waking up at night

Every once in a while (maybe once every month or two) I get into a weird sleep pattern... I will sleep for about 5 or 6 hours, then wake up, and literally will not be able to get back to sleep for the next 2 hours. It seems like once I get into this pattern, it is hard to break. Once I wake up in the middle of the night, I'm doomed to do the same thing again for the next few nights... until I somehow sleep through the night once and then I'm good until the next episode. I'm in one of these ruts at the moment - I have been waking up around 330 every night and can't get back to sleep for another two hours... thankfully Thanksgiving break is coming up and I can focus on my sleeping!

In general, my numbers are good, usually about 2.0 AHI or thereabouts. It varies. Not really having issues with the bipap other than it bothering the bridge of my nose. I've found that sticking a bandaid on the bridge of my nose before putting the mask on helps a lot. I am sometimes uncomfortable in bed because a) my mattress is kind of old and will sometimes jab me with a loose spring, and b) depending on the lumps of the day in my pillow, my neck can get a little strained.

I do wonder if this is somehow related to anxiety. When there is something that I'm anxious about or even looking foward to the next day, I will ALWAYS have a really crappy night's sleep... will not be able to sleep and of course this is bad news for a bipap user! However, if I have some kind of a direct stressor (I am all about schedules so this can be as small as a day off!) I have problems FALLING asleep. My current issue involves me waking up from sleep. I have taken to turning down a lot of the lights (my computer light was always on in the past) and falling asleep to some (very low) soothing music. My BF also got me a cute little electric fountain that I also turn on now and then. This does make me feel calmer. When I do wake up in the middle of the night, I will often feel very upset/angry that I woke up too early... the music helps me stay mellow.

Any suggestions? Until I figure this out, I'm trying to budget 10 hours for sleep so I can get my 8 hours in.

When you have one of these episodes where you wake up early and can't go back to sleep, how long have you been asleep before this happens? Have you noticed that you do anything different when this starts IE eating a certain food, drinking the same liquid, have a disagreement with a significant other? Any changes in out daily lives can effect our sleep and I have a feeling their is something in your daily life that you only do occasionally that is effecting your sleep.

Gerry

Omg - I have the exact same problem! I am a newbie to CPAP - just started about 10 days ago - and I have yet to get a solid 8 hour sleep. No matter what time I go to bed, I wake up somewhere between 3 and 4 a.m. and am unable to go back to sleep. (I also wake up a time or two before that but have been able to fall back asleep fairly easily.) This is nothing new - I had this problem off and on for some time - but I had hoped that using a CPAP would stop this problem. In fact, that is why I went for a sleep study in the first place! I no longer feel a slight pounding in my chest as though I was out of breath - CPAP obviously has helped with that - but I am more tired since starting on CPAP than I was before, which is a ridiculous way to come back from a week's vacation (and a restful one at that).

Part of this I attributed to having a cold - I also have a full face mask, so not a mask issue, but I always sleep poorly when sick - but have since gotten better and am still not sleeping a full night. I have not noticed any leaks, and there definitely have not been any when I have woken up.

I was just about to post on the same topic, namely, whether this could be attributed to getting used to a CPAP, but then I saw this post and hopefully someone will be able to help us (or at least provide some advice that will help me not wonder if I made the right choice using CPAP!).

Thanks,

Chris

chrislegg1 wrote:Omg - I have the exact same problem! I am a newbie to CPAP - just started about 10 days ago - and I have yet to get a solid 8 hour sleep.

I think that sometimes we want the machine to solve each and every possible sleep related problem but all to often we forget that we can have other issues affecting our quality of sleep. Plus I think that for many of us our bodies were simply used to or in the habit of waking often as a reaction to the OSA events. We got in a habit of waking often or early and bad habits are always hard to break. Then factor in other issues like stress, food, body aches and pains, etc and we just don't always get good restful sleep. Even people without OSA have bad nights.

So I guess we have to work on good sleep hygiene and if that doesn't help sometimes we need to talk to the doctor about maybe adding a little sleep aid. I had to do this. I started therapy in May. I still had numerous awakenings from habit and pain (arthritis). I would get maybe 4 -5 hours of interrupted sleep (toss and turn wakeups) then not be able to go back to sleep. I ended up talking to sleep doctor about breaking that cycle. Ambien was prescribed and it helped me get into a pattern of sleeping a little deeper and a little longer. I can now sleep probably 6 hours without the Ambien and it is fairly restful sleep. Not perfect but better than it was.

If fragmented sleep is not related to machine or mask problems then a person should do a bit of detective work and try to isolate contributing factors and try to fix them. There is more to getting a good restful night's sleep then just hooking ourselves up to a machine and mask.

