How Did You Sleep?

That seems to be the most common question I'm asked. In fact, the surgeon asks the question regularly as well.

One of these days, the answer is going to be "GREAT and I feel rested." We're not quite to that point yet. The biggest change is I'm now sleeping about 8.5 hours a night which is a HUGE increase from the 4-6 hours pre-surgery. Last night I had an uninterrupted 6.5 hour sleep run but woke up with the chin as active as ever. I took Tylenol and ibuprofen and slept on and off for another 2 hours. (3.5 hours of clock time elapsed - it took me about an hour and a half to fall back to sleep.)

I have a couple of ideas on what's preventing my getting restful sleep:

1. The strong and sharp chin pain disturbs my sleep
2. My sleep debt is so significant, it will take longer to payoff than my mortgage

Given that I have a lower AHI number than many patients who typically have this surgery, the best indicator of success will be my sleep quality and how I feel the next day. For people with severe sleep apnea and a high AHI number, success is typically measured by reducing the AHI number 50%. For someone with an AHI of 80 to go to 40, would be considered a success. From what I have read, many of the people with the 80 AHI actually end up w/AHIs of 10 or less, so they notice significant changes.

I've always been a very light sleeper. One theory, not proven medically, is that my central nervous system is very sensitive to external stimulus when sleeping, whether that stimulus is chin pain, appnea, hypopnea, or as seen in my many sleep studies, an "unexplained arrousal (sleep studies have measured 15-30 per hour in addition to appnea or hypopnea events). I believe that these unexplained arrousals are really appneas or hypopneas that aren't long enough to "officially" count as a respiratory sleep event.

So now that we've likely eliminated all the apneas, hypopneas, and unexplained arrousals, the only thing left of the list is the chin pain. Hopefully that will be gone in a few days, and I'll wake up like everyone else - well rested.