Last Friday, I had my third sleep study in as many years. This one was to see if my oral appliance was helping my sleep apnea. I’m a pro at these studies by now, but it’s still an awful night’s sleep, no matter what. Check in is at 9pm and they wake you up between 5:45am and 6am the next day. My sleep has been a lot better in recent months, but it’s also gotten later and later. I haven’t gone to sleep before 2am once this year. I haven’t tried to change this because I don’t want to mess with whatever is working about my sleep. For example, last night I slept from 2am to 10am. My sleep is still fraught with problems and awakenings, but actually having my eyes closed for 8 hours is miraculous.

So, I knew I was in for a rough night during the sleep study. This time around, I wore my pajamas to the clinic since I would just be getting straight into bed; I brought melatonin, since I knew I’d be trying to sleep earlier than usual; I brought an electric blanket since it’s always cold (stroke of genius, it turns out, because I have a very hard time sleeping with icy feet); I brought both of my pillows (one for my head, one to support my legs when I sleep on my side); I brought water and snacks (didn’t need the latter); and, most importantly, I brought ear plugs. During my last sleep study, I was woken by the crackling of the speakers, the water in the pipes, the hissing of the air conditioning, the closing of doors in other rooms… Ev.eRy.Thing woke me. I can say, without any shadow of doubt, that finding ear plugs that block all sound and are comfortable enough to sleep in (i.e: NOT the $100 custom-fit hard ones) was the best thing to ever happen in my health life. The key was, my husband had to teach me how to put them in properly. I didn’t realise there is an art to this. Silence is pure bliss, even if it’s filled with various pitches of shrieking tinnitus.

Another trick I had learned from experience was to shower (and not put on any lotion) right before coming to the sleep study, so the sticky pads would stay stuck through all my nocturnal thrashing. In the past, the tech had had to wake me to restick sensors that I’d ripped off. It was also a pleasant surprise that the huge brick that connected all the wires, which used to be strapped to my stomach, has been eliminated.

Once I was all hooked up to the wires and monitors, I read for a bit and then tried to go to sleep at around midnight. I had to call the tech in twice: once to move the massive cord of tethered wires coming from my head and gathered together at the back of my neck like the brain plug-ins in The Matrix — that’s a design flaw when they want you to stay on your back — and another time because of the bright green speaker light reflecting off the ceiling and blaring through my shut eyelids. She got on a chair and threw a washcloth over the speaker light. Can’t believe no one else had ever complained about it.

My night was terrible. It felt like I was awake the whole time and I remember at one stage thinking I just needed to call the tech in and tell her I was going home because I obviously was never going to fall asleep for more than a few minutes at a time. Turns out, I was wrong about that. I did sleep, but spent an inordinate amount of time in stage 2 sleep, during which, my doctor said, you can be slightly aware of your surroundings. Was I ever. I also remembered snippets of about 5 dreams. It felt like I would doze for 10 minutes, have a dream, wake up and lie there thinking about it for an hour, before dozing off and having it happen again, over and over. Dr. M confirmed that I did wake up after every REM cycle, but said this wasn’t that uncommon. We surmised that my problem is, because I’m often having stressful dreams and nightmares, when I wake up it isn’t a slight surfacing and then back under, it is, instead, a fully awake, heart-pounding episode that I have to come down from. He said my “sleep architecture” was terrible (how I progress through sleep) and my brainwaves showed that I spent most of my time in flight or fight mode. I’m hoping this was exacerbated by being hard-wired into a foreign bed. I’ve done so much bloody work over the years trying to calm my nervous system and feel like I’ve made progress. The ear plugs are a good example — I spent years not even considering wearing them because then I wouldn’t be able to hear the intruder/dog whining/crackling of flames or any one of the other million crises that can strike in the night. I’m not on high alert anymore. Usually.

The biggest revelation to me that night was how much pain I am in when I’m sleeping. I thought I was just an extremely active sleeper but, just like my experience during the tilt table test when I was forced to lie on my back and stay in one position, all hell breaks loose in my limbs when I can’t move. Blood pooling, pins and needles, numbness, cramping, sore muscles and, worst of all, skeletal pain — deep aching in my joints and bones. I had to move to alleviate the pain and get my blood flowing, so, as much as I tried to stay on my back (where the apnea is a real problem), I wound up flipping from side to side, just like I do at home. I’d never equated the tilt table test to sleeping — while I was supine, there was no blood in my extremities at all and they went from numb to excruciating. I was almost in tears. I don’t know what to do about this particular problem, though. It’s not a painkiller issue. I think I need stronger muscles to help the bone and joint pain and, for the circulation issues… what? Would Florinef or Midodrine help with this? Can I just hire a gaggle of elves to rub my arms and legs all night long?

Anyway, there is some great news. I managed 3 short cycles of deep sleep during the night, which blows my mind when I didn’t think I’d slept at all. My oxygen saturation was 96-97% (that’s good). And… sound the trumpets… I had ZERO apneas or other breathing events. Picture me kissing my ResMed Narval oral appliance like Jimmy Stewart kissing the newel post knob in It’s a Wonderful Life. Mmuah mmuah mmuah! I love you, my uncomfortable little OA. I’ll never speak ill of you again. Even though you destroy my jaw every night, you are a much better friend than the CPAP mask.

So, with ear plugs and the OA, I’ve tackled 2 of my sleep issues. Now, I just have to work on the hypersensitive nervous system, temperature dysregulation, cervical spine injury, the night terrors, muscle aches, bone pain, joint bursitis, blood pooling, photosensitivity, intermittent drenching night sweats and the awful mast cell poisoning reaction events and I’ll sleep like a baby. Yay!

But, seriously, this is really good news. Sleep is absolutely the key to my healing. Oh, and Dr. M prescribed a newish sleep drug called Belsomra, which works on brain neurotransmitters. I think I might give it a try. 🙂