Thursday, August 23, 2007

The Habit of Sleeping

On Tuesday night, Casey was scheduled to have a sleep study done. He sleeps enough hours at night, but it's really hard for him to go to sleep. When he gets up, he feels like he hasn't slept at all. What all that equals down to is poor sleep quality. After feeling like crap for the past several years, he finally decided to mention it to our doctor. Our doctor scheduled him for a visit with the pulmonologist/sleep specialist. After Casey's initial visit the specialist felt that he may have some sort of sleep apnea, so he scheduled him for a sleep study. Poor Casey. He never worked so hard to just go to sleep. For some reason, whoever had his Festiva, before him, hard wired the clock straight into the battery. So whenever it's parked for a few days, we have to jump it off. We went to jump it off, and the main fuse box started sparking and smoking. When Casey went to check the wires, he noticed that they had burnt through. So, no going in the Festiva. He took our nice car, which meant I was stuck at home. That was o.k. with me, because it earned me an extra day off!!

Casey finally made it to the sleep study. He said of all nights, he slept like the dead. His results were just plain weird. Instead of like normal people, who start apnea as soon as they are asleep, Casey doesn't start the apnea until he reaches REM sleep and starts dreaming. The doctor said he'd never seen that before and said he was "different". Casey said, "I call it different, but my wife calls it difficult." He also told Casey that he didn't snore much. I BEG TO DIFFER with that statement. I think I need to place a call to that Dr.! Anyway, they scheduled Casey for another sleep study using a CPAP machine. If it helps, they are going to get him one. They also said that he clenches his teeth quite a bit. They suggested that he get himself a mouthgard to help with that problem. Casey made it back home around 1:00 yesterday, and we just lounged for the rest of the afternoon.

Sleep is such a fascinating thing.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I would wake up on and off all night and wake up sooo tired. I had two sleep studies. For the last 2 years, I have slept with a CPAP machine. You can't imagine the difference. I sleep all night and wake up ready to go. In fact, I don't seem to need as much sleep because I get so much uninterrupted sleep. I take my CPAP every where with me. I sleep so good. Hopefully, one day I won't need it...(when I lose some weight) but for now I love it. I used to get sooo sleepy at work. Even around 9 in the morning which was strange since I had just woke up a couple hours later. Now, after using the CPAP, I never get sleepy during the day. I sound like a commerical for CPAPs, but they do work.