Are Sleep Clinics reliable?

[sleep-clinic]

does anybody know if sleep clinics or doctors take fitbit data seriously or do they think it is just a gimmic?

Moderator Edit: Clarified subject.

[Tex66]

I haven't been to one, but family members have, and based on their experiences, I'd think that if the Fitbit data prompts you to visit a doctor, they'll probably assume you may have a sleep disorder and prescribe testing.

[GoldaT · Accepted solution]

I've been to sleep clinic twice (first for diagnosis and then to calibrate machine).  I gave copies of my sleep data to the sleep specialist and he kept them in my file.  The sleep data from my FitBit Flex corroborate his results and show a pattern that his results did not/were not able to show.  I would hope that all sleep specialists/doctors take the data seriously.  You can always give them the data and let them decide whether to keep it or not --- hopefully they will keep it in your file.  Best of luck. G.

[kbucket]

I had an appointment yesterday with my neurologist and told him that I recently began using my Charge HR to track my sleep and he just laughed and didnt make any other comments. I had a sleep study done last night with a take home device that I was provided, so I guess I'll see how those results stack up to my FitBit. In my personal opinion I think the sleep tracking on the Charge HR to be fairly accurate. There are a few quirks in the software and the way it reports things but overall I think it works well, and gives me a much better idea of my restless times and when I wake up so I can adjust to try things on my end and get more restful sleep.

Cheers.

-Kris

[GoldaT]

laughing was not a very professional way for your doctor to react. mine
looked at the printouts, made no real comment, put them in my file. i will
keep printing them and letting him keep them in the file. there is too
much time between tests and visits for him to understand my sleep patterns
(in my opinion) and i believe that the printouts will show patterns that
intermittent sleep tests and office visits won't show. you'll find it
interesting to see what, if any, patterns emerge and maybe, in time, your
doctor will take your printouts seriously. best of luck. G.

[kbucket]

I agree, not professional at all. I let it slide that once though bc he is my fav doc and always upbeat and funny. I will keep all my logs and bring them in during my next appointment to see how they stack up vs thir sleep study.

[flossyflyblow]

I take the sleep monitoring very seriously because i have sleep apnea and cannot tolerate my cpap machine any longer after 12 years of trying to conquer it - all it has done is given me severe insomnia. I am using the fit bit to monitor my disorder but every time i log on it tells me (next morning) that I have not logged on!!! I am infuriated by this because I know for sure that I did it properly because I am doing it exactly the same way as I did 3 weeks ago and it ran perfectly then.

[GoldaT]

I find, sometimes, that my FibBit doesn't record accurately  --- I take it out of the wristband, clean the little "knobs" (points, whatever they are called) and replace it.  Then I sync it again and try the sleep logging again; usually this works.  G.

[flossyflyblow]

oh thank you .. will give that a go!

[elmwsalem]

---

@flossyflyblow wrote:

I take the sleep monitoring very seriously because i have sleep apnea and cannot tolerate my cpap machine any longer after 12 years of trying to conquer it - all it has done is given me severe insomnia. I am using the fit bit to monitor my disorder but every time i log on it tells me (next morning) that I have not logged on!!! I am infuriated by this because I know for sure that I did it properly because I am doing it exactly the same way as I did 3 weeks ago and it ran perfectly then.

---

I take the sleep pattern info here very seriously as well.  I can't wear a CPAP machine, and I have sleep apnea.  The fitbit readings definitely confirm that.  I will experiment with relaxation exercises before going to sleep, as well as monitoring night-time eating, which I suspect may be a big culprit in my lack of sleep.  The funny part is, later in the evening when I stretch out on the sofa to watch TV (legs up but still in a sitting position) the FitBit records it as sleep!  In fact, it sometimes record my daytime total lack of movement (at a desk) as sleep!!  At first I though their was a problem with their program, but I have a feeling it is accurately telling me that I allow myself to be too rested during the day.  

[ErnieT]

I'm a rehabilitation and clinical psychologist working at a large medical clinic in Ontario where all my patients are referred by one of 30 physicians or 6 nurse practitioners. Any health care provider who does not listen to and learn from their patients is to be avoided! The total hours slept reported by the fitbit are valuable data for a health care provider, especially as it is accepted lore in the medical community that people with insomnia most often greatly under-estimate the amount of sleep they get, making self-report unreliable (I don't agree with this). Physicians are trained early to report subjective "symptoms" (reported by the patient) and separately objective "signs" (where there is external evidence). Looking at my own data, I find the total hours slept to be the most helpful sleep data. I tend to push myself too hard and pay for it. The fitbit gives me hard data about self-care that is essential to my work and health. Sleep disturbance is very important, as it is correlated with suicide; mood; thought content; cognitive funcitoning; psychomotor function and safety; and heart health, just to name a few functions. I have no idea what the restlessness indicators actually signify, but it is interesting to look at that data as well. If a patient brought me a fitbit report that indicated a consistent lack of sleep, I would place it in the chart, especially if it were from a Charge or above (which track sleep automatically and are thus more reliable). We have discussed purchasing several trackers to send home on our patients to monitor their activity level (our mandate is health maintenance and prevention). These things are more than toys. They can be useful motivational tools, and they provide relevant and reliable data that is helpful to track a variety of modifiable lifestyle factors--which are increasingly recognized as the vanguard of medicine. I have no doubt we are seeing just the beginning of their use. I use biofeedback for some folks, and adding a heart rate variability function to the fitbit may be one of the next features we see. HRV is useful for addressing anxiety, the most common mental health problem. Galvanic skin response might be another option as this is correlated with anxiety as well. An enterprising student invented a sensor to place in shoes, which is able to detect changes of gait that signify an increased risk of falling in the elderly (falls are a main precipitant to death in the elderly). There is no end of possibilities to do useful and clever new things with this technology. Just last week, a patient of mine worried aobut his father with Alzheimer's who is just beginning to wander but not yet ready for a nursing home. We discussed putting a GPS enabled tracker on him as one possible safeguard. Yes, this technology has real uses and the physician who laughed demonstrated their ignorance, rather than an inadequacy of the data.

