Summer of Self Care: Week 4
Jul. 1st, 2014 08:19 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
miss_lucy21So, I got the results of my sleep study back late last week and the good news is that I don’t really have sleep apnea. The diagnostic criteria is 5 or more obstructions and hour, and I had 4.5 when I wasn’t in REM sleep, and 7 per hour in REM sleep. So, that means I technically only have sleep apnea in REM sleep, at a level my doctor called “extremely mild” and therefore, I don’t have to do anything about it. It’s below the level at which treatment is even necessary. This is good. (I have refrained from saying “I told you so” to everyone who said my sleep issues were probably sleep apnea and told me I was being naive or in denial when I said I was pretty sure that I would know if I was waking up because I couldn’t breathe). She did say that if I lost weight, even the small number of partial obstructions I get (there were no full obstructions) would probably disappear completely. I told her that the only way I lose weight is if I eat less than 1000 calories per day and then I tend to gain it all back and then some, and it’s really bad for my mental health, so, uh, no. Not putting myself through that again, thank you. She backed off some after that. I’ll take it.
I do, however, move a lot in my sleep. Apparently, my brain is completely asleep while I’m flopping around, so it’s more of a problem for anyone sharing a bed with me than it is for me, but given that I’ve injured myself in my sleep (I separated my shoulder once and I’ve thrown out my back) and given that restless legs seem to be part of the cause of my insomnia (ADHD and anxiety are probably the rest of it. My brain is just too busy) and since I apparently was moving during REM sleep, which is not supposed to happen, I got the diagnosis of Restless Legs Syndrome and a minor REM sleep disorder. Since I did not do at all well on the medication they usually use for RLS and since the other medications for RLS are in the same class (they work through different muscle pathways, but they work the same on the brain), we are trying a very low dose of Ativan/lorazepam to see if that will do the trick. Apparently, that’s the second line treatment. It seems to be working in some fashion- there is a lot more sleeping space around the restless moments that my fitbit is capturing, even if I don’t seem to be averaging more sleep than before (I think it’s because the insomnia is particularly bad at the moment for some reason. I’d blame jet lag, but I’ve been home from Colorado for a week now). So, we’ll see. It’s making me groggy in the morning, but I’m hoping I’ll adjust.
So, that is the sleep issues. Fortunately, it seems like they will require less maneuvering around than the food issues (which are being problematic, but I’m really too tired to explain and deal with it at the moment). The exercise is going fine, although I’m really hoping it cools off this weekend so I can go walk/run outside. It’s much, much too humid for me to do much of anything outside right now, even early in the morning when it’s still pretty cool. Too hard to breathe.
I do, however, move a lot in my sleep. Apparently, my brain is completely asleep while I’m flopping around, so it’s more of a problem for anyone sharing a bed with me than it is for me, but given that I’ve injured myself in my sleep (I separated my shoulder once and I’ve thrown out my back) and given that restless legs seem to be part of the cause of my insomnia (ADHD and anxiety are probably the rest of it. My brain is just too busy) and since I apparently was moving during REM sleep, which is not supposed to happen, I got the diagnosis of Restless Legs Syndrome and a minor REM sleep disorder. Since I did not do at all well on the medication they usually use for RLS and since the other medications for RLS are in the same class (they work through different muscle pathways, but they work the same on the brain), we are trying a very low dose of Ativan/lorazepam to see if that will do the trick. Apparently, that’s the second line treatment. It seems to be working in some fashion- there is a lot more sleeping space around the restless moments that my fitbit is capturing, even if I don’t seem to be averaging more sleep than before (I think it’s because the insomnia is particularly bad at the moment for some reason. I’d blame jet lag, but I’ve been home from Colorado for a week now). So, we’ll see. It’s making me groggy in the morning, but I’m hoping I’ll adjust.
So, that is the sleep issues. Fortunately, it seems like they will require less maneuvering around than the food issues (which are being problematic, but I’m really too tired to explain and deal with it at the moment). The exercise is going fine, although I’m really hoping it cools off this weekend so I can go walk/run outside. It’s much, much too humid for me to do much of anything outside right now, even early in the morning when it’s still pretty cool. Too hard to breathe.