09-03-2024, 01:20 AM
transitional/sleep onset apneas after years of PAP
Hi, all.
Longtime lurker, first-time poster.
About 18 months ago, I started waking up gasping for air with my heart racing and not breathing. This happened maybe 20 times a night for the first couple of nights, and it was torture. I borrowed some Ativan the next few nights and that seemed to nip it in the bud for a while. A few months later, the bolting-awake-while-falling-asleep thing returned for a few days and it has come and gone multiple times since. My sleep doctor says it's relatively common to have a high AHI/centrals in the transition sleep phase and said I may just have developed an anxiety or sensitivity to it. He prescribed Ambien to help me get tired enough to fall asleep when I have these spells. He adjusted my pressure but I can't go higher without getting aerophagia, so I got a dental appliance a couple months ago to do hybrid therapy. It hasn't seemed to do much, either, and I'm in the middle of a month or so of another Jolt Awake While Falling Asleep Because I Stop Breathing phase.
Other background: These spells tend to be correlated with periods of higher stress, and I have longstanding issues with anxiety/depression for which I've been on sertraline for many years. I've been tired most of my adult life and on CPAP since 2015 when I was diagnosed with moderate obstructive sleep apnea (my AHI was right at 15 on my sleep study then). People talk about what a difference CPAP makes, but it never really did with me. Most late mornings I will need an hour or hour and a half nap and at least 9 or 10 hours of sleep to feel somewhat refreshed. Three or four years ago, my sleep doctor put me on BiPAP because I had a lot of centrals in the first hour of sleeping/going to sleep. I'll note that when this gasping stuff first happened in early 2023, it was about two weeks after I got COVID for the first time, which I figure is probably a coincidence. I tried a pulse oximeter a few months ago and my readings went down into the mid-80s at times during the transitional apneas.
I'm wondering if anyone could take a glance at my Oscar data and see anything I or my doctor might be missing. I very often go downstairs to try to not wake my wife after having these incidents, so my PAP usage stats have gone way down, but I've included some screenshots from one of my recent full-usage nights.
Many, many thanks for any help/advice you can give me! I have already learned so much from this board!
Longtime lurker, first-time poster.
About 18 months ago, I started waking up gasping for air with my heart racing and not breathing. This happened maybe 20 times a night for the first couple of nights, and it was torture. I borrowed some Ativan the next few nights and that seemed to nip it in the bud for a while. A few months later, the bolting-awake-while-falling-asleep thing returned for a few days and it has come and gone multiple times since. My sleep doctor says it's relatively common to have a high AHI/centrals in the transition sleep phase and said I may just have developed an anxiety or sensitivity to it. He prescribed Ambien to help me get tired enough to fall asleep when I have these spells. He adjusted my pressure but I can't go higher without getting aerophagia, so I got a dental appliance a couple months ago to do hybrid therapy. It hasn't seemed to do much, either, and I'm in the middle of a month or so of another Jolt Awake While Falling Asleep Because I Stop Breathing phase.
Other background: These spells tend to be correlated with periods of higher stress, and I have longstanding issues with anxiety/depression for which I've been on sertraline for many years. I've been tired most of my adult life and on CPAP since 2015 when I was diagnosed with moderate obstructive sleep apnea (my AHI was right at 15 on my sleep study then). People talk about what a difference CPAP makes, but it never really did with me. Most late mornings I will need an hour or hour and a half nap and at least 9 or 10 hours of sleep to feel somewhat refreshed. Three or four years ago, my sleep doctor put me on BiPAP because I had a lot of centrals in the first hour of sleeping/going to sleep. I'll note that when this gasping stuff first happened in early 2023, it was about two weeks after I got COVID for the first time, which I figure is probably a coincidence. I tried a pulse oximeter a few months ago and my readings went down into the mid-80s at times during the transitional apneas.
I'm wondering if anyone could take a glance at my Oscar data and see anything I or my doctor might be missing. I very often go downstairs to try to not wake my wife after having these incidents, so my PAP usage stats have gone way down, but I've included some screenshots from one of my recent full-usage nights.
Many, many thanks for any help/advice you can give me! I have already learned so much from this board!
