Feeling Worse After Getting Deep Sleep

Hello all, I'd appreciate any insight I can get on the current issue I am having. I was diagnosed with apnea about a month ago and am waiting for my CPAP machine currently (should arrive in about a week or two). During the time that I started getting restless sleep, I was also having constant reactive hypoglycemia episodes throughout the day because I was with an ill-informed doctor who had me way overmedicated with my thyroid medication. I gained about ten pounds of fat throughout this period, however the majority went straight to my face, neck, and stomach area. Anyway, since getting on the proper thyroid medication dose, my appetite has completely normalized and I have been lowing weight at about 1/2 pound a week. These last two weeks, I have gotten deep sleep for the first time in close to 9 months. I have also been able to sleep a little bit longer, and am no longer waking up at 7:30AM every day with a burst of adrenaline. Therefore I am pretty confident that once I get rid of all the weight, there may be a chance that my apnea will go away. I am not keeping my hopes up though, and still plan on attacking CPAP with a positive and open mind. Anyway, since I've been getting deep sleep for the first time in a while these last two weeks, I've had some odd observations. On Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Monday of last week, I honestly felt like the old me for four days. I was optimistic that I was on track to feeling 100%, especially after getting CPAP. However, starting Wednesday, although I am getting deep sleep still, I am feeling worse than ever. Groggy all day and I'm honestly completely bed ridden with no energy. I have read about sleep debt and other things, but is this a normal reaction? I expected to feel the same but definitely didn't expect to feel worse than before. I definitely like the fact that I am getting deeper sleep before even getting CPAP, but it is discouraging when I feel completely immobile throughout the day. I was so fatigued this weekend that I went to the emergency room yesterday and had a series of tests run on me. Everything looked good and I am waiting for results on an autoimmune panel since I also have autoimmune hypothyroid. However I thought it would be best to ask here about the reaction when first getting deep sleep once again. During my sleep study I was only geting about 5% REM sleep and 5% deep sleep, where the normal for my age is about 20% of each. Any insight is appreciated. Thank you!

Also one other thing to note is that a majority of my episodes were hypopneas, and my oxygen level never dropped to an abnormal level.

Kard, as I read your post, you are not yet using a cpap machine, correct? How do you know you are getting deep sleep? You mention getting only 5% during your study. Do you have a Zeo or some other method to determine that deep has improved from the 5%?
Grogginess could be caused by a lot of things: Waking from the wrong sleep stage ( Deep or REM), depression, medications (Rx or OTC), poor sleep hygiene, illness, and more.
My guess is that untreated apnea is disturbing your sleep causing your sleep architecture to be abnormal. You should be getting most of your deep sleep in the first cycles of sleep and less in the later cycles toward morning. It's possible that disturbances are causing your sleep cycles to "start over" and you are entering a deep sleep stage in the morning from which you are awakened (alarm?) causing you to experience "sleep inertia" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_inertia characterized by grogginess.
Keep in mind, this is only a guess, and the true cause of your grogginess would have to be determined by examining all the potential causes.

http://healthysleep.med.harvard.edu/hea ... s-rem-nrem

Thanks for the reply. Correct, I am currently not on CPAP, I am waiting for my DME to contact me so I can get set up on it. However as I stated in the OP, I have lost a few pounds since first being diagnosed. I don't have concrete evidence that I am in deep sleep, but it is definitely deeper than before. As a result I am also able to sleep longer. As you stated it is just speculation but I am pretty confident that it is deeper than before. I guess it doesn't change the fact that I am probably still having many hyponea episodes per night, and it is still effecting my sleep architecture. I think I am just anxious while awaiting to receive my CPAP. I have had no energy for life lately, and I am a 21 year old straight A student who was one of the most fit amongst his age about a year ago. Everything has just gone downhill with my thyroid and finding out I have sleep apnea, and I can't help but have negative thoughts regarding if the apnea will return me back to normal.

Deeper sleep often generates MORE apnea events the light sleep.

Hey Kard, I understand your apprehension. You've had a lot of issues to contend with lately. Maybe your still adjusting to the new thyroid medication, too. But look at it this way, sleep apnea treatment is pretty straight forward, apply positive pressure to keep the airway from collapsing and you've pretty much done it. The hardest part is finding a mask that fits. Once the apnea is controlled, you may still have other issues, but at least you'll know you've taken care of one that can have a major negative impact on your health.
Best of luck,
Jay

BlackSpinner wrote:Deeper sleep often generates MORE apnea events the light sleep.

This is a good point. We may wake up less often, but that means that could be having more frequent and longer events, causing the oxygen level to go down. People who wake up more frequently may not go down as far in oxygen saturation, but the frequent waking up is bad too.

Kind of a damned if you do, and damned if you don't. Both ways are bad for your health. Once you have a machine, and the settings are well matched for you, you will finally be able to sleep deeply and without events.

I used to think my sleep wasn't that bad. But once I experienced a really good night with cpap, I realized how crappy my normal sleep used to be.