I Got My Sleep Study

[morgan617]

Well, as some of you know, I had a sleep study and got a call that although I didn't have sleep apnea, I have sleep apnea. Yes, that is not a typo, it was a verbal over the phone from Lord knows who.

Here is what the report says. My numbers are the left side and n=normal

Stage 1 sleep (the lightest) 59 minutes, 19.6% n=5%

Stage 2 sleep 216.5 minutes 72.5% n=45%

Stage 3 (deep) 2 minutes 0.7% n=12%

Stage 4 (deepest) 0 never happened the entire night n=13%

REM 22 minutes 7.4% n= 20-25%

10 respiratory events....all obstructive apnea

5 hypopneas majority of events in REM sleep

IMPRESSION: NORMAL polysonogram with no evidence of sleep apnea syndrome.

Only in my world is abnormal completely normal, sweeties......Ineedanapmorgan

[Ernie]

Hi,

That report is not detailed enough to conclude if you have sleep apnea. It does not say how long you stopped breathing. You might have a low level of sleep apnea but if you stop breathing for a long time it is important to do something about it.

You surely had a poor quality of sleep that night. Did you feel that you did not sleep?

[morgan617]

Hi Ernie, It's the same kind of sleep I feel I get every night and I am completely exhausted all day.

The problem here is, there are abnormalities that none of my doctors will look at, because all they will do is read the "impression." I had to fight tooth and nail to get this study. It would have been much nicer if he had written mild sleep apnea, but everything else is way off, as opposed to everything being normal. Or given the norms and my numbers, so they could have seen the discrepencies. Only a sleep doctor will understand the numbers, I only know they are off from looking up several sites and verifying the numbers are all the same. It also did say I had 42 arousal/awakenings in the time period of sleep. I don't know, but waking up 42 times in 5 hours seems like not a whole lotta quality sleep to me......

I suppose for the disorders I have, it would require meds as opposed to bipap, which I wouldn't be able to do, but it would have at least validated my complete and utter exhaustion all the time. I'm starting to feel like a narcoleptic, it's getting so bad. I don't even realize I'm going to sleep, till I've woken up feeling like crap. You would think they would take into account that a very compromised person might benefit from something, that a person with no other problems might not.

It's back to parameters and those parameters being ignored, but we are not talking about tiny abnormalities here. Some of the discrepencies are pretty big. Just another discouraging day at the office.....morgan

[mkoven]

From my recent sleep study, this is what I understand. Apnea that requires treatment is when you have more than five "events" per hour. An event is when you stop breathing for ten seconds or more. Did they tell you what your oxygen saturation levels were? Not sure what the official cutoffs are, but my doc was concerned when I dropped below 90%

But I think the overall number of events per hour is what they use to decide to treat apnea. My overall number is still high enough to treat (7/hr), but still is considered mild. But my events are concentrated in rem, where it's pretty bad. Can they tell you if the events happened in different stages? What was striking in mine is that my events jump to 48.6/hour in rem--even if that is not recorded as the overall. And yes, how long your average event is. Not sure how they count. My average was 23.4 seconds, with one at 53 seconds.

The doc told me there are conservative measures if your apnea is considered mild-- changing sleep position, wearing a device to keep your jaw positioned in a certain way.

But I'm no sleep doc. And apnea isn't the only sleep problem one can have. Maybe the fact that you never got to a certain stage of sleep could also be a treatable problem.

I would ask to speak to the doc so that you can have all your questions/concerns addressed.

[MightyMouse]

Uh, hello?! You never reached stage 4 sleep at all? Um, yeah. That's not a problem? (13 percent off from normal) That's the time your brain and body REST... and you had way too little stage 3 sleep as well (11.3 percent off from normal).

Um, then you have way too much stage one and two... bringing your total percentage off from the normal levels to a grand total of 66.4% abnormal... and there's nothing wrong with your sleep? I was going to make a sweeping criticism of doctors, but we have a few really nice ones here on the forum, so I don't want to insult them...

oy yoy yoy!

Nina

[Ernie]

Hi Morgan,

Is it the number of events per hour or the total of event during the whole night?

You need to have deep sleep to be able to recuperate. I think you should ask your doctor for some sleeping aid to put you into deep sleep. The side effect to those meds is that it can increase the number of sleep apnea or the time you stop breathing.

As previously mentioned, I would consult with the sleep specialist and would ask for those options. Considering that you have other medical issues, having proper sleep would help you keep part of your health.

[dsdmom]

Do you know if the lab was equipped to test for Upper Airway Resistance Syndrome (UARS)? It's a type of sleep disorder...there's a lot of controversy over whether this is just a type of apnea or a completely different entity. Regardless, the criteria for this diagnosis would be different than that for apnea. I wish I had my numbers in front of me - I was diagnosed w/ UARS and CPAP is helping. In fact, I don't know what your symptoms are, but there are papers out there written about how people with UARS can feel way more sleepy than someone with apnea.

If you want more info, I've got a couple of links you could look at.

