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

[Charlesnester]

Hey Mary,

Thanks for your great replies. Hope your husbands get well soon.

[Charlesnester]

Thanks and welcome

[saitaladev]

Hi,

How many hours of sleep...would be ideal for day ?? I always plan for making it to 4 hrs,,..but end up sleeping more than 8 hours......!   Is 4 hrs really sufficient. I mean 4 hrs in the normal work days (monday to friday) and having 8 hrs in the weekends ??

[nickyshephard40]

Hi, thanks for sharing your experience with sleeping. Sometimes, I feel those kinds of a phenomenon in my life wherein, it'll take hours just to fall asleep. It would be nice if you will try sleeping supplements, which might help you with your problem.

[Maryalicecotter]

No more pills. I have taken pills for another problem since my early 20s - now 8 1/2 daily. Exercise is key as I am tired at bedtime & sleep.
My husband has the problem of sleep apnea does not fear pill popping as I do.

Thanks for your ideas & will pass to my husband who has a Vista but does not use it regularly.

Missy Cotter

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[GJBerends]

Hi,

Probably my disorder is not in the amount of magnitude of all others posting here. I have a Delayed Sleep Phase Disorder.

Background

The disorder actually means that my sleep wake pattern is offset from the normal. So where a normal person falls asleep between 10:00 PM and 1:00 AM, I and others like me fall asleep between 2:00 AM and 5:00 AM. Which in itself is problematic when you try to work from 9-5 shift (trust me working with only 3h sleep in for an entire night for weeks at end is not easy). There are many misconceptions about this disorder. Everybody has experience with a few nights of bad sleep so everybody deems their self as an expert. That's why it was failed to be recognized during my childhood and I was struggling through it until my mid twenties until it led to multiple other problems.

What I am saying here please do not try to do this unsupervised. 

For people struggling with the same problem. You can live with it, and get good nights sleep. If you tend to go to bed at 10PM and find yourself awake until 5AM  for weeks on and please go to a sleep center in your neighborhood.

The only current treatments that worked for me were light therapy and chronotherapy. So staying up 3 hours more each day for about 8 day's (actually skipping a day somewhere in between) helps to force yourself within a rhythm that is socially accepted. From there on it is wake/sleep cycle management every night to keep falling asleep within normal ranges. Although eventually you can fool your body only for so long and you start from the beginning. But to sleep normal(ish) the most of the year is a mayor improvement.

How does Fitbit help me

So monitoring when you go to bed, when you sleep and when you wake up is key, not only for chronotherapy but also in maintaining the wake/sleep cycle. Fitbit already gives me a good solution of waking up, and does an reasonable job predicting when I fall asleep.

How could Fitbit improve

Make sleep an action, that you can start from your Fitbit, so you have the in bed and in sleep times. Make more charts where you can see when you got into bed how long it took until you slept. This is a feature that really could make my life and others like me easier.

For people struggeling with the same problem, I know staring in the darkness while on bed when you know you need the sleep is horrible. But please remember it can get better. (And no you don't have to quit your job 🙂 )

[theldenn]

When my BPM went to 55, they put in a pacemaker. I also had AFib so they did an ablation. That was in 98. I have had 2 replacements since then. A friend kept falling a sleep at weird times. He fell off a stool once. He really was a mess. They did several monitors and sleep studies. Finally, they implanted a monitor of some kind into his chest. They learned his heart was literally stopping, he was not sleeping  but dieing. I would continue to have them monitor you. I had a heart monitor last month, it didn't even have wires, just stuck right on my skin. I wore it for 2 weeks.

Good luck. I was 40 when I got my first one in 1998.  

[Shell167]

I know that you posted this 2 years ago,  and hopefully you have got the issue sorted.  All the symptoms apart from the low heart rate are the same as symptoms I get, and I have narcolepsy.  Very broken sleep during the night causes extreme tiredness during the day.  Rem sleep doesn't switch off,  so it intrudes all the time,  causing the sleep paralysis and hallucinations.  Some narcoleptics have cataplexy too, which is a loss of muscle tone brought on by strong emotion, usually buckling of the knees,  or wrists,  before a total collapse where you are still alert but paralized.

[Maryalicecotter]

Thanks for your help. My questions regarding sleep were in reference to my husband’s difficulties with sleep apnea. He has this problem under control now.

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[SunsetRunner]

Ive been treated for ADHD and once I did, my sleep problems got worse.

[GJBerends]

I know you weren't talking to me but your description sounds like the problem I had. So dsps maybe? ADHD is passed along to your children as for your sleep it depends on what it actually is. So talk to you parents and/or grand parents to find out. If they have simular problems (less problematic means is also an indicator) then chances are that you children can have the same.

[Maryalicecotter]

Hi
I do not have ADHD not does my husband. I appreciate your response to my questions regarding sleep disorders.
Missy Cotter

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[SunsetRunner]

@Maryalicecotter  and @GJBerends I have talked to my parents, and they say it's all in my head. I may have dsp, but no one believes me ever, and I'm a nobody. Soo.... Yeah.

[SunsetRunner]

My dad has it.

[WendyB]

Ok @SunsetRunner 

[SunsetRunner]

yes. ok.... huh

[Maryalicecotter]

Ask the doctor. My husband found out he had sleep apnea when he was put out for a colonoscopy. That doctor suggested that my husband speak with his primary and soon confirmed. But, it took a while for him to acclamate to the CPAP machine. Now he is a regular.

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[GJBerends]

@SunsetRunnerwell that is the main problem of sleepdisorders everybody sleeps and knows how it is to sleep poorly for a couple of weeks. So everybody think they are the specialist.

As for your problem if it keeps on for more than six weeks i would recommend seeing a doctor. If it is persistant then ask for a referal to a sleep diagnostic center (I don't know the exact english name for these). They both can help you with the diagnosis of your issue if it keeps being persistant. But dont lose track of good sleep hygiëne. So no coffee after 14:00, no displays an hour before going to bed and find some relaxantion like mindfullness to help your bodies biological rithm. 

[Maryalicecotter]

Thank you. Since this question was for my husband, he followed this suggestion, Doctor confirmed sleep apnea, & he now uses CPAP every night.
Thank you

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[SunsetRunner]

1. I'm not allowed to have coffee, 2. Thank you. 3. Im not allowed on my phone after 5-6 hour.