Hypersomnia, i.e. sleeping 12 to 20 hours a day

Did or do any of you experience periods of hypersomnia, i.e. sleeping 12 to 20 hours a day?

Only if I'm sick--cats really know their stuff.

Used to catnap around the clock, no "real" sleep. Treating my OSA and my limb movements gave me longer periods of sleep at night and reduced my daytime sleep. However, I still have days when I am am uncontrollably in and out of sleep all day even though sitting upright. When I am like that it feels strange, like I am overcome by sleep, or drugged. I think this is different from one who gets in bed and actually sleeps 12 to 20 hours, and that would raise some questions.

How often does this happen?
Is this continuous sleep, and does it feel like good sleep or is it restless or fitful?
Any medications this could be a side effect of?
Is your OSA therapeutically treated?
Any other sleep disorders?

If this happens often I would want a thorough medical evaluation and maybe even testing for narcolepsy if nothing else is pinpointed.

Yes, I've had that in the past and am having it now. I'm on my CPAP the entire time. Only get up to put water in humidifier or get something to get. Then back to snoozeville. I really feel like a zombie most of the time. My doctors (sleep and psych) are trying to come to a "happy medium" about my medication. Apparently EFFEXOR totally suppresses REM and DEEP sleep. So all my sleep is just light which is not restful at all. I can sleep days at a time and still feel like I need to sleep. Bought a ZEO and last night 85% of my sleep time was light sleep. Only got 2 minutes of deep sleep and 10 minutes of REM. That just isn't going to make my hypersomnia go away.

Check out any and all medications you are currently taking. I had an antihypertensive drug that made me terribly sleepy all day. Not something most would expect. Just about any medication could be the culprit. So do some sleuthing and find out what's under it all.

I did- that's why I had a sleep test. I only had mild sleep apnea then- AHI of five, barely qualified for CPAP. Even on CPAP had hypersomnia so started taking Provigil or Nuvigil to stay awake during the day. I had a MSLT (Multiple Sleep Latency Test) to find our why I was still so sleepy during the day and found out I had hypersomnia, not narcolepsy. I don't need Provigil any more, but for a long time- 3 1/2 years- I needed it and it gave me my life back. Tried Adderal, but it didn't work as well. Good luck. It's miserable to sleep all the time.

A very long time ago when I was in my 20s I would fall asleep whenever I just sat down in a chair. This was in '72-'73. My husband was in the Army and I went to the Army hospital and was at first told I would need a complete workup to determine the cause. When I went back I saw a colonel who had much experience and he immediately asked me what was bothering me. My mother was very ill with cancer and that was a huge worry. He gave me a drug (I want to say elevil but I'm not sure) and taken in the small dose he prescribed, it took away my sleepiness. Several years ago I began having anxiety so my doctor put me on Effexor (the 24 hour kind). I was OK with it until I started CPAP. Immediately I began being sleepy but not actually falling asleep during the day and sleeping well at night. I tried getting off the Effexor but now I know that's almost impossible to do without a doctor's help but given my history of falling asleep I'm not sure if totally eliminating the Effexor is the best way to go. I've experimented with the times I take it and have found that if I take it early in the morning, I'm not sleepy during the day and I go to sleep easily at bed time. I'm still thinking about getting off the Effexor and if I have the daytime sleepiness and anxiety maybe trying something not so addictive. Apparently sleepiness is my body's answer to stress/anxiety. I've written this to let you know that there may be other causes for the sleeping during the day. There certainly were for me!

Knabino wrote:Did or do any of you experience periods of hypersomnia, i.e. sleeping 12 to 20 hours a day?

Oh, yes! I sure did. For close to ten years, about as often as not, my sleeps ranged up to 12, 14, 15 hours per "night" interrupted only by two, three or four bathroom breaks. After each break, I got back into bed and quickly fell asleep. On a few occasions, I slept for 18, 20 hours or even more. Typically, when I finally arose and got out of bed, I did not feel well rested. I often actually felt tired. I felt as if I were in a peaceful, relaxed fog that was not at all unpleasant. So I "rolled" along with it for years.

I had no regular sleep schedule. Trying to go to sleep at a regular time had always, since childhood, been a nagging, frustrating experience. So after I retired about ten years ago, I began going to sleep only when I genuinely felt tired and sleepy. That's how I became a night owl big time. And when did I get up and out of bed? Whenever I awoke and felt like getting up! If I didn't feel like getting up, I just turned over and easily went back to sleep.

So I went to sleep whenever I got sleepy and I arose and got out of bed whenever I felt like it. It was actually rather nice I thought; even luxurious. I'm an independent sort and not prone to feeling lonesome when I'm by myself. I pursued several hobbies, browsed the web, read, had a good ole time. There were some social and family difficulties, of course, that had to be smoothed over and dealt with, but it turned out not to be mission impossible. Even when on a few occasions I got sleepy at a "regular" hour like 8, 9 or 10:00pm and went to bed, I could sleep for only two to three hours. Period. Invariably. Only two or three hours. Then I'd have to get up and continue my free-style irregular sleeping habit.

While I found this not at all unpleasant, it became obvious to me that all that sleeping was poor-quality sleep. Inefficient sleep. Certainly not normal sleep. I was still tired , often sluggish and run down, during my awake hours. I had a battery of cardiac tests done on me last fall. Everything was normal. Out of the blue, the doc asked about my sleeping. I told him what I told you here above. He advised me to do an overnight sleep lab test. Given my uncommon way of sleeping, I was intrigued as to what a modern technology sleep laboratory would come up with. I said, "Sure."

My AHI was measured at 38 (29 OA, 5 CA, 8 HA) and my DBI was 68. The latter includes RERA. These results were not good. I was diagnosed with severe overall obstructive disordered breathing. I was receptive to beginning CPAP therapy right away so a week later I left my follow-up doctor's appointment with an S9 Elite CPAP machine in hand, that I later exchanged for an S9 AutoSet for the added functionality just in case I might need it later on.

With CPAP, right away, I slipped into sleeping to a regular sleep schedule pattern. I went to bed around 11:30 pm and got up around 7:30 am. It was amazing to me that I actually felt like getting out of bed and that I became rather alert within only a few minutes of arising (instead of it taking a long time, sometimes hours, to come out of my "fog"). This happened again on the second night, and the third, and the fourth, and . . . It was such a nice experience that I adopted the new routine naturally (without any strain or discomfort) and stayed with it. My AHI averaged about 7, but I notice it rises over time when I stay up "too late" by a few hours, too often, and then violate my new early wake-ups in the mornings after.

I also noticed, and so did my wife, happily, that my mood lightened up a lot. So CPAP turns out to have subtle, and some not so subtle, delightful benefits to it.