Last night, I completed a sleep study. They connected me to an EEG and EKG. They also measured my breathing and monitored me all night through video and audio. The sleep tech explained that they were not allowed to tell me what the results were, so I have to wait for the specialist to contact me in a few weeks. In the mean time, I’m wondering what the sleep study could possibly reveal about my sleep and general well-being.
Edit: For years, I have been waking up feeling exhausted. It takes me hours to get going in the morning. They were concerned I might have sleep apnea. However, when I was getting hooked up, the sleep tech told me that they look for much more than just sleep apnea.
My boss has sleep apnea and did a sleep study. It turns out he was having roughly 80 episodes an hour where he stopped breathing. They also found that his heart rate was jumping up to 135 bpm during these episodes, as well as his cortisol levels rising way above normal.
I would say it is probably good to know the severity of the condition, as it might be good to know how treatment might need to be. Having your heart rate spike like that is not good, and it means that he will have more monitoring and checking in with his doctor as he adjusts to and uses his CPAP machine.
80 episodes an hour? That’s gotta be a typo, right?
If it lasts only a second or so before the body self-corrects, that’s slightly more than once per minute.
According to him, it was in fact 80 per hour. Definitely sounds crazy.
In the past I remember feeling my heart racing whilst asleep (in a dream?) I am not sure if I should check for sleep apnea
I would check on it if you are concerned. It can’t hurt to check and if you find something that needs to be addressed, now you know and can work on fixing it.
Do you snore?
No, but I have a habit of grinding my teeth at night