Morning, all...
DR Danise: Glad to hear your sleep study went well. My first technician was not as amiable as yours sounded...she barely spoke with me while I was there.
At my follow-up with the neurologist, he told me that I have sleep apnea and I was waking up an average of 27 times per hour, which he called a moderate level of apnea. Some people wake up up to 80 or 90 times per hour, meaning they NEVER get sleep. He also told me that the apnea was the main reason I had to get up to pee during the night. It's not necessarily that you HAVE to pee, it's that you stop breathing and wake up and realize you have a full bladder. If you were having rolling REMs, though, you most likely have a minor case of apnea (if you have apnea at all), as most of us never get to REM sleep because we keep waking up when we stop breathing.
I had to go back for a second sleep study with my CPAP machine so they could determine the pressure levels that would work best for me. It was amazing how I fell asleep and had probably the best night of sleep I'd had in 15 years. I woke up the next morning feeling so good! Then I got on the subway and thought I was going to vomit. Seriously. I think because it was the first time my body had truly rested in so many years, a great deal of the toxins that I'd been holding onto were released, much like they are after a massage, and it made me nauseated. Once I got my own machine, though, that wasn't a problem...I just started having crazy dreams for a couple of weeks while my body adjusted to getting real sleep.
It's fascinating how much goes on when your body's "at rest."
Since I've lost so much weight now, I can actually sleep fairly soundly without the CPAP machine, though I wear it every night just in case...