Sandy and I left yesterday afternoon for VA Shreveport for my over night stay. I might add here is Sandy is my main driver as I have difficulty seeing with my right eye not fully recovering from the torn retina surgery I had about three years ago. We left early as Sandy wanted to go by the Best Buy store in Shreveport who has an Apple Support Center as she wanted to check out the new Ipad. All we can say is Wow!!!! Is there possibly a new IPad in the family soon??? Only time will tell us but it sure had both our interest. We even learned of an App that you can download and print from your wireless printer plus many many more. After bending the Apple Techs ear for about 45 minutes we left and had dinner at the Golden Corral. Their all you can eat menu for $10.00 wasn’t a good choice as we both left with our tummies full.
We arrived at the clinic and to my surprise I wasn’t there to check out the Cpap machine but instead they were going to do a Polysomnogram (PSG) sleep study on me.
The health care provider placed electrodes on my chin, scalp, and the outer edge of the eye lids. These must remain in place while you sleep. Signals from electrodes are recorded while you are awake (with your eyes closed) and during sleep. The time it takes you to fall asleep is measured, as well as the time it takes you to enter REM sleep.
Monitors to record your heart rate and breathing were attached to my chest. These also must remain in place while you sleep. The specially trained health care provider directly observe me while I tried to sleep and noted any change in my breathing or heart rate. The number of times that you either stop breathing or almost stop breathing were measured. There was also a video camera that recorded my movements during sleep or trying to sleep I might add. With 27 electrodes on your face, head and chest with all the wires attaching them to the monitor it was very difficult to sleep. One of the questions I was asked was “How did you sleep” my answer was sleep what’s that???
I will know something soon they tell me. The tech did say I did momentarily stop breathing one time. I don’t know if this was good or bad but when we got home we both crashed and burned.
Until next time….MtnAire Travlers.
Thanks for sharing this experience. I am going into a clinic next Tuesday for a study. Now I have some idea what to expect. Oh, I am one of your lurking followers.
ReplyDeleteI know you are glad to have that test completed... I hope you get some helpful information from it. I can only imagine it is not a normal situation so sleep must not have been restful. Glad you could crash and burn when you got home, you probably needed it. You guys take care and have safe travels.
ReplyDeleteMike & Gerri