Fitbit for sleep monitoring

cosmo wrote:I would rather get an oximeter than a fitbit if I suspected sleep apnea. What if you are in bed, awake but don't move?

The two devices measure different things that affect sleep duration and sleep quality. If I could only choose one to diagnose sleep apnea, I agree, I would get an recording oximeter. However, pre-diagnosis, I would have been off the charts for low blood O2 on the oximeter and excessive movement with short sleep duration on the fitbit. Clearly, both would triggered a request for a sleep study by my family physician. Now that I have been diagnosed and properly treated with a cpap, there is less need for the oximeter and more need for a measure of sleep quality. My blood o2's are great on Cpap, no need to continue measuring. However, I'm sleepy on many days and there's a need to identify what is causing the poor rest and a need to use an objective measure to identify improvement. I'm evaluating different tools to evaluate sleep quality. I just bought an Ipod touch and an app that tracks movement during sleep. This may be winner down the road...

Zeo?

I'm going to record myself with my laptop to see if I move a lot. I don't think I do. I have only recorded myself pre-cpap.

It will also help me pinpoint little micro leak spikes I get from time. I must be sniffling with my nose and it breaks the seal for a second but I would never know without video. Or maybe I move my head.

Jay Aitchsee wrote:Zeo?

Jay, you've given me tremendous advice on the zeo headband and making it work with a quattro mask. Thanks so very much! However, I do have some concerns with the zeo, namely: a) the one size fits all head strap is likely too small for my size 7-3/4 head and b) reported difficulties in communication between zeo & Ipod touch. I'm going to use an app called Motion X sleep and will wear the Ipod on the wrist of my non-dominant hand. I found a nice armband that'll work great for this application. Motion X data can be sent via email in CSV format so I can do my own data manipulations in a spreadsheet.

I doubt the Zeo headband would be a problem, but the Ipod very well may be. Some other members have had difficulties with it. The CSV data is available from Zeo as well. See here for an example, if you missed it: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=85585&st=0&sk=t&sd=a#p778673

MyIdaho wrote:he one size fits all head strap is likely too small for my size 7-3/4 head

No reason why you couldn't easily make your own headband.

Jay Aitchsee wrote:I doubt the Zeo headband would be a problem, but the Ipod very well may be. Some other members have had difficulties with it. The CSV data is available from Zeo as well. See here for an example, if you missed it: viewtopic.php?f=1&t=85585&st=0&sk=t&sd=a#p778673

Yes, I did see your earlier reply. My apologies for not acknowledging... I like to read Amazon reviews for items I am considering and at least one male (with my hat size) indicated the headband was too small. I am follically challenged so it may not be an issue for me size wise but my mask headband does ride up on the back of head resulting in no contact with forehead rest. This would mean that the zeo could have varying contact with my head throughout the night, potentially corrupting the data. I going to start with a simpler, less expensive test for now...

Best,
Rick

cosmo wrote:

MyIdaho wrote:he one size fits all head strap is likely too small for my size 7-3/4 head

No reason why you couldn't easily make your own headband.

Well, that's true but I'm not very good with a needle & thread and the Missus is not the sewing type...

BTW, how are planning on measuring your movement with a laptop? My wife says I don't move very much at all since going on the CPAP but that doesn't mean I don't have small movements, indicative of light sleep and disturbed rest.

I'm not going to measure, just visually look and see if I move. I'm also going to take a look at leakage in Sleepyhead and see what is going on in the video during that period. I have a good fitting mask so I want to see what is going on when there is a leak.

cosmo wrote:I would rather get an oximeter than a fitbit if I suspected sleep apnea. What if you are in bed, awake but don't move?

Like I use to do when I was scared of the evil gnomes and monsters that came out of the closet. If you were awake and saw them, they would have sucked the life out of you because you're not suppose to see them.

I've had my fitbit for about a month now and my family and girlfriend have accused me of sleep apnea, saying that I stop breathing, tense up and then gasp for air and my hr spikes. I've always felt tired and I have a history of accelerated hr due to low bp. Recently my bp has been on the high side of normal which is irregular and I've been waking up more tired than ever. I spent the whole day sleeping to see if I could feel rested again and I woke up to find that I felt as if I'd ran a half mile from my old track days. The hard part for me is I'm only 20 and still in college with roommates and I don't want to have a cpap machine. I'm scheduling an appointment with my doctor to talk about my fitbit charts and see what he says. I have a rare disease called pots which is common in women but less common in 14 year old boys (the age I was diagnosed) upon a stress test my heart jumped to 232bpm in just the 3rd stage while my bp stayed low. My body is used to my heart accelerating rapidly and just starts a shutdown that makes me crash like from a caffeine high (which I can't have anymore).
I don't drink pop or coffee and until two years ago I ran track as a state athlete. I've never been average weight for my height, always below, and I've never had sleep issues until March of this year. My girlfriend noticed them first that I'd snore really bad, then I started to stop breathing randomly. In the last two months when I stopped breathing she said my body would tense up like someone was choking me. On vacation and once at home on the couch I woke up to gasping for air and then choked and started coughing up acid.
I got my fitbit because I wanted to be active and feel like I did in high school but when I found out it measures my sleep (by movement and hr algorithms ((the charge hr addition fitbit))) I thought it was fun to see the charts but I started noticing on normal mode that I'd be restless (movement or hr spikes) 30+ times in just a 4 hour sleep period. Lately it's been worse.. I'm worried about what could happen if I got even more worse considering my heart issues and struggle getting enough air while awake. All I can say is the fitbit has made me feel the need to see the doctor.