UARS or idiopathic hypersomnia

Ok, got my results from the last test:

Sleep efficiency at 83% with only simple snoring present.

Stage 1: 2.3%
Stage 2: 50.8%
Stage 3: 32.0%
Stage 4: 0.0
REM: 14.9%

Resp. Disturbance Index: 0.0/hr (NREM), 1.1/hr. (REM) .2/hr Total
Average Sa02 during sleep: 97%, Lowest Sa02: 96%

Arousals TOTAL: 113, w/ resp. event: 0, leg mvt arousal: (blank), Spontaneous arousal: 113
Snoring rating: simple snoring

Diagnosis: Simple snoring

MSLT: 9.5 sleeping, no sleep, 14 minutes sleeping, 11.5 minutes sleeping, no sleep. No REM periods during naps. No REM fragments. Mean sleep latency was 15 minutes.

Summary: NO EVIDENCE OF HYPERSOMNOLENCE

Umm...wtf? I had 113 SPONTANEOUS arousals and slept during 3 of 5 naps, and they say no evidence of hypersomnolence?!? Whatever dude.

What can you guys tell me about this? If you have other questions I will look on this sheet. I gotta believe 113 spontaneous arousals HAS to do with something!!!

Also if I should post this in another section of the forum for more views please let me know!

Thanks all!

They look at onset of REM sleep in determining hypersomnolence and narcolepsy. If you go right into REM during your nap it's narcolepsy. If REM is delaed, but present it's hypersomnia. If not REM I guess you're just sleepy.

Well hypersomnia means excessive amounts of sleepiness, which I obviously have!

Regardless, I really don't care about that particular doctors diagnosis, I just want to know if all of those arousals report to UARS or something else

Actually, they look at whether you go into REM to determine narcolepsy (those naps are technically too short for you to go into REM unless there is sleep deprivation due to, well, sleep deprivation, or sleep disorder, or narcolepsy), and they look at how long it takes you to fall asleep in the nap to determine whether you OBJECTIVELY appear sleepy. The correlation between the MSLT (the naps) and the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, which is your subjective ratings of how tired you are, is fairly low. How fast you fall asleep on a nap is a function of a variety of things, including sleepability.

Right, but what do you think about the arousals?

And why no stage 4 sleep? Weird.

Hasn't stage 3 and 4 been combined lately?

As far as the arousals, it is possible that they are not detecting SDB as sensitively as possible and that these arousals are not "spontaneous". Alternatively, they could be non-respiratory related, in which case I have no idea what is causing them (nor do I know what caused all of mine over the many sleep studies I had, beginning around your age...I suspect in my cause it was SDB gone undetected, but I can't know that for sure).

Does it say on the report what their criteria was for scoring hypopneas?

No they didn't. The report is pretty sparse.

If I were you, I would ask the questions ahead of time about whether they score RERAs, what criteria they use to score hypopneas, etc. Can they do pes? I don't think a potentially "false negative" study behooves you. When I was in your position, which I once was, I had pes done. Course it may not have been done right, but I didn't realize at the time that there are so many different ways of doing that /equipment, etc.

They cannot do a pes, nor can anyone in my area. I agree about the potential of another false negative, but it is worth a shot. This sleep lab is supposed to be much better than the first one I went to, so I am willing to try it out. If nothing else at least I can compare my arousals with this one to my last one, and I am sure my doctor will let me do a CPAP trial if I push it.

In the meantime I have been hitting my sinuses with allergy and decongestant medication in an attempt to help myself breath better at night, and I notice that my throat doesn't collapse in on itself as easily as it used when I am laying down.

Does anyone else know any other potential causes of these arousals?

pain... restless legs are a couple

Gotcha. I do not have any chronic pain, and no restless legs.

Excuse the beginner's Q, but what exactly is UARS? I tried looking it up in cpap dictionary, but didn't find it. I'm curious about a possible connection to my own condition. thanks, tom

Not to worry, Doubtful Tom. There are more acronyms associated with this sleep stuff than you can shake a CPAP hose at.

Just click the link below if you'd like to see UARS search returns:
Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome

These days, the main reason that names are put to conditions and that tests are run at all is to get insurance to pay for stuff.

To a patient, it doesn't really matter what name is given the condition; all that matters is finding out whether PAP improves quality of life and health.

An earlier poster in this thread spoke of trying PAP for a while to see if it helped. It might be nice if you could get your doc (not necessarily your sleep-doc) to prescribe a one-month rental of a machine that you could then pay for out of pocket. That response-to-treatment test might give you more useful information than a PSG at this point. Maybe. At least that would be one of many options to discuss with your doctor.

Some who have felt better on PAP after trying it on their own have even then stayed completely under the radar by getting a regular (as in non-sleep) doc other than their own to write an Rx for the machine, without a diagnosis, if a doc was willing to do that, so the patient could buy online out of pocket. The Rx would allow you to get your own stuff online, and the advantage of not getting an actual diagnosis is that you don't have to answer "yes" to any future questions about being diagnosed with a sleep-breathing problem. If you got an APAP and software, you might be able to dial in the most effective pressure for yourself.

I am not recommending that. I'm just saying that it has been done. So I've heard. I mean, read.