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

[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!