[ShelleyGardner]

Here's where I am at. In September of last year, I went to my (family) doctor and complained of gaining weight and severe insomnia. He recommended a sleep study for apnea, and suggested the apnea was the cause of both. He said the body awakens itself as a method of staying alive when it's starved for oxygen.

Had the sleep study done, it showed 117 times of stop breathing per hour, with my blood oxygen dropping to 60%. Was ordered a CPAP. I had it two weeks when I went to see my sleep doctor again.

Enter my FitBit. I knew the CPAP was making things loads better, but I was still having trouble falling asleep and staying asleep. I told my doctor this, and used my FitBit information as a way of backing up the problems I was still having. He believed me.

Now, I don't know if believed me because he had my sleep data from my sleep study and sleep data from my CPAP (it also records nightly) and this was just something that fit the existing picture, but I know I had a hard time of (doctors) taking my sleep issues seriously before my sleep study.

That may be what some of you are seeing with your doctors blowing the FitBit information off. For YEARS, every surgery or survey on "snoring and apnea" highlighted the fact that I HAD apnea, but it took a severe event before I was actually sent to a sleep study!!! The sleep studies are expensive, and my first insurance company didn't want to pay for it, but we switched insurances after the first of the year and they paid for the full study.

So yeah, it took a long time before my doctors took my sleep issues seriously- far too long.

[ErnieT]

That is a shame; sounds like you were done a disservice.

I am old enough to remember when people laughed at "health food nuts" for suggesting that diet was a serious determinant of health. And at the idea that smoking was bad for your health. And at the crazy ideas of "natural childbirth" and breast feeding as being somehow superior.

It often happens that medical science co-opts useful practices developed outside medical settings, then years later people forget that it was not the field of medicine where those practices were pioneered and developed, but elsewhere and often greeted with scorn by physicians. I would not be surprised to see the use of fitness trackers end up being a similar story, due to their usefulness.

[kelfran]

@ErnieT Please keep this in mind when you look at patient's Fitbit records: The 'time to fall asleep' is not very accurate. I know that from my personal experience as I'm apparently very good at keeping still when I first lie down but am not yet asleep. I can be awake for 20-30 minutes after I go to bed (I know because I'll look at the clock) and Fitbit will report that I fell asleep immediately. FYI.

[ErnieT]

Thank you. That is good to know.

[ShelleyGardner]

Just an update, I just saw my sleep doctor again, and reported the insomnia wasn't improving. While he could pull up my logs from my CPAP machine, he also wanted to see my sleep logs. (Either ones I wrote manually or my Fitbit logs). I didn't have my FitBit logs with me, and he said if he could see them, it would help him diagnos what my problem was. So yeah, he (the sleep doctor specialist) took the logs very seriously.

[flossyflyblow]

thank you for that.. I am still averaging 2.5 hrs sleep per night but cannot tolerate the CPAP nowadays, so just have to hope that the fitbit is accurate enough. Sometimes I see it flash during the night and then tells me that I haven't logged on.. apparently it is very sensitive to my tossing and turning.

[ErnieT]

Our thoughts about sleep and our sleep-related behaviours greatly contribute to insomnia. For more information, google the two terms, CBT and insomnia. Also, there is an interesting web site, cbtforinsomnia dot com. Another one is sleepio dot com. (I am not affiliated with either web site) CBT treatment for insomnia generally has better results than meds

[UnicornSoup]

I used my fitbit to test my sleep conditions as I have both RLS and Central Apnea. My Dr and I used this data to suppliment the data from the cpap and my own observations of sleep.

I'm able to tell both by how I feel and by my fit bit if I've gotten enough sleep using the sensitive mode. I would test no cpap and no meds, cpap only, meds only, and cpap+meds. The main difference wasn't in duration of sleep but rather duration of continual sleep. If I can get 1 period of uninterrupted sleep for an hour (which is about the length of a typical sleep cycle) and a total amount of sleep near 5 hours, then I'm doing fine. 

However, with the latest update to the sleep tracker, I can no longer easily count how long I was asleep without interruption.

[RonicaD]

I've never gone to a sleep clinic but my dad has. He took in his Fitbit sleep reports and the reports he got from an app he uses called Mobile Sleep Doc (http://www.mobilesleepdoc.com/) that, along with the Fitbit stats, first alerted him to the possibility of having sleep apnea. Turns out he actually does have sleep apnea and his doctor took his complaints more seriously because of the info he could provide.