Feel free to share your stories about Sleep Disorders

[SunsetRunner]

I have read that sleep occurs in cycles but what if your cycles don't always occur in the proper order? For example last night I went from being wide awake to being in a deep sleep. I don't think this is just a Fitbit reading issue and here is why

I was being tested some years ago for Epilepsy (which I didn't end up having) and I had to wear an EKG around with me as well as an EEG (at one point I wore an EEG for 5 strait days). The tests showed that I was asleep when I was awake/along with other wonky sleeping patterns and my heart rate dropped very low at times (not sure what my bpm was but low enough that I have been tested for Bradycardia more than once). No heart defects were found so it was assumed my Bradycardia was a result of exercise. MMRIs always normal. Once after giving birth I fell asleep hooked up to the blood pressure monitor and they rushed in with crash carts because my values were so low they thought I was dead but I could hold a conversation (they were startled to say the least). Sometimes when I exercise even intensely my heart rate is just chill and even throughout. I have literally hammered out an hour long kickboxing workout with BPM of 55, covered in sweat. As I get older my BPM seems to be more normal but I still seem to have something going on. I wanted to get my sleep professionally analyzed but the wait for that was over a year and my neurologist never put me on the list and now that I am no longer being investigated for Epilepsy I no longer have a neurologist and cannot request a sleep analysis (I don't live in the USA). Does this sound like a sleep disorder? Faulty wiring?

Btw I get loads of REM sleep but not much Deep Sleep for my age and I always wake up feeling tired. Sometimes my dreams are so intense and drawn out I wake up more exhausted than when I went to sleep in the first place! I go to bed at 9:43 pm and wake up 5:50 am most days sometimes I attempt to sleep in on the weekends but I struggle sleeping in and it leads to sleep paralysis. I can't stay awake later because I start to literally nod off and if I don't get enough sleep I hallucinate/become unstable so I really don't even bother trying to stay up late if I can help it. I have been diagnosed with severe ADD but what if it wasn't an attention issue, what if I was nodding off? I know I can partially sleep when doing reptitive things like eliptical, I don't really need to be full on so I can doze and keep moving. My mom seems to have problems too with insomnia, she goes to bed really early and then wakes super early.

Does anyone else have a similar issue and has been given a medical explanation? Or is also looking for answers? Or does this just seem like a variant of the norm? Is it just a low, rhytymic heart rate confusing sensors? Does anyone else have sleep disorders please share your story!

Moderator edit: subject for clarity

[emacd33]

I just read through your posts and almost word for word I've had the same experience.  I get over 8 hours of sleep every night but feel exhausted all day... even doing the same as you and going to the bathroom and putting my head down on my lap to rest for a bit!  I have also done the regular blood test (thyroid etc) and everything came back as normal (other than vitamin D). The biggest cause of concern for me is falling asleep while driving. Over the last 4 years my doctor has put me on vitamin D, vitamin B100, and sertraline (anti-depressant).  I feel like all of these things do help a bit, but I'm still not right.

I took the Epworth Sleepiness Scale and got a 16 which means my doc recommended me for a sleep study but (like you) my insurance will only cover after the deductible which I haven't touched yet this year.  This is basically what an average night looks for me... way too much light sleep and not enough deep.

Just wondering if you ever got your tests done and what the results.  And for anyone else out there who have experienced this did you figure out the cause?  If I every get close to my deductible I will get my test, but I can't afford to do it before that!

[10000things]

Would you mind sharing a acreen shot of your fitbit  sleep data? I think I may have REM behavior issues. I dont get up but move a lot and  talk, yell, cry, laugh etc at full volume.

[grrlscout224]

The quest for a sleep study got sidetracked by a more pressing, and likely related issue. I have real difficulty breathing through my nose, and it has gotten a lot worse over the past year. 

When I exercise hard, it closes up entirely, and I cough up a lot of thick, sticky mucus. I assumed it was from my exercise-induced asthma, but I noticed it was coming down from my sinuses, not up from my lungs. The combination makes breathing a real struggle.

