[Symptoms] Insufficient deep sleep

[eriks]

Hello all,

I've been on CPAP treatment since 2013. At first there was little improvement, but after two "nose procedures" and a lot of tweaking of the CPAP devices I can now say I feel a lot better. Still I keep needing to have ten hours of sleep, which I often can't get because simply I wake up before the ten hours have passed and then I feel tired all day. The "AHI" value of my CPAP is constantly "very acceptable" (2-4) which means I won't get any additional support from my nurse practitioner.

Recently I started recording my sleeping sessions with my smartwatch. I now have a Samsung Watch 4 classic, which means it can also record oxygen saturation, which sometimes gives interesting outcomes.

The main thing I notice, though, is that the time spent in "deep sleep" is mostly not even half of what's recommended. Sometimes it's completely absent. One could argue that the measurement will probably not very accurate, but the conclusion very much complies with my experience. I never wake up with new energy (actually I am the most energetic just before bed time) and I tend to wake up from each little sound or light.

As I tend to be quite tense, I started doing excercises to relax, both physically and mentally, but I don't see any difference.

I am suspecting I am having arousals from insufficient breathing and now I am experimenting with different CPAP configurations, monitoring it using OSCAR. But no real eye openers so far.

Anyone have experience with this phenomenon, tips and hints?

[Nightynite]

Well I curious about the responses because your problems sound like mine. I have tried about everything and came to the same conclusion like so many articles I have read stated. When you get older the quality of your sleep decreases.

[eriks]

Hi, good to know there are others 

I am not very young but also not very old yet (50 years to be precise). I have been having this issues for several decades now, it's not something from the last few years. On the other hand I do remember having had high quality sleep when I was a child, so it hasn't been for ever.

I am aware that quality of sleep decreases when we get older. I recently read something interesting about this phenomenon. In every human the pineal gland appears to calcify (?) and become less effective with years. Apparently mine started to do so early in life, because I need to take melatonin every night (small dose though), otherwise I won't sleep for hours. Temporarily increasing the dosage didn't help me getting better sleep, so I returned to the minimal dose I need to get to sleep (which is just 0.3 mg).

[staceyburke]

Welcome to the board.  What we need to look at anything is data.  We get the data from OSCAR - totally free download at the top of the site.  You also need a SD card from 2GB to 32GB anything larger won't work.  Put it in while asleep and download the nights sleep into OSCAR - post in this thread and someone will help you.

Check the link I have at the bottom of this post for organizing charts -  it also tells you about OSCAR  I would also go to youtube and search using OSCAR to get started....

[OpalRose]

eriks,
Your DeVilbiss DV54 is "partially supported" by OSCAR. I'm not sure what will show on OSCAR, but is worth a try. Follow the links in my signature line to guide you.

The DV64 is fully supported.

[eriks]

Hi all,

Thanks for your replies.

Apparently I haven't been around for a long time. The DV54 was my first CPAP, I then had a Resmed S9 for a few years and I have a Resmed 10. Indeed the latter two can record quite a bit of information (as opposed to the first one) and I have imported the data into OSCAR already. I'll have a look to see where I can change my profile data, so it's up-to-date.

My general impression from the OSCAR data is that indeed I have regular "arousal" events, the CPAP comes in and the breathing starts again. Until two weeks ago I had the max pressure at 10 and I saw the CPAP increasing air pressure to that value quite a few times. Two weeks ago I changed the max pressure to 12 and I still need to review the effects from the fresh data. But I doesn't seem to help anyway.

[OpalRose]

Hi all,

Thanks for your replies.

Apparently I haven't been around for a long time. The DV54 was my first CPAP, I then had a Resmed S9 for a few years and I have a Resmed 10. Indeed the latter two can record quite a bit of information (as opposed to the first one) and I have imported the data into OSCAR already. I'll have a look to see where I can change my profile data, so it's up-to-date.

Thanks for updating your profile, as that's the first place we look for information.

Go ahead and post a screenshot of the daily page from OSCAR. We might be able to help. The links in my signature line will guide you.

[Dormeo]

Please do post a recent Oscar chart. That will help people give you informed advice. Also, what are the "interesting" O2 readouts you get from your smart watch?

[eriks]

Thanks, will do. Might take a few days though.

[Geer1]

Actigraphy (what the watch uses) is only slightly helpful. It isn't accurate enough to draw definitive conclusions about quantity of deep sleep.

I have a couple other ideas/thoughts but no point theorizing until we can see your OSCAR data to see if there is anything obvious to us.