep!
If anyone has any answers or articles, etc, I am eager to know more. Thanks
~joan

Hello, Trinity. Shift work alone can cause your "circadian rhythm" or biologic sleep clock to skew badly. The extended symptoms can be the same as terrible jet lag---which is fortunately only a temporary "circadian rhythm" problem imposed by travel. So be sure to Google or search "circadian rhythm disorders" to see if you need to work on that potential problem in sleep-related etiology.

And, of course, you probably also have sleep debt related to years of rotten sleep imposed by apnea. My understanding is that there is no hard formula or algorithm. Sleep debt from years of bad sleep seems to affect people to varying degrees. Very fortunately there's not a one-to-one correlation between hours of sleep deprived versus hours that need to be paid back. I will say that when I first started CPAP, I spent the better part of a year in prolific and almost crazy REM rebound. That was undoubtedly somehow related to sleep debt. I think my case was unusual. Prolific dreams (or at least "dream mentation") do not always occur as sleep debt is paid back.

I would also point out that improperly unplugging from the Matrix can sometimes cause all those symptoms.. Fortunately, Neo can help with that.

Well, I know that I had a sleep test about ten years ago and was told I needed a second night of testing.When I had that, it was a split night. My doctor at that time-no longer around- said that the results showed that the CPAP really would not make any difference for me-and at the time being totally ignorant and horribly busy with a million other things-I did not go into it any further and just went on as before. So, that is ten years,plus however long before that.
One of the reasons I was asking,besides just curiosity, is that my husband- we are both retired and keep 2 of our grandkids M thru F -thinks I should be more awake now. In reality, I do feel like the sleep I get is better but I feel like a junkie a lot of the time and am jonesing for sleep- I just need to get back to bed and SLEEP more. He doesn't understand this, and feels I should be wide awake and perky, and ready to pitch in all day long-wrong again! I am NOT being lazy, but some days I just want to SLEEP.
~joan
You're right- confusing the real world with the Construct can play havoc with your sleep!
Goofproof-I do appreciate your math, but I think I have to defer to Charlie Eppes(Numb3rs) to check that for me- Neo doesn't domath- too busy flying around and dodging bullets! it SOUNDS about right, though!!!

Neo: I know you're out there. I can feel you now. I know that you're afraid... you're afraid of us... You're afraid of change... I didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. I came here to tell you how it's going to begin.. Where we go from there is a choice I leave to you.

The good news is that Morpheus just uploaded a retrospective CPAP message-board program. And this is what that upload contained by the way of recent history:

Trinity101 wrote:Well, I only started in the middle of March, but I am still getting up a lot for the bathroom- and still rarely get three hours of sleep at one time. I still change positions frequently- but that is more due to pain issues from arthritis, I think. I Do feel more rested, even so. I just think that in my case, working shift work(graveyards) for 35 years ruined my sleep clock so much that I don't know if I will ever sleep a whole night. Anyone have any insight on this?
~joan

If your CPAP settings were optimized, and if you were only sleeping a solid eight hours per night, then we still might think it plausible that you could still be paying back sleep debt at the beginning of May. Generally, we need a good nine or ten hours of nightly sleep to help whittle away at sleep debt. That's not to say we are or should be obligated to sleep ten hours each night. But it's also possible to run in place, and never get anywhere regarding that sleep debt, if we sleep either inefficiently or of consistently short durations.

Unfortunately, your quoted description above hints at sustained sleep deprivation more than it hints at productively paying back sleep debt---especially that part about persistent nocturia. Persistent nocturia sometimes hints at suboptimal CPAP therapy. So the very first thing to scrutinize IMHO is whether your current PAP machine settings are satisfactorily addressing your apneas, hypopneas, lesser flow limitations, and even potentially sleep-disruptive snore. That, in turn, should keep desats in check as well as nightly arousals (forgetting all about Neo pleasantries for the moment---nyuck, nyuck). And, of course, getting rid of those desats and arousals should, in turn, restore your sleep architecture to the point that you can efficiently begin to pay back sleep debt----thus soon feeling much more refreshed than you are.

Again, the first thing to scrutinize IMHO is just how well or poorly your current machine settings happen to be accomplishing all that. So what are your residual apnea, hypopnea, flow limitation, and snore indices like? And what a funky plural for that word "index"... By the way, we have all three Matrices in our DVD collection!

Outstanding Nocturia Just May Hint at Under-Addressed Sleep Disordered Breathing


P.S. When scrutinizing snore, don't forget to consider the fact that a spouse's unaddressed snore (potentially very sensory-intrusive) can easily and unfortunately deteriorate your sleep as well.

Hey, Trinity: Jsut checking in--I too have a very similar problem as you have --I have been on CPAP for about 6 months--and I still have night awakenings--about 2-3 per night--but I have a chronic bladder condition (had it for 16 years) --interstitial cystitis --and that forces me awake--I also have arthritis and I have frequent turnings too and that wakes me. I am also having a problem with dreams-very INTENSE and not very pleasant dreams--in fact ---nightmares--
anybody know anything about this?

Also, how do you know if your CPAP settings are doing the job---is there a way my dr. can check it? I am an AEIO Everest 2 machine--
Do you have to go back and do another sleep study?
Thanks for any help you can give.
Bobbi