I wanted to restart this thread with an update and the reintroduction of an old problem.
The good news is that I have made a lot of progress with my sleep onset insomnia. On average I only lay awake or drift in and out of light sleep for 45 minutes to an hour now, with an occasional bad night. My new sleep routine, which I have also simplified, is really helping along with changing my sleep times to better reflect what my body wants to do. Now I stay up much later, to at least 1am and am usually able to sleep in to 9am or 9:30am. So for the first time in quite awhile I am finally getting enough sleep. And I am sleeping much more deeply and feeling much more refreshed in the morning. My mask is not waking me up even when rolling around during deep sleep causes leaks. I have not looked at my sleepyhead reports for at least a week.
The not so good news is that I still wake up a lot even though my sleep quality has improved a lot. But I think I know why and it has nothing to do with mask or machine. And these are doing their job for me fine. Here is an article by Dr. Steven Park explaining the sequence of events that start with increased breathing effort, which creates a vacuum effect in the throat and/or chest that results in stomach contents being suctioned into the breathing apparatus. This sets off a serious of events in the brain that causes one to wake up often with the need to swallow. Here is a section of his article that illustrates what I am saying: (will post the link to the entire article below)
"We know that any form of breathing obstruction (apnea, hypopnea, RERA) can cause you to wake up. But what's not too commonly known is the fact that any degree of acid in the throat can stimulate certain chemical receptors, which causes you to wake up so you can swallow. It's thought that this is needed to prevent aspiration of stomach juices into your lungs.
A recent Japanese study not only confirmed these concepts, but found an interesting additional observation: While people with severe obstructive sleep apnea have mostly arousals due to breathing pauses, those with mild to moderate sleep apnea have a higher number of spontaneous arousals. Spontaneous arousals are noted on a sleep study when your brain waves go from deep sleep to light sleep or temporary awakening, without any objective evidence of breathing pauses."
http://doctorstevenpark.com/reflux-and- ... leep-apnea
Robysue, you asked me about GERD. If you mean "do I have heartburn?", the answer is no. However I do have something called LPRD which is where stomach contents (not just acid) end up in somewhere in one's throat and/or respiratory system where they don't belong. Recall that, prior to xPAP therapy, I complained about waking up often at night and in the morning with respiratory complaints such as stuffed up nose, sore throat, cough, asthma, etc? I had this problem for many years and the common GERD medications that doctors gave me never helped at all. I saw a Gastroenterology specialist who did not think I had stomach problems. I also noticed that these episodes only happened at night and got worse the deeper I slept. So, when I suffered from insomnia, I did not have problems with LPR because I stayed in light sleep or awake most of the night. However, during periods when I was not having insomnia and sleeping deeply and normally, the LPRD would get really bad. There is a lot of controversy in the medical profession about what causes LPRD. I came to believe that the LPRD is a symptom of sleep apnea. That is why I decided on xPAP.
Now that I am spending much more time in deep sleep, I am noticing that, even with the PAP therapy, I am often awakening with the need to swallow to clear my throat. However the severity of the LPRD has dramatically decreased because of PAP. It is nothing like it used to be. I am so grateful for that. I am now noticing, since I slept really deeply the last few nights, a slightly scratchy throat with increased phlegm, slight stuffed up nose and slight cough that I did not have before the insomnia got much better. But Dr. Park's article explains this better than I can.
I have to wonder if the insomnia and light sleep is a protective measure against the threat of ending up with stomach contents in my respiratory apparatus.
