I had my follow-up visit yesterday for my sleep study. She broke down the number of times I woke up on average per hour of sleep. First, I had and average of three "breathing episodes" an hour. Under five is considered normal. Next, I woke up from snoring two times an hour. I grind my teeth pretty bad throughout the night, but it doesn't necessarily wake me up. I had nine spontaneous arosals and hour. This means that when I aroused from my sleep stages, nine times there was nothing that the monitors or probes could contribute them to. Finally, I had 51 PLM's per hour. These are called Periodic Limb Movements. Of the 51, 15 woke me up. So, on average, I wake up out of my sleep stages 29 times per hour. She also explained that I have longer than normal deep stages of sleep and shorter than normal dream stages (not sure what that really means!).
Periodic Limb Movements are related to restless leg syndrome. My limbs, in particular my legs, twitch and jerk throughout the night. These movements wake me up and I do not get restful sleep. She prescribed Mirapex for the jerking. This should also take care of my teeth grinding. The same medication is used for Restless leg syndrome as well as Parkinson's disease.
I hope that it works and I can soon be sleeping like a baby!
Thursday, September 11, 2008
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4 comments:
Wow...how fascinating. So why is it that you can't fall asleep in the first place?
Yeh, why not? That's probably my biggest area of difficulty. I toss and turn and gripe forever before I can fall asleep. My knees ALWAYS ache. Dad says I sometimes talk in my sleep too. I hope the meds will help you. It's the pits to be tired all the time. Good luck!
You haven't updated us on the Choir lately. Howsit going?
Well, make sure you let us know how you're doing. Hopefully it's just the ticket to help you get some sleep.
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