Apparently I'm "mildly abnormal"

[drwex]

I thought I had written about going for a sleep study, but seems like not.

People near me have been pushing me to get a study for years. I sleep less than normal - like 5.5-6 hours/night - and there are no meds approved for early waking that isn't co-present with depression. Most people who have sleep problems have problems falling asleep, or wake up. People with common sleep problems such as apnea or restless limbs sleep a normal amount but wake up still feeling tired. I wake up feeling like I've slept but man I wish I could sleep more hours.

The thing that tipped me into finally getting it done was discovering that having untreated sleep apnea raises one's risk of congestive heart failure by 20-30%. I got my physician to schedule one for early this month and the results just got mailed to me. As noted, I'm "mildly abnormal" but my apnea is not sufficient to recommend treatment unless it gets worse or I have other symptoms. Which, see above, I don't.

On the one hand that's reassuring. I wasn't looking forward to trying to adapt to sleeping with a mask, not to mention the effect of the noise on Pygment. On the other hand, it leaves me with no options for getting more good sleep.

I was amused to read that "REM supine sleep was not achieved" to which I said "no shit, Sherlock." How anyone can sleep at all with that level of crap glued to and wrapped around them is beyond me. I normally sleep pretty deeply but between all the sensors, the breathing bands, the crap hospital bed, and the overheated stuffy room there was no way I was going to get a real night's rest.

Comments

[chienne-folle.livejournal.com]

I'm sorry to hear that they can't do anything about your waking up before you've had enough sleep; that really sucks. I guess you know that it's not just that depression often has sleep disturbances as one of its symptoms; it's also true that sleep disturbances can cause depression.

Have you considered taking a Benedryl about six hours before you want to get up?

I have sleep apnea and have been sleeping with a mask for years. It takes a bit of getting used to, but the mask is just normal to me now. When I first was diagnosed and first started sleeping with a CPAP machine, a friend of mine gave me some tips that helped me adjust to using it. If your apnea ever gets bad enough to need a machine, feel free to tap me for advice -- or even just for assurances that it IS possible to get used to it.

[drwex]

Bendryl kind of knocks me out for four hours then leaves me with a bad hangover. I know some people use it as a sleep aid, but it's not my kind of thing.

[minkrose]

This is not advice to SOLVE your problem, but I found this to be a good resource of information about insomnia.

My mother lent me Say Goodnight to Insomnia, and I found it to be a fascinating read. I did not read the whole thing, but I read enough to learn about various kinds of sleep disorder, and to get some insight into how mine manifests (and why it's changed). You may find it frustratingly not-relevant, or mildly useful. I'd say the potential usefulness is high enough to at least browse through a copy... unfortunately, I don't have a copy to lend.

[drwex]

I'm sorry you don't have a copy. It sounds like something worth browsing through.

What I have is not, per se, insomnia. It's called "early waking" or so my doctor tells me. Unfortunately, Web searching on that is full of tips about "successful people who wake up early" and "what to do if your kid wakes up too early" and such-like. Fascinating but useless. As I mentioned, early waking in healthy adults is most often associated with depression, which I do not have... or rather, of which I have no other symptoms.

I have had insomnia (and have occasional bouts of it now and then) but that's rare and quite recognizable for me. When it happens I can often use meditation/breathing techniques to help.

If you have thoughts or ideas feel free to brainstorm or problem-solve at me. I really have run out of useful clues at this point.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

The results when I let google auto fill depression after early waking actually do look kinda promising
https://www.google.com/#q=early+waking+depression

Specifically
http://sleepdisorders.about.com/od/howcanisleepbetter/a/What-Causes-Early-Morning-Awakenings.htm
Was the first I clicked into...

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

https://www.google.com/#q=early+waking+disorder. Also looks like a promising search set.
I second melatonin. If you sleep long enough, not a hangover feeling.

[drwex]

so, given that depression is not an issue there's always anxiety, which I do have. However, it is not chronic where the sleep disorder is chronic.

I also don't go to bed early (or get tired early except when i'm tired and then I nap). It's not that I'm sleeping 8 hours from, say 9-5. It's that I'm sleeping 5.5-6 hours from midnight-ish to 6 or 6:30ish.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

Do you wake up when the sun starts coming up? Because I do, in a BIG way. Not at dawn - pre-dawn.

Let me make it clear: it's not sunlight coming into the window that does it. Our place is on an atrium. In the summer we get four hours of direct sunlight a day and three months out of the year we get NONE. We have dark navy curtains on our window. And even in the dark months, just the tiniest shift of light toward dawn will wake me up. I have slept in hotel rooms with "blackout" curtains and they are almost never effective enough to allow me to sleep through that moment.

This is a problem I have had all my life but I only identified a solution about three years ago. The thing that has helped me get a bit more sleep is a very specific eye mask from Bucky (with hollows for the eyes so it doesn't press against them) that I put on when I wake up at 5:45am (which is when the sky starts turning here). I found it three years ago and it's made a huge difference.