[morgan617]

My sats did drop below 90% on the apnea, but I apparently don't meet the classic requirement for the number of times. They were all in REM, which was way below the normal I should have had too. It was for the whole night Ernie, but I was in rem for only 22 minutes the whole night which would come out to one every couple of minutes.

I mean, there wasn't one single normal results and yet that's what the summary says. Thanks, Nina for adding it up in a more understandable way!

Jake asked me if I wnated to try his cpap, just to see if I slept better, but the major problems seem to be in my sleep patterns, not apnea. Ernie, He won't give me anything to help me sleep, I have asked, because I've told him I am so exhausted, but just don't feel I sleep well.

I just needed to vent. people wonder why I never get anywhere when I am trying to get help, and it's because I have a completely abnormal sleep study written up as normal.

I compared it to my son's and his patterns are off too, but he does have more apneic periods than me, although his sats never fell any lower than mine (upper 80's) he had more episodes. He also has problems with stage 3 and 4 sleep, which could make this a genetic thing. Who knows.

It just boggles the mind doesn't it??? Just as an fyi, it was a neuro-psychiatrist doing the study....I have never had one single positive experience with a neuro, I swear and then he's got a psych degree too, I was dead in the water from the onset, I guess. I haven't heard of what you are talking about dsd, but the links would be great! thanks. morgan

[dawn]

Morgan,

I dug out my sleep study (from a 2 foot high stack of medical records). I had it done in 2002.

Total recording time 4 hours ,54 minutes with a low sleep efficiency index of 70% and abnormal architectrure with low amounts of REM. Sleep was mildly fragmented with six awakenings of at least one minute.

There were 86 obstructive apneas and hypopneas, yielding a repiratory disturbance index of 25 and apnea index of 0.9. There were no O2 desaturations less than 90% and the longest apnea was 41 seconds. Mild snoring was noted (patioent did not sleep supine). No EKG changed accompanied the apneas.

There were no periodic limb movements in sleep.

This study is inicative of a moderately severe obstructive sleep apnea syndrome.

Stage 1- 19 minutes 9.2%

Stage 2- 146.5 minutes 70.9%

Stage 3- 9 minutes 4.4%

REM 18 minutes 8.7%

They gave me a bipap, then a cpap. I never could use it, I tried and tried. Woke up with it on the floor everymorning. It also gave me sinus infections.

I think it would help if I could get used to it.

Dawn

[morgan617]

Dawn, how can anyone go 41 seconds without breathing and not drop their sats!!!!! Jake puts his on every night and it's off every morning, he has no idea when he removes it...very frustrating to him also...morgan

[Guest tearose]

Hey morgan, can you take your report to someone for a second opinion to read and interpret for you?

I hope so!

Do you take daily naps?

[morgan617]

Tea rose, my primary is in with a sleep specialist, I mean his partner is a sleep specialist, he's Jake's doctor for that. He could walk over and ask him about it for nothing, but I know he won't, as he refused to order a study in the first place. The only way I can get a second opinion is with a referral and someone has to order it for me. My ear nose and throat ordered this one against Dan's wishes, so I don't want to push it, by asking him to do it.

I have to fight all day not to nap. Within an hour of being up, all I can think about is going back to bed. It's horrible. And sometimes I sit down to watch a show or something and wake up 3 HOURS later, then an hour later, I'm ready to sleep again. Late afternoon is my very worst time. I fight it, so I can try and sleep at night, but it really doesn't seem to matter.

A bit of a kicker here, my friend asked me why it bothers me that it says what it does. I said, if no other reason it validates that I have a problem, and her response was..so???

That is the difference between people who have health problems and have never been mistreated and those of us that are never believed, and the sad thing is, she will never get it. morgan

[yogini]

Hi Morgan,

I'm so sorry you continue to be treated this way by your drs. I hope that you'll be able to find someone to give you a script for sleep meds - Ambien has been a godsend for me...and fractional dose of it occasionally is all it takes. In the meanwhile, have you tried OTC sleep meds or benedryl? I like Ambien much better, but the OTC meds might be better than nothing...

[dawn]

Morgan,

When I did biofeedback last year I only breathe 3-4 times a minute when I am relaxed. I don't get it.

She told me I had to breathe faster but then i get lightheaded.

I have a pulse-ox and I am usually 98-99 during the day. 91-94 when I wake up during the night.

Before my colonoscopy I was 100% and I am a smoker

I smoked when I was a teenager and quit when I had children. I always liked it and said I was going to start

when I went to a nursing home. I consider this "close enough."

Dawn

[morgan617]

Dawn, ROFL,

My mom said it was okay for her to smoke after 3 open hearts, because she had the lungs of "an 18 year old" I always said, yeah mom, 18 year old lungs and a 100 year old heart....but bless her heart, she did love her cigs and after the third surgery, we never discussed it again. I guess I figured at that point it was a moot point, and we had other things to talk about.

But 3-4 breaths a minute, good grief. If you were on a cardiac floor they'd be intubating you girl! I breathe faster, but it's very shallow, and anytime I have a procedure with sedation, my sats drop into the low 80's. morgan

p.s. I get light headed just from having them listen to my lungs, because they make you take those big deep breaths.