I had my appointment with Dr Yee this morning at the Woolcock for my followup on the sleep study. Got into uni early and walked across to the Woolcock Institute as I have before, with the rain bucketing down quite heavily.
I had to wait a little bit while Dr Yee finished up in regards to a different patient, and was trying to determine how to get some letter dictation done. I think they do it digitally through the computer recording and someone transcribes it since it was sitting in some kind of mail slot, but in his room (which as far as I could see, didn't have this said slot, thus why I think it is digital).
Well, in a nutshell, I do not have a physiological sleep disorder outside of the normal range. I must state that there is a normal range, like everything else, and I apparently fall within this, and not to the level that would alarm the specialist and require "treatment".
We went through my sleep study report and the things that came through were:
I had to wait a little bit while Dr Yee finished up in regards to a different patient, and was trying to determine how to get some letter dictation done. I think they do it digitally through the computer recording and someone transcribes it since it was sitting in some kind of mail slot, but in his room (which as far as I could see, didn't have this said slot, thus why I think it is digital).
Well, in a nutshell, I do not have a physiological sleep disorder outside of the normal range. I must state that there is a normal range, like everything else, and I apparently fall within this, and not to the level that would alarm the specialist and require "treatment".
We went through my sleep study report and the things that came through were:
- I apparently "slept" for 7 hours. Albiet light sleep more than deep sleep.
- I got 4 periods of REM sleep that were spaced out about 2-2.5hrs apart according to the readings of my brain. The biggest period of the REM was in fact just past 4am or so, which is probably why it was more noticable to the sleep tech Kevin when he was observing it that night.
- My O2 saturation was 96% on average, so very good
- My sleep efficiency was 95.4%, so quite "normal"
- I did stop breathing 17 times in the 7 hours. My apnea index is 1.9
- My heart-rate was quite steady aroudn the 60 beats/minute except when I stopped breathing where some readings spiked to 100.
- I didn't kick around or have any twitching that was significant towards restless legs sydrome.
While I did stop breathing 17 times, 1 of them was counted as apnea, 12 of them as hypopnea and the rest were unknown. This resulting in my apnea index as 1.9 was not actually an issue to Dr Yee. Apparently it is normal to have an apnea index up to 5. He himself has an index of 9 apparently. If it was much higher, and around 100 would be alarming, but at 1.9, it was nothing to be really concerned about.
The other interesting thing that came from it that was a correlation, is that all of my apneas occurred when I was in supine position, in other words, sleeping on my back. When sleeping on my side, I had no problems at all. It would seem that the old trick of having the tennis ball sewn into the back of a shirt might be a useful one for me to stop me sleeping on my back and having this sleep disruption with apneas.
Other than that, it is more likely that my sleep issues are environmental and lifestyle, so I need to watch my caffeine intake (I don't take much as is), sleep more, don't nap during the day if possible, and get more sunlight during the morning with exercise if possible.
All in all, it is at least a relief in a sense to know that physically, there is nothing wrong, but it is a pain that I still don't sleep that well. But if it isn't physiological, then I guess it is probably a more long term issue to resolve with lifestyle and environment.
The other interesting thing that came from it that was a correlation, is that all of my apneas occurred when I was in supine position, in other words, sleeping on my back. When sleeping on my side, I had no problems at all. It would seem that the old trick of having the tennis ball sewn into the back of a shirt might be a useful one for me to stop me sleeping on my back and having this sleep disruption with apneas.
Other than that, it is more likely that my sleep issues are environmental and lifestyle, so I need to watch my caffeine intake (I don't take much as is), sleep more, don't nap during the day if possible, and get more sunlight during the morning with exercise if possible.
All in all, it is at least a relief in a sense to know that physically, there is nothing wrong, but it is a pain that I still don't sleep that well. But if it isn't physiological, then I guess it is probably a more long term issue to resolve with lifestyle and environment.
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