Sleep Apnea At home Kit.

[pab628]

My Neurologist sent me home with this confusing apparatus yesterday and I will be shocked if it shows a reading. At one point, I woke up and the monitor had fallen off? Anyone had one of these 'at home" kits. This was to monitor my breathing as I slept. If a problem, they'll bring me in for further study.

[ViewsAskew]

Interesting - I've heard of them, but haven't seen them. Seems like an excellent option - if they can make sure it works, of course! That the monitor fell off is a definite issue.

I also heard of one where a tech comes to your house to put the stuff on you, then leaves. You bring the stuff back to the doctor. It costs much, much, much less than being at the hospital or sleep clinic.

[pab628]

I think a tech coming to the house and hooking the apparatus up would have been great. But, I live about 1/2 hour from the clinic (in another town), so sure that wouldn't have happened. The monitor may have been off a few minutes or many minutes. I don't have any way of knowing. I'll take the kit back tomorrow and then we shall see. I guess the point (of the neurologist) is to rule out any other sleep disturbance issues. I was actually surprised, other than waking a few times, that I slept as well as I did.

[sleepdancer2]

I've been seeing the home tests discussed lately on the sleep apnea board cpaptalk. My takeaway on the home home tests is that they can diagnose sleep apnea if it sees it, however, a negative test result does not necessarily rule it out. Actually that's also true of an in-lab study. One has to have achieved deep sleep and REM sleep while supine to most likely see the worst case scenario. If your test turns out negative but you are symptomatic, please do not stop at the home test being the definitive answer. Since you are on this RLS/WED board do be aware that sleep apnea and limb movement disorders can mask each other and make diagnostics less reliable. When there is more than one disorder causing sleep disturbance, whichever is strongest at the moment wins the battle for credit for the wakings. Just based on my many sleep studies since first diagnosed in 1998, it can be a game of cat and mouse. Many of the medical professionals I've seen are not in tune with the interactions and accept test results at face value. I realize my bad experiences tend to make me a bit of extremist on this, but I am suspect of any test being the full picture where multiple disorders are present. Tests can only report what they see at that time, and as anyone with RLS/WED or PLMD well knows. severity can vary night to night. A bad leg night will likely not show much sleep apnea that night. Gotta sleep to see the sleep apnea. Good luck going forward. Hopefully by you being aware of the limitations of testing you can avoid the pitfall of accepting an answer that is not really the answer. Be fully informed, keep your own file of all test results, and ask all the hard questions.

[pab628]

Thank you sleepdancer2. Very good advice. I don't personally think I have sleep apnea. If I get my 7 hours sleep, I'm fine. I don't wake gasping or coughing. I do snore...but, don't we all if we're of a certain age? We'll see. But, I was pretty stressed when I read the instructions and hooked myself up. The green light came on the monitor and a red light was on my finger, so guess that was what it was to do.

[debbluebird]

I didn't think I had sleep apnea either. I didn't have any symptoms. Just my WED/PLM. It was my doctor that wanted to know. I put it off for a year or more. But my in lab study showed I stopped breathing 90 times an hour. Now after using the CPAP, for over five years, when I don't put it on, my husband can see when I stop breathing, when before he didn't.
Good luck

[pab628]

Thanks debbluebird. I have a friend (who doesn't have RLS) found out she stopped breathing over 100 times (don't know if that was all night or what).