Saturday, October 04, 2008

Electronic Elephant Trunk

I went in for a follow-up on my sleep study. You may recall that the therapist gave me a gizmo that I had to strap around myself. I then had to sleep on my back while numerous electrodes monitored my sleep patterns. Eve though I took a sleeping pill, I only slept for about 1 1/2 hours, woke up, and spent the rest of the night on my back trying to get back to sleep--getting up once to rage against the porcelain.

So, this time a therapist gave me breathing gizmo used for people afflicted with sleep apnea--which I believe is one of the reasons I have a hard time feeling rested when I get up. She starts talking about the results of my test and I interrupt her to interject that, while they wanted about 5 hours worth of sleep data, I may have only given them 1 1/2 hours. She replied, "So you cat-napped the rest of the night." I said "No, I stayed awake the rest of the 5 hours and then took the gizmo off. She sad, "Yes, catnapped." I said "No, catnapped."

I decided that, since I did think that I had sleep apnea, arguing was pointless. I would just bring it up when I talked to my doctor next time.

The purpose of giving me the new gizmo was to determine the specific gizmi that I might have to attach to my personal gizmo when I get it: like a humidifier attachment and who knows what else.

The gizmo was much smaller than I expected--about the size of a small CD player. It had a tube attached to a face mask that attached to a hole through which air pumped in to my nasal area. It would keep my nasal area full of air so my breathing tube wouldn't be closed off. She said I could return it Sunday, so I figured I had it for three nights.

Night 1 I could breath alright, but the noise kept me awake So detached myself from the gizmo.

Night 2 I took a pill and, although my nose was a little stuffed, I slept for a little while. When I awoke, my nose was more stuffed , so I detached from the gizmo again.

Tonight, I will take a sleeping pill my allergy pill, and snort some nasal spray and see how that works.

4 comments:

vivage said...

So does this new machine measure what your breathing is like? Because if it does is a sleeping pill the right thing to do? I mean isn't the purpose to see how many times you wake up in the middle of the night? If you take a sleeping pill won't that force you to sleep thru the night without waking?

And if your nose was stuffy what does that have to do with the mask being on? (I mean since it's forcing you to have more air near your nose?).

I don't think I'm understanding. I guess cuz I'm figuring that the more often you are awake and it can measure that awake time the more apparent your sleep apnea is. If it's not on at all there is no measurements at all.

Donita Curioso said...

So, how'd it go last night? I'm thinking this might be one of those trial and error things. Don't give up until you find something that works.

I hope you can resolve it soon. It's a drag not being able to sleep well. And I do worry about you. I think sleep apnea was very much a factor in Jim's health problems.

ifbui- the uncertainty of the existence of bouys.

Brother Atom Bomb of Reflection said...

The previous device measured the number of times I stopped breathing and the lady who trained us said that she could also tell whether I was awake, up moving around, etc.

This one determines what modifications I need.

In the case of a stuffed up nose, the new gizmo didn't seem to changed that one way or another.

I don't think the sleeping pill matters. I asked about it at the first training session and the lady said to go ahead and take the pill.

Bottom line: I'm not ordering a sleep machine until I talk to my doctor again.

Brother Atom Bomb of Reflection said...

I used the gizmo last night and did reasonably well. I still woke up about four times (which is normal for me these days), but my sinus were clear and the gizmo kind of makes you breath in deeply, so I usually fell right back to sleep. Normally, I wake up and start juggling all of the previous days unfinished business and never get back to sleep.

I took my allergy pill and snorted the nasal spray, but did not take a sleeping pill.