Grrr...no sleep :(

pandatx wrote:
PS...I am a yoga lover too

Then remember meditation and following the breathe?

You can either chose to "follow the breathe" and feel gratitude how this is helping you OR you can let it go and find another image/experience. Does yoga make you feel blissful? Then image the last relaxation pose in your mind. Feel the mat, feel the relaxation in you body, hear the instructors voice, smell the sensations, in other words re-experience it in all senses. If the yoga doesn't do it for you, find another situation you remember where you felt blissful and drowsy. Some people remember days on the beach, in the woods, on holiday, during a massage.

I did try meditating but that breathing sound was so distracting. I'm only a few days in so all of this is new to me. I know I'll get used to it. Thanks for the reminders

Pugsy, here is the data I have from the titration study:

Lights out: 22:37 WASO 144.5
Lights on: 05:03 Sleep Latency 19.5
TRT 415.0 REM Latency 365.5
TST 250.0 Efficiency 60.2%

Time %TST
N1 20.0 8.0%
N2 117.5 47.0
N3 90 36.0
R 22.5 9.0

pandatx wrote:Jim, your info is always so helpful. That makes me feel better to know that I'm on the right track. It will sure be nice to have everything reset and be able to sleep through the night

I am comforted by this Darth Vader quote (lol): "Impressive. Most impressive. Obi-Wan has taught you well. You have controlled your fear."

May the force be with you guys today
xo
Amy

Strong with this one is the Force, yes!

pandatx wrote:Pugsy, here is the data I have from the titration study:

Lights out: 22:37 WASO 144.5
Lights on: 05:03 Sleep Latency 19.5
TRT 415.0 REM Latency 365.5
TST 250.0 Efficiency 60.2%

Time %TST
N1 20.0 8.0%
N2 117.5 47.0
N3 90 36.0
R 22.5 9.0

That was the titration study? Holy crap..wonder how bad the diagnostic study was.
Did you take the Ambien the night of this study?

REM latency...that the time from sleep onset to first REM sleep...way too long...normal somewhere around 60 to 90 minutes give or take a few.
Efficiency...that's low...normal is hopefully in the 80s.
Pretty much tells us "crappy" sleep in general and if this bad during the titration study....some sleep problems going on that aren't related to sleep apnea.

the scores on my original study were better. I did much worse on the titration study but I think a lot of that was discomfort. All those wires. The guy kept coming in and waking me. The mask was way too tight. Etc.

On the diagnostic study my REM latency was 103.5 and my efficiency was 80.5.

Drowsy Dancer wrote:

Sir NoddinOff wrote:

pandatx wrote:Pugsy is awesome, isn't she? If you only knew how many messages went back and forth between us today. I need to send her a fruit basket or something

Pretty much everybody on this forum owes Pugsy a fruit basket. She'd be buried alive in fruit if it all came at once

+1 on that.

Pugsy has been amazing helping me in my thread!!

pandatx wrote:the scores on my original study were better. I did much worse on the titration study but I think a lot of that was discomfort. All those wires. The guy kept coming in and waking me. The mask was way too tight. Etc.

On the diagnostic study my REM latency was 103.5 and my efficiency was 80.5.

Whew, that's a relief. Sounds like your titration study was like mine....the night from Hell.
Out of 8 hours...156 minutes of sleep and poor sleep at that...6 minutes in REM sleep where my OSA is much worse. No wonder they didn't get the pressure right.

So now we work on figuring out how to get you to get to sleep and be able to stay asleep...and/or get back to sleep when you do wake up at 3 AM.

Part of what you are going through is old habit...so hopefully with time the brain will relearn about sleeping better.
Part of it is the hyper sensitivity to all this "stuff" and the darth vader noise. That will lessen as the brain becomes accustomed to the new "norm".
It will take some time but things will come around. May take some detective work to see what we can do about the insomnia that isn't related to sleep apnea and the equipment but it can be done.

Remember...4 hours of sleep using the machine is better than no hours using the machine and/or better than 2 hours of sleep. Let's see how things are after a week or so now that we seem to have eliminated the gasping for breath sensations.
Also let me know when you try the fingers in the ear test for noise level.

Pugsy, you hit the nail on the head perfectly. Yes...

