Oscar Data Looks Fine, But Still Very Sleepy

[dvschwab]

Hi all,

I have had trouble sleeping for the past several months due to my PTSD. I would wake up every hour, and sometimes I couldn't even get to sleep at all. Thankfully, things are settling down and I have had normal sleep for the past few nights, going to bed at 9 PM and waking up around 6 AM. The problem is that I'm still so sleepy that I have to have several cups of coffee, and even then I can barely make it through the day. I bought an SD card and downloaded Oscar, and to me everything looks like it should: there are only two events, and my AHI is 0.27. For reference, at my last sleep study (which was years ago), my AHI was over 20 (they didn't tell me the number, just that if it was over 20 they had to put the mask on me).

I'd be grateful if someone would look at my data and let me know if I'm on the right track with thinking everything is okay. I am wondering if I just have a heavy sleep debt after getting poor sleep for so long. I also take medication to help me sleep, and I'm wondering if that might be a cause as well. I have noticed that I seem to dream most of the night, and I almost always wake up in the morning from a dream. I thought I read that you eventually need to drop into a deeper sleep than dream sleep, so I might have a "dream backlog" to work through.

I don't usually wake up with a headache, and I haven't had any choking or spinning in my dreams. I'm just puzzled why everything seems to be working and I'm so tired I can barely get through the day.

Thanks in advance for any help or advice.

   

[PeaceLoveAndPizza]

I see nothing there to cause concern or requiring adjustments. You have minimal flow limitations, the flow rate is quite good, I:E ratio is good. In fact, other than the brief snores from 23:15 to 00:15 it is an excellent chart.

Would you be able to add the respiration rate graph to the chart? You can shrink the bottom two graphs to make room to add it. I want to see how it looks as it may contain a clue.

Quality sleep is so much more than just a low AHI. Give the link in my sig on “Sleep Hygiene” a read and see if anything resonates.

[HalfAsleep]

I wouldn’t put a lot of stock in the snore chart. If you notice, The snore curve echoes the leak curve: same profile. I have this relationship between the two as well, and I know I don’t snore. So, you might not actually be snoring.

[CPAPfriend]

Some people do take a little while to recover from bad sleep, so you're not off-track to be considering that as a possibility. Most sedatives typically leave people feeling not-themselves, often times with complaints of "grogginess", "brain fog", "fatigue", etc. However, they can at times be worth the tradeoff. 

REM sleep does accumulate in a similar sense to which you describe it.

Some patients are very sensitive to disturbances in breathing. I don't want to cast a spell on you or anything that this is the case for you, but it's something worth considering. That is, very small amounts of upper airway resistance / flow limitation / obstruction can fragment and disrupt sleep for certain individuals. The easiest way to verify, or, better said, to acquire diagnostic power in regards to determining if this is something at play, would be to use a pulse oximeter and review the pulse rate across the night. 

A few screenshots of random samples of the tops of your breaths in the flowrate graph could also possibly add some values to the sets of eyes that make it to your post.