[drwex]

That's an interesting thought. I am not sure if there's a light issue, though, since I seem to wake up at more or less the same clock hour regardless of the season. I noticed today, for instance, that it was pretty well fully light when I woke at 6:40 (about 6h20 after going to sleep). I've woken up pre-7 in the dead of winter the past couple of months.

I have slept in hotels with blackout curtains and that hasn't made a difference, afaict, but I'll try to observe more closely and see.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

Blackout curtains don't help me either. The tiniest peep of light and I'm done.

[drwex]

Right well what I meant to say was that I don't think mine is a light issue. if it was light i'd expect seasonal variation in waking time, as New England has noticeable shifts in dawn across the year. I don't see that.

[rednikki.livejournal.com]

Fair enough!

[tshuma]

I also suffer from "early waking". For a period of time, I was balancing medications against each other to find the best fit to handle depression + anxiety. The medication I was prescribed for the depression had a tendency to increase the anxiety, especially in the early morning, and keep me a little too buzzed to fall asleep easily. So I was prescribed Ambien for the falling asleep, which has very different effects than trying to use Benadryl for the same thing. However, for the morning anxiety, I was prescribed the smallest possible dose of Lyrica as a side label use. (I do also have nerve pain in my hands, but it is minimal.) The Lyrica has a calming effect. I still woke in the morning but I didn't tend to surface completely, which allowed me to fall back asleep instead of lying there with all my thoughts buzzing until I would give up and get up.

I'm no longer on these medications, but I was on them on a consistent schedule for about two years, and it helped immensely. Installing true dark curtains on the windows has helped me since I stopped the medications, but it isn't sufficient.

I can't tell from your entry exactly what form the morning waking takes, so I'm not sure if this is helpful or not, but it might be useful to explore this realm.

[drwex]

Many mornings I do wake up and have to calm the mental buzzing as you put it. Unfortunately, my anxiety is not significant enough that I can get a prescription for it. I suppose if I pushed the doc, maybe. When I did have insomnia I was given a scrip for sleep meds (I don't recall which, but I think it was pre-Ambien) and I did sleep a solid 8 hours with that, but they're considered addictive and my doc was unwilling to renew prescriptions in the absence of continued insomnia. Since I can control my insomnia largely with behavioral methods (no reading in bed, no lying awake for more than 20 min without getting up and doing something else, etc) the pills are considered unnecessary.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

:smile: I find cpap sound vastly superior to snoring. First time I shared a bed with someone with a cpap, I was overjoyed - this guy I didn't know had magically turned into a manikin with his own white noise generator.

Glad it turns out you don't need any interventions, tho.

[vvalkyri.livejournal.com]

Oh hadn't read closely enough. Do you feel underslept?
oneagain had some solutions for getting back to sleep without sedating; we talked about that when she briefly stayed with me a couple months back

[drwex]

I feel like life would be better if I could manage more htan 6 a night.

[drwex]

The problem for me with CPAP is that the mask is largely incompatible with having a beard. That would be a big deal for me.

[eccentrific.livejournal.com]

Actually, they make masks now that just go in/over your nose, not your whole face and are totally compatible with beards.
Nick has both cpap and beard and it causes no issues.

[drwex]

That's dependent on being able to breathe through your nose, which I do not do for a full night. I get congested and am a mouth-breather.

[selenite.livejournal.com]

My mask is compatible with the beard. Miles is also bearded, but goes with the nose-only instead of the full mask.

To measure beard compatibility--I just shaved off two month's worth and didn't have to adjust the mask at all.

[drwex]

You have a full-face mask that goes over a beard? Interesting. That's the first I've heard of it. My brother has a beard but he has to keep it trimmed very short or the mask loses its seal.

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

Do you feel sleep-deprived during the day? Tendency to fall asleep during the day? Dragged-out feeling? Foggy?

If none of the above, then you're just a short sleeper. What, exactly, is the problem with that?

[drwex]

It depends. If I get under 6 I definitely do. Often I'll come home and crash for an hour or 90 minutes. On the weekends I tend to take longer naps.

That's a comparatively recent development, like within the last 2-3 years. Prior to that I didn't seem to need or want the extra sleep.

ETA: there's some evidence that short sleep runs in my family so this may just be 'the way I am'. However, it didn't manifest itself until about 9 or so years ago. So that's kind of odd.

[chhotii.livejournal.com]

That's not a bit odd. Sleep changes with age. As people age, they sleep less, while also increasingly being able to nap during the day. Has to do with loss of neurons in the relevant circuits. Welcome to the old geezer club.

I would suggest paying attention to sleep hygiene issues, which a book such as Say Goodnight to Insomnia ought to go over in detail. (N.B. that I haven't been taking my own advice on this.) I haven't read Gregg's book but, knowing his opinions on insomnia, I think you should read it.

Yay for ruling out apnea! Agreed, you don't want to be dealing with CPAP if you don't have to.

[sariel-t.livejournal.com]

*pebble*