Sleep Apnea in E4

[KatieS]

Gina, If you're curious, I would compare both sleep studies. My first sleep study (home) was "normal", but my oxygen nadir was 82! The second study (sleep lab), I had a deeper sleep and the oxygen nadir was 65 in less than two hours. That's why my recommendation is to monitor with an oximeter a few nights, excluding those restless nights.

[Gina99]

Kitano, my sister had a follow up sleep study last night and she is ok, but I dont have any details yet have to talk with my brother in law as my sister her memories are like an alpha et soup. she has the memories but the timeline is off... Now i am worried for myself and want to try a DIY sleep study first...


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[Sandraz]

This is the oximeter I was looking at at amazon. Had not ordered it yet bc they say they are doing update that will record all night long (on smart phone)this month. I do not necessarily think this will replace a sleep study, but would be cheaper, quicker, and less hassle to self monitor. I am going to order today as I have amazon prime and will post how it works. I have been so caught up in figuring out supplements, diet, and exercise let this one slip. I am sleeping much better with melatonin, but this sleep apnea sounds very important.



Sandra z .
Ps don't know if I can stand getting more genetic work done to see other risk factors (or not).

[KatieS]

Looks like a good recording oximeter, if the cord is long enough and you have the app compatible with your phone. If your doctor suspects sleep apnea, I would just go forward with the full lab testing, should these results be equivocal. However, if this does show a chart of nocturnal desats, then your doctor can just prescribe an adjusting to your needs PAP machine. Huge time & expense savings.

Now I'm taking so many supplements: Curcumin, Reservatrol, DHA, and adding Citicoline & Melatonin this week---but the treatment of sleep apnea has improved my brain more than any magic bullet. There is no question that sleep apnea changes the white matter and hippocampus.

Keep us posted on your progress.

[Gina99]

Yup, you are right, need to go to the Dr anyway, but by the time you get an appointment, set up a sleep study, you will be already with AD. That is, if your doctor even will believe you need a sleep study. When you are a woman in menopause, everything is blamed on that, and if your labs are 'normal' (based on medically accepted standards) you won't get one. Several years ago, I had a very good internist who wanted me to go do one, and I poo-pooed it saying I am too young to have breathing problems and was too scared to do it. Fast forward 10 or more years, wished I had a base line of every test there was, including an MRI. But, alas, is not to be, so on with a DIY for diet, exercise, sleep study, lol.

[Sandraz]

Hi. I got the oximeter from amazon. Nothing to compare it to, but I think it worked great after getting used to a couple of things. It is very simple. Download iOximeter app and open the app. Plug cord of oximeter where you would plug in ear buds. Put on finger and wait. I had trouble the first night bc the thing shut off when I didn't want it too. Then I realized that if you back out of the app it shuts off and stops recording. I didn't even realize I had hit the back arrow at the bottom of my phone (I have a samsung s3). So you just put on your finger and I fell asleep with phone next to me. Just let the phone lights go out on its own and it recorded through the night. Then you can scroll through either the oxygen recordings or the heart beat recordings and look for anomalies. There is also a page that reports averages and how many times one went below preset oxygen settings. There is an alarm you can set to go off if you go below those settings, but I didn't want that while trying to sleep.

The results look good as far as my inexperienced interpretations go. I don't know what normal heart rate rhythms look like, and mine were all over the place. My oxygen level went below 94 (to 93) for about 40 secs. Rest of night averaged 97.
So even though I snore a little (I am told) looks like nothing pathological. The weird thing is my pulse overnight. I know I have a low resting pulse, but during sleep it was pretty much in the 40's with excursions into the 50's and down into the 30's. No clue what that means.

But anyway, great oximeter in my opinion. My doc had wanted me to get a sleep study (costs $1000's) and I don't know how my insurance would help out, so this appears to be a good preliminary step. Hopefully I won't have to do study at the this point, but will see if there are other reasons to do it when I next see her in a month or two.

Sandra Z
E4,E4

[KatieS]

Sandraz, Do you feel like you had a good restful sleep despite the technical interruptions? I would still recommend wearing this a few more nights before your med apt, since my experience is that I only seem to have the severe desats intermittently with the deeper sleep nights. However, this is great news, and even if you should have very mild apnea, the weight loss would alleviate. Just reconfirm with more data.

[pal]

Sandra, thanks so much for this report. Glad to hear your numbers are looking good.

[Sandraz]

Hi Kitano,
Yes I think I slept pretty well. I am definitely going to wear it a few more nights to see what it shows. The funny thing is I forgot to take the melatonin last night and I still slept soundly. I think I am finally getting a good sleep rhythm back, what with less stress at work, exercising a bit more, and eating better. And of course my handful of supplements. And I am a pharmacist that hates taking pills. learning to get over that with my 7day am/pm pill box and I found I can swallow a bunch at once.lol

Sandra Z

[Gina99]

I guess I will be next as I bought an oximeter to attach to my iPad. Pretty easy to install and run will be able to export to Spreadsheet to analyze. Have read up on a blog of people also doing a diy sleep study. I can see why you need a controlled environment. My sister pretty much freaked out with her arm taped to a chair in the first study. I dont think AD patients should be kept alone. It would be like putting a 3 yr old alone for a sleep study. She was traumatized this, but luckily since her short term memory is not good she got over it relatively quickly. I think people are afraid because they are losing control during one. So I have this long weekend to mess around with that.


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