Sleep Study #4

I had a sleep study done a couple weeks ago. This is my fourth in the last twenty years or so. I’ve written about my sleep saga in earlier posts if you want to catch up. It's a LONG saga.

See, I haven’t been using my CPAP for a year. I was trying a mandibular advancement device (interesting concept – look it up), but it gave me serious jaw and ear pain, and I didn’t think it was helping my sleep anyway. And I really don’t want to go back on the CPAP if I don’t have to. I mean, I don’t mind actually wearing it at night; the main problem is the maintenance. You have to clean the thing all the time and replace parts constantly. It’s ridiculous – especially when I don’t think it helps that much.

However, I’d been noticing in the last month or two that I was markedly sleepy – the kind of sleepy that made a doctor suggest a sleep study in the first place twenty years ago. The kind of sleepy that made a neurologist about fifteen years ago remark, “You know, there are states that have laws against driving in the mental state you live in on a daily basis.”

Yeah, it was time to do something again. So, I plunked down the money for another sleep study . . . of which I got the disappointingly unclear results last week.

They say that most adults need to spend about 15-25% of their sleep in stage 3 sleep, the deep, restorative level. I only hit 2.5%. And that explains a lot.

What isn’t clear is why. The study I did ten years ago which led to my getting the CPAP said that my RERAs (Respiratory Effort-Related Arousals) were through the roof – and that was exciting news because it seemed to be the answer to my problems, especially since no studies before had apparently measured for those.

This time around? Zero RERAs. Hmph.

What was through the roof this time? PLMs (Periodic Leg Movements – oh, the flood of acronyms I’m swimming in these days). Hundreds of PLMs . . . which, interestingly enough, was what they found in Sleep Study #1 twenty years ago. But after trying a lot of meds for that which didn't help at all, Sleep Study #2 showed no leg movements to speak of. HMPH.

Also interestingly enough, this most recent study showed very few arousals to speak of, which seemed to make no sense. In past studies, I was told I woke up an average 20 or 25 times an hour, small arousals I wasn’t aware of, but that kept me from getting the deep sleep I needed. Not anymore. Once I got to sleep, I slept most of the night. Just not good sleep.

The sleep center suggested a mandibular advancement device. No thank you. A CPAP doesn’t seem to be called for – again, no RERAs and very few apneas that were an issue.

Is this all boring you yet? I wish I were bored by it – I’m FRUSTRATED AS CRAP.

We’re trying some meds to stop my leg twitching, assuming that maybe they aren’t waking me up but they might be keeping me out of the deep sleep. The past failure of those meds, however, doesn’t give me much hope. I’m trying to remind myself that my body has changed a lot in twenty years. Hopefully, this will do the trick.

Because of all the googling I’ve been doing about sleep, the internet has been inundating me with ads for sleep-related stuff. And a quote from one of those ads jumped out at me: "The real reason you're tired all the time: It's not your workload. It's your open loops. . . Mental clutter is more exhausting than physical work ever will be."

Sigh . . . mental clutter. That’s a whole ‘nuther ballgame, friends. We’ll deal with that another day.