sleep apnea update
Mar. 4th, 2003 03:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
johncomicokay, so today i went to the sleep clinic's main office for a review of my test results. here are some of the salient and potentially interesting facts i gleaned from this encounter and all their nifty dot-cluster charts and spiky-lined computer graphs and other cool sutff:
- i was in bed and tested from 11pm to 6am. i fell asleep by 11:10, which im told is good -- 10 - 15 min to fall asleep is considered quite healthy. [me, i recall it more like having trouble getting to sleep because of a strange bed, being covered with electrodes and wires and tubes, etc.... i normally fall sleep in two minutes, ten minutes for me is like forever...]
- apparently in order for the body and mind to feel properly rested, about 25% of your sleep time needs to be REM sleep with another 10-15% of some other form of deep sleep called SM sleep or something like that. my percentages were more like 8% and 1% accordingly.
- REM sleep is normally achieved in about 1.5 - 2 hrs after falling asleep. i didnt hit REM for over 3.5 hrs.
- a few interruptions of breathing during sleep are normal for anybody: up to 10 during the course of a night and they figure its nothing to worry about. according to the spiky-lined chart, mine was interrupted 114 times. [and if id had a proper amount of REM sleep, i wouldve had even more breathing interruptions -- they occur more frequently during REM because your body is at its most relaxed then...]
- as a result of this, the oxygen content of my blood dropped to 85% of its normal oxygen-carrying capacity at my awake, relaxed, sitting state. it isnt supposed to drop at all while you sleep... so my whole body has been oxygen-deprived, all night, every night for years
- some people only have apnea attacks when they sleep on their back. i am more likely to have it happen when im on my back, but it happens to some extent regardless of my position
bottom line: nearly every aspect of my ability to sleep is phuct, and i am a textbook example of "moderate sleep apnea" [which really makes me wonder what severe must be like...]
- i was in bed and tested from 11pm to 6am. i fell asleep by 11:10, which im told is good -- 10 - 15 min to fall asleep is considered quite healthy. [me, i recall it more like having trouble getting to sleep because of a strange bed, being covered with electrodes and wires and tubes, etc.... i normally fall sleep in two minutes, ten minutes for me is like forever...]
- apparently in order for the body and mind to feel properly rested, about 25% of your sleep time needs to be REM sleep with another 10-15% of some other form of deep sleep called SM sleep or something like that. my percentages were more like 8% and 1% accordingly.
- REM sleep is normally achieved in about 1.5 - 2 hrs after falling asleep. i didnt hit REM for over 3.5 hrs.
- a few interruptions of breathing during sleep are normal for anybody: up to 10 during the course of a night and they figure its nothing to worry about. according to the spiky-lined chart, mine was interrupted 114 times. [and if id had a proper amount of REM sleep, i wouldve had even more breathing interruptions -- they occur more frequently during REM because your body is at its most relaxed then...]
- as a result of this, the oxygen content of my blood dropped to 85% of its normal oxygen-carrying capacity at my awake, relaxed, sitting state. it isnt supposed to drop at all while you sleep... so my whole body has been oxygen-deprived, all night, every night for years
- some people only have apnea attacks when they sleep on their back. i am more likely to have it happen when im on my back, but it happens to some extent regardless of my position
bottom line: nearly every aspect of my ability to sleep is phuct, and i am a textbook example of "moderate sleep apnea" [which really makes me wonder what severe must be like...]
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Re:
Date: 2003-03-05 08:25 am (UTC)I've taken a couple classes which cover sleep disorders (including apnea), and I find it an interesting topic. Thanks for the personal perspective!
no subject
if i have learned anything over the last 15 - 20 years, it is how astonishing are the things a human being can get used to... almost anything short of death :)