I went back to the ENT I saw about a year ago, and it turns out, I have a few things going on: a deviated septum on the left side, and a swollen up turbinate on the right side, and a polyp in one of my sinuses.

When asked about it, he said it can most definitely be impacting my sleep quality, and recommended surgery, and if I'm still having sleep problems afterward, then get a sleep study.

Of course, this creates a new insurance issue. Surgery will cost me about $1,000 and recovery time is a week. I'm thinking about it, but need to decide before the end of the year, or the cost goes up by $500.

In the meantime, I've been using Flonase, and it seems to be having a really positive effect on the right side turbinate issue.

Sleep-wise, I'm getting more deep sleep on average, but I'm still getting pretty early REM phases, and I cycle through phases pretty rapidly. 

[MikeR417]

Idiopathic hypersomnia is the most under diagnosed  condition there is.  After my sleep study, and with the electrodes all attached, they did a sleep latency test.  It involved doing a boring task involving  clicking the computer mouse to respond to images.  The reaction time and sleepiness was recorded.  They then had you lie on a cot and recorded how fast you fell asleep and how long.  And then they repeated the exercise several more times.  The napping is of short duration and non-restful.  They said I was the worst case they had seen of someone who was undiagnosed.  The study was done at Duke sleep labs.

I too would get sleepy when driving - even short distances.  Since this is a safety issue, you really should get the study done and get on a medication.

And I hope people realize that the Fitbit sleep analysis is not that accurate - it is an approximation.  Don't think you are getting too little or too much of a particular sleep phase.  It is not a diagnostic tool.

Mike

[Colinm39]

@SunsetRunnerI notice you haven't logged into your Fitbit Account since June.

I trust you are still with Fitbit..

If you are wearing one the HR tracking wrist type Fitbits you can get a view of your HR while asleep.

While in your PC you create an Activity Record in your Activity Log..

Give it a name and then you can enter the data..

Here is an example

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@SunsetRunner wrote:

How do you check you HR for during sleep? I would be interested to see mine.

I have trouble with naps too and rarely take them. I wake up at 5:30 am and go to bed about 9:40. 4 o'clock I would be falling asleep too! I fall asleep during action movies because I find them so boring if they don't have a plot haha

Oh wow haha

I have some sort of allergy to caffeine 

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[Steinar_B]

Regarding https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oxygen_saturation_(medicine)

Is it possible the same way as for measuring the heart beat to measure the oxygen saturation. I took a test that showed that I have stops in breathing during the night, although I "know" I was awake during these periods of time I had stops in breathing. This is interesting in a future version because drop in oxygen saturation can tell if you forget to breath during sleep. The longest stop detected on me was for 1 minute and 41 seconds. I learned that the brain has this mechanism or safety valve to wake up the person who is sleeping when the oxygen saturation is falling below a certain level. To be able to let the clock tracking this would be just excellent.

[SunsetRunner]

I also have narcolepsy and my fitbit often doesn't pick up my sleep time until ive been asleep for a while. I have wondered as it is not a normal sleep pattern if the fitbit still thinks I'm awake due to going into REM very quickly. I would love to see you sleep patterns as a narcoleptic.

[JaneDo]

Hi derralh50. Sorry to hear about your nightmares, I get them quite often as well.

Your sleep patterns look similar to mine. I've had my fitbit for 2 days, and according to it I'm sleeping 3-5 hrs/night and waking up 14x/night. I've never had a sleep study, but will be asking for one. I had a TBI 13 yrs ago and haven't slept well since. I'm going to a cannabis clinic this week, hoping for some relief.

Wish I could navigate uploading screenshots of my sleep patterns. Any pointers on how to do that? Was hoping drop&drag would work but it's asking for details I'm not familiar with.

[SunsetRunner]

Hello, I’m going to a cannabis clinic as well we now think it’s just nightmares with me best of luck to you will post when I can! 

