What Now? If you take two sleep apnea tests & flunk?

My wife has taken one sleep apnea test at home. They said she did not sleep
enough to get enough info, so last night she went to their lab and the tech
told her this morning she didn't sleep enough to get good readings. They did
not even try a mask on her.

Has this ever happened to you? or a friend?

Any suggestions? She does not sleep well and while she rarely snores, she
does make ....uh...I call them Walt Disney sounds. I should record them, they
are so cute...well, not completely true....any sound that keeps you awake at
2am is actually not cute.

With my auto bipap I sleep right thru it.

We thought about her taking a nap today, putting my Mirage Swift..medium
pillow (she tried it before and I use the large)...anyway...I thought about
putting the smart card in...putting her on it and seeing how she sleeps??

I guess I could download my data, erase the card and let her use it.

My auto bipap is on 4/16 and the exhale is on a 3. If she slept for 3 or 4
hours, it might give me a glimpse?

Suggestions?

[I failed two tests 10-12 years ago..This time I ask if I could take something to make sure I slept.. My dr. prescribed Ambien 10 mg. saying it would not interfer with the test.. I had severe apnea. Good luck.
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CPAPopedia Keywords Contained In This Post (Click For Definition): bipap, mirage, swift, auto, Smart Card[/quote]

needingu....my wife told them she wanted a sleeping pill, but they said it might
interfere with the test.

The sleep center called, they want my wife back up there May 31st. She is telling them she won't do it without a sleeping pill.

Something odd here. I did not sleep well (I didn't think I was ever asleep)
but my tech came in at 2am, told me to put this nose mask on, we were
going to try the titration thing. I have no idea what they learned, I was just
told my readings were all over the place. What ever that meant. Anyway, they
got me the auto bipap machine. Of course...I asked for it...thanks to the
great help I got here.

My doctor gives all patients having a first-time sleep study a prescription for two 10-mg Ambien. You have to bring the Ambien to the study with you.

Fortunately, I slept without Ambien.

The sleep clinic I went to always does two sleep study sessions - or so I was told. Anyway, I know I barely slept the first night, but they were able to get a reading - finally.

The second night is when they put a mask on me.

Probably more bucks to have two sessions.

I say it would be better to take a mild sleeping pill and sleep, than to not take one and not sleep. Otherwise, why even have a study?

There is a company that has equipment for in-home studies over a period of 3 nights that is now Medicare and many other insurance companies approved. I'm not sure if I'm allowed to post commercial sites here. If I am, have admin let me know and I'll post the link. I'm not in any way connected with the company.

My family doctor just told my wife you aren't allowed to have any meds to
help you sleep.

We will straighten this out tomorrow, if nothing else, I have some mild sleeping
pills she can use. Not as strong as Ambien, but good enough.

Has anyone taken sleeping pills and messed up the sleep study???

dllfo wrote:Has this ever happened to you? . . .

Any suggestions?

Yes, and yes.

I failed two sleep studies a dozen years apart. I was told definitely that I did not have apnea both times. Thing is, I do . . ., but it was up to me to prove it.

Actually, I didn't wait for the second sleep test before collecting data on myself. Because I had the experience of having failed my first sleep lab test, more than a week before the second sleep test I rented an oximeter which showed significant repeated desaturations which I suspected indicative of apnea. Toward the end of the week I even purchased my own oximeter and continued to monitor my oxygen levels.

I knew I didn't sleep that well at the sleep lab, and the lab tech told me that he was just beginning to see some apneas toward the end of the test, so sure enough a few days later when I saw the sleep doc, he pronounced "no apnea". At that point I produced my oximeter reports which somewhat stunned the doc who immediately agreed to write me a machine prescription. The only question he asked was if I was prepared to pay for it myself if insurance wouldn't, and cautioned me to start out with 4 cm pressure.

When I got the machine I started out at 4 cm pressure and slept a lot better the first night than I had for quite a while. It took a few days to get used to the machine, and then much longer to reach a decent titration level. The oximeter data was merely suggestive of apnea, as other possibilities for the desaturations existed, but the Encore Pro data was unequivocal. (My apnea pattern, and the reason it wasn't detected during the sleep studies, is that my apnea didn't usually occur until the last REM segments, which I apparently only barely got to during my last sleep studies.)

