Feeling Sleepy with insomnia
Question:
Is it possible to feel sleepy all day, yet have a hard time falling asleep at night? Aboout five years ago, I was diagnosed with mild to moderate OSA and PLM after a sleep lab study. At that time, I never got used the CPAP machine and gave up on its use ( probably never used it continuously for more than a couple of nights). Now, that I have other medical problems, I have resurrected the study and hope to be a lot more motivated in treating the OSA. Anyway, my symptoms are the typical daytime fatigue and somnolescence. But, even though I get these sleep attacks ( droopy eyelids, mental fog )every couple of hours during the day, I don’t actually fall asleep spontaneosly. Most of the time I have to take a break and lie down for 15 to 30 minutes with my eyes closed, but to the best of my knowledge I actually don’t sleep ( unless perhaps I am getting "microsleep"). I usually get up feeling more refreshed after these breaks. At night, it may take me up to 2 hours to fall sleep and
Response:
I’ve experienced this too! I think it has to do with adaptations we’ve made over the years to being sleepy all the time. We get so good at keeping ourselves awake, that we have trouble letting go! Also, before I knew about my apnea, I think there was almost an element of fear of going to sleep, I kind of fought it, staying up late watching TV or reading till I really passed out.