Part of what you are going through is old habit...so hopefully with time the brain will relearn about sleeping better.
Part of it is the hyper sensitivity to all this "stuff" and the darth vader noise. That will lessen as the brain becomes accustomed to the new "norm".

And yes too that 4 hours of good sleep with the machine is better than 4 hours of crap sleep without it (I'm paraphrasing, lol). I hope I can figure out the rest of the insomnia stuff as well but when all the acclimating is done with the machine/mask, this will be a good start.

Again, thank you so much!

PS..going to try the fingers in the ears test right now!

Pugsy wrote:Sleep onset insomnia and sleep maintenance insomnia...trouble getting to sleep and staying asleep.
CPAP therapy helps if the insomnia was caused by the sleep apnea events alone....problem is...often the insomnia isn't solely caused by sleep apnea.
Your machine is doing a great job fixing the sleep apnea stuff but the bad sleep from other causes (whatever they are) it doesn't do such a good job because that is not what it is designed to do.

Atenolol....side effect ...insomnia...so it isn't helping things. It's a recent drug for you so we can't place all the blame on it but it could be adding to the problem.
Ambien....half a dose at bedtime...it's wearing off after 4 hours. So not unexpected result there.

Can you get us a copy of your sleep studies? Or at least tell us what they say about Sleep in general....how many minutes to get to sleep..% of each stage...sleep efficiency...all the stuff related to quality of sleep.

Almost every drug is mentioned as causing sleep disruptions. I would not be surprised if Ambien caused sleep problems, though it isn't listed.

Atenelol is a beta blocker. In some people it makes them drowsy. You could be unlucky, of course. Personally I think you are simply USED to waking up at that time, and I think with time it will improve.

The breathing noise bothered me, but only for a couple of days. At that time I was drinking, and that helped me fall asleep. (I am most definitely NOT recommending alcohol as it also disrupts rem sleep ... not a great solution.) Ambien might work similarly, but of course if you wake up at 3 neither is helpful.

With me the breathing noise became "accepted" and now it is a comforting sound. You've just got so much stacked against you BUT each card will fall with time, as you are starting to see. I second the suggestion for ear stoppers, or perhaps headphones. Seems aroma therapy isn't going to help you if you can't smell it. I know a rare group of people have that issue ... I am curious if it was always that way?

Keep on pluggin!

thanks for the support khauser. the no sense of smell thing got worse with age. its always been bad and I've had bad allergies since I was a kid but I used to be able to smell things. Now it just makes me sad. I'm from Florida and when I go visit my parents I keep asking my husband if he can smell the ocean. I miss that smell. And chocolate. And flowers. My mom can't smell either. Isn't that weird? She's the only other person I know like that.

How about talking to your doctor about anxiety pills? You're gonna need some sleep somehow.

......... duplicate deleted........

khauser wrote:Ambien....half a dose at bedtime...it's wearing off after 4 hours. So not unexpected result there.

The weird thing about Ambien (regular formulation, not CR) is that all the TV commercials used to scream out warnings about how you shouldn't take it unless you were prepared to stay in bed for 8 hours. Naturally, everyone assumed that it'd knock you out for 8 hours. However, my doctor said it wears off after four hours for normal people like most other medications, unless your liver and kidneys are impaired in some way. When I took it for a few months before and after my sleep test last year, I found myself waking up about 4 hours after the initial dose. Ambien can now be found in a more expensive formulation called Controlled Release, hence the CR designation. It's supposed release over a period of eight hours, tho I haven't tried it.

I agree with the comment about getting used to the sound of the mask and machine. It takes awhile but you can use earplugs or use a white noise generator if the trouble persists.

I hate the Ambien. One time I ate in my sleep and it freaked me out. I was taking a small dose of Klonopin but my sleep dr said to do the 1/2 and Ambien instead.

One reason I asked about the sense of smell is there was a lot of news about a particular brand of cold "remedy" causing that problem. Basically, an overdose of Zinc in the nose can cause the nerves to "burn out" (not the technical term). People lost sense of smell and taste.

I assume you (and your Mom) have seen ENTs about that. It's not that I think it relates to your current problem, but since you mentioned it I thought I'd follow up. Lots of sinus issues can wreak havoc with the sense of smell...