So, based on my experience, yes, home apnea screening can be accomplished easily and cheaply with an oximeter. Use the oximeter for a few days until your wife is sure she has slept well, and if you don't see desaturations, then you'll know she likely doesn't have significant apnea. If you do see desaturations, then proceed with the high-cost options.

Regards,
Bill

I flunked my first test, same issue. The reviewing doc was the one who told me that they would be providing me with 10mg of Ambien - it wasn't my suggestion.

I would question whether your regular family doc realizes what Ambien does - it doesn't interfere with any of the breathing mechanisms - it just causes drowsiness. I could see why, the first time around, they would hold off on using it. They want to rule out if there's something impeding you from falling asleep naturally.

Beyond that, the point of the sleep study is to get you into REM, when the major problems are most likely to show up.

On my second study, I had 10mg of Ambien - fell asleep after 13 minutes.

But I STILL had all of my usual problems show up - the only difference this time around was that I used a mask that was a comfortable fit for me and managed to get some (not much) REM - enough to aid with the diagnosis.

Ambien just helps you get over the "oh my gosh I'm hooked up to a machine" feeling.

I have never used Ambien because I never had problems sleeping until the
last year. Even then I didn't think of a pill.

I have Rozerem, 8mg. It knocks me out when I take 2 and I feel groggy the
next day, so I am glad they didn't give me something as strong as Ambien.

Bill, thanks for the info on an alternate method of determining sleep apneas.

Hopefully our doctor will change his mind and give her a sample pack.

I couldn't sleep for mine at all. after 3 hours of being hooked up with no luck we gave up. They tired to reschedule for 3 weeks later. Dr got pissed because that was too long to wiat and went to her pulmanologist explained the situation and he signed off it somehow.

My problem wasn't just apnea but my Oxygen levels fell to dangerous levels and I had oxygen bottles and a concentrator was supposed to be oxygen fulltime though I never did take when I left the house.

You may try this approch is she has trouble again.

Good Luck

perhaps when your wife said sleeping pill, they thought she meant a benzo. when i took my first sleep test and flunked eight years ago, ambien was thought of as the only sleeping pill that did not interfere with sleep. if that's still the case, i fail to see why that should hurt her test. your wife should discuss/lobby for a pill.

when i flunked my sleep test because of insufficient sleep to get data, i was a severe insomniac. the sleep test tech bordered on nasty. no, she was really nasty when i couldn't sleep, which just helped so much. if there were any disturbances like that in your wife's test, you should discuss them with the sleep lab folks so maybe she can come back on the right nite, or they can help her through this, rather than it being an adversarial kind of thing.

caroline

Though I'd had symptoms of sleep apnea for some time, my first study was negative. Reason - PLMD was keeping me from getting to the stage of sleep where the sleep apnea was happening. After treating the PLMD, the apnea reared its ugly head.

I'm not up on the sleep meds since I'm the opposite - can sleep almost instantaneously on demand. But I have read that some meds make you doze off but affect the stages of sleep you reach. Guess that's your doc's concern, but all meds are not created equal.

Good luck finding anwers!
Kathy

dllfo, I guess the question to ask is how long was she in bed for in the sleep centre and what was the longest segment of data they have got back ?

If she was there for 6-7 hours and they're saying they don't have enough data to show apnoeas then I wouldn't believe this. I was waking up 4-6 times a night in a 6 hour sleeping period. Each time I awoke it took me an hour to get back to sleep.

If they use an oximeter to monitor the oxygene levels it's very clear they can see even in space of half an hour of sleeping that the oxygen levels drop and how many times they drop. In my case I was dropping from 100% to 75% twice a minute showing over 2 apnoeas a minute. That's probably easy to see on a graph with perhaps a max of an hours sleep data, but even in a mild case they should be able to get minimal data out of 1 or 2 horus sleep.

You may want to ask whether their equipment has been tested ? I was never told not to take any sedative for the sleep test, but I can understand why they may be saying this because without XPAP then this could over throw the results and create more of an apnoea than normaly would be seen.

Wow! I had no idea so many folks flunked their sleep tests. I count seven instances here of failed sleep tests. Evidently, it's a common problem.

Regards,
Bill