For Chrislegg, it does take a little while to adjust to sleeping with all this stuff attached but don't wait too long to talk to doctor about feeling worse. It is perfectly okay to have a little help in breaking the habit of waking often or too soon. The body has to have some rest and time to regroup. If you have mask and machine issues under control then you might just need to break the habit. It is not okay to feel worse..

Once I had the major problems worked out and my cpap therapy was working, I started waking up much earlier than I should have. I woke up refreshed kind of felt like jumping up out of bed and doing something until I looked at the clock. After a while this went away and I could sleep longer.

Gerry

Waking up during the night, and especially if falling back asleep is an issue, can be maddening. It's been my life, but at least I know why - poorly controlled limb movements. But aside from that cause, healing fragile sleep was a process, almost like I needed to relearn how to sleep, and methodically address contributors both internal and external.

Enough cannot be said about comfort. Pain is a big sleep buster, as is external stimulation (like the mattress and pillow problems). I saw overnight improvement when I added a memory foam mattress topper. Reduced waking to pain in my back hip and shoulder. When excruciating knee pain haunted my nights, seeing the ortho doc addressed that. Household noises - added white noise. Earplugs were more a problem than a help, so I added a soft stretchy sport/headband so as to cover my ears, and it slightly muffled sounds. Hyperaware of mask, added Pur Sleep scents to help associate pleasantness with the mask.

Everyone is different, but since I associated putting on the mask with going to sleep, taking it off for a few minutes then putting it back on seemed to summon to sleep. That is no longer necessary.

It helped me to keep in mind that if a sleep study shows a percentage of apneas cause sleep disruption, couldn't I reasonably expect a few of my remaining events on cpap to do the same? After all, an AI of 2 means 16 residual apneas in an 8 hour night. Seems to me reducing residual events reduces the opportunities for this being a cause of awakenings.

I wish there were solid solutions that worked universally. I still have not "arrived" but have made strides in the right direction. What a trip!

Kathy

I've been 100% compliant with the bipap for about 6 months. This doesn't seem to be a bipap problem... it is an "other" problem. I have not noticed any common thread... again, it's not a problem with falling asleep, just staying asleep.

Sometime between 3-5 AM our body produces lots of hormones to help us get ready for the morning. One of those is cortisol which if we're sensitive to it will wake us up. As Kteague posted, it is maddening when this happens. Luckily, I don't have this type of awakening anymore.

But, I'm still adjusting to the daylight savings time shift...not there yet, frustrating. And, I'm waking up when an event terminates...not always, just sometimes, it was gone & now returned to some degree...this is also maddening and shows me how fragmented my sleep still is . Ah well, recent unexpected houseguests with resulting short sleep were likely contributing...guests gone and trying to get more sleep...my night-owlness is rearing its head and making it hard to get sleepy and days have been cloudy so no bright light in the mornings to help reset my circadian clock. And now the holiday approaches...gotta bend in the breeze and do the best ya can.

ciounoi wrote:Every once in a while (maybe once every month or two) I get into a weird sleep pattern... I will sleep for about 5 or 6 hours, then wake up, and literally will not be able to get back to sleep for the next 2 hours. It seems like once I get into this pattern, it is hard to break. Once I wake up in the middle of the night, I'm doomed to do the same thing again for the next few nights... Any suggestions? Until I figure this out, I'm trying to budget 10 hours for sleep so I can get my 8 hours in.

Actually, it is a very common sleep pattern. It used to be called first and second sleep. (Or it is sometimes called dead and morning sleep). You can read more about it at:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep

It is not until the advent of factory jobs and the industrial revolution that we saw the belief that we should be able to sleep through the entire night. So, don't worry about this pattern emerging. It is very, very normal.

But as you note, you need to devote more time to rest if it does emerge. Your best bet would be to have an interesting book or the like to take some time before your body is ready for more sleep.

JohnBFisher wrote:...http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Segmented_sleep...

Thanks John! Never heard of segmented sleep, will print-email to several friends who have this troublesome but perfectly normal habit.

JohnBFisher wrote:
It is not until the advent of factory jobs and the industrial revolution that we saw the belief that we should be able to sleep through the entire night. So, don't worry about this pattern emerging. It is very, very normal.

But as you note, you need to devote more time to rest if it does emerge. Your best bet would be to have an interesting book or the like to take some time before your body is ready for more sleep.

Interesting link! I wish I had the luxury of the afternoon nap referenced in the article. However, I luckily go right back to sleep when I awaken in the early morning, every morning. If I did stay up for a few hours I would typically crash about 7 am; however the only reference I have is pre-CPAP so who knows what would work today. The one thing I don't have is the ability to get extra sleep between 6am and 6pm.

I remember an article on CNN.com about a year ago on segmented sleep ... until the late 1800s it was considered perfectly normal to wake up in the middle of the night and read or do some light chores or paperwork or something for about an hour and then go back to sleep.

Ben Franklin was apparently notorious for spending that hour reading in front of an open window. Naked.