[Kwong98]

Sorry to see your struggle, I recently discovered nose dialators and I think that could be a very big help in your sleep schedule. If you decide to buy I'd suggest getting the softer gel ones rather than the plastic, it'll take some getting used to but over all it helps greatly with the airway 

[propita]

I finally went to an ENT (Ear Nose Throat) about my snoring, which would wake ME up, partially because I couldn’t breathe right.  He tried to look up, saw they whole area was inflamed, puffed something up to reduce the inflammation, then went with a camera.  He said I had evidently broken my nose years ago and the bones fused in the wrong place.  And it would only get worse with age.  CT scan is this Thursday to see what’s what.  Surgery likely.  You can’t nasal dilate bone, you know?  But at least I have an answer.  

Basically, if you have a child or grandchild who gets a black eye or just punched in the eye, it can do permanent damage.  See about getting it fixed while they’re young.

[Zaacharia]

I understand about the dreams. I have action/adventure dreams that are so exciting that I would take naps to enjoy them. I suffered from insomnia until I was prescribed Ambien and my dreams have subsided. I have been advised to get off ambien so I tried life w/o ambien and began to fall asleep at work - I would be on a call, put the client on hold and be attacked by Ninjas (since I work in a Federal building with pretty strong security so I was pretty sure I was dreaming and woke up - er, I was winning the combat). I am back on ambien but at half-dosage so I do get some of my dreams back. I finally got my Fitbit One working so I will see how my sleep is recording.

[Angielynn_74]

I have never met anyone with the same sleep disorder that I have! I just want to say ' I am here'. Any helpful tips? How long have you had it?

I know I have lots more to say, but I didn't even get 4 hours of sleep last night.

[Steinar_B]

OK, the clock tells us when we get to sleep or when we wake up. this seems right, but I think this is based purely on this sensor inside the watch that your arm is laying still in the bed. How can we prove that the deep sleep ot rem sleep is true? I've had deep sleeping problems for the last three years or so, but I do not trust my sleeping pattern seen from fitbit. This is not only based on heart beat rate, because I also see that my heart beate rate varies +-20 at night, so it's impossible to base how well someone sleep based only on heart beat rate and whether the arm is laying still or how long the arm has not moved.

Fitbit is probably big money. How do we know that the recorded sleep pattern is nothing else than a random algorithm? Example. OK, the clock knows you are going to bed because the armwrist has been still for a certain amount of time. It knows you wake up when the arm went up from bed. In the mean time - generate a random sleep pattern between deep, light and rem sleep. right? Someone could buy his or her new house because we believe in this **ahem**. It is not proved or passed any neutral test. That's my point. Just becuse the clock can measure heart beat rate it doesn't mean it can measure sleep quality.

[SunsetRunner]

Hi I just wanted to say I have narcolepsy and my sleep record will often started a while after I know I've been asleep and have had this confirmed by a partner but as far as accuracy goes when I have had doupts about the sleep patterns I've had I have often gone to sleep with my Fitbit verser on one arm and my partners blaze on the other and I was surprised to see every time was nearly identical apart from about 1 or 2 minutes difference in the time I went into a particular patter but they were identical patterns which gave me greater faith in the accuracy apart from me still believing if I go into REM to quick it may start my sleep time later than it actually was. 

[Electriclineman]

Why did Fitbit change the app?  Rem sleep is no longer tracked.  I have the same Blaze device. The tracking of when I fell asleep is incorrect.  It is recorded correctly on the phone app but incorrect on the website dashboard. 

Any comments?

[Zaacharia]

Rustyb: My Fitbit does not record my sleep - I have to enter the time I go to be and get up to get the sleep data. You might have to correct the start time yourself.

[DimitriC]

I have trouble sleeping through the night. Is there a way for me to keep my self asleep? My name is Dimitri.

[Brett_jemstone]

I suffer with sleep apnoea too, every night I wear the mask, need to lose some weight tho, gonna aim for four stone off this year

[SleepySloth]

Idiopathic Hypersomnia. It’s what I am diagnosed with, and girl...We. Sound. Identical.

didnt get thru reading entire thread of comments so my comment could be totally irrelevant by now. 😆