Sleep disordered
So today I finally had a phone appointment with the sleep doctor, following up on the sleep study I had done about 6 weeks ago.
The results are… inconclusive. And frustrating.
General life updates
Hm, it’s been a while since I’ve posted anything of substance. I guess I could check in for those of you who still read this for whatever reason.
Progress resumed?
So, just an update from my last bit on discontinuing my CPAP. I feel like I’m back to where I was before the CPAP started causing problems, and I’m also up to 30mg of nortriptyline and that’s feeling fine. I also heard back from the sleep clinic today and while the doctor still hasn’t had a chance to go over my sleep study (I guess she’s been out of the office for some reason) the clinician agreed that I should stay off CPAP for now if I’m feeling better without it.
Feeling pretty darn great
So yeah the last um… two months have seen my fibromyalgia getting worse and worse, and my sleep getting worse and worse, and my pain getting worse and worse, and me just plain feeling like garbage and falling apart and constantly falling asleep throughout the day.
I still haven’t heard back from last week’s in-lab sleep study, but finally I decided enough was enough and two days ago stopped using my CPAP.
Two days ago I thought I might have to cancel all my weekend plans. Today, however, I felt absolutely fantastic, and did those plans and then some. And I still feel fine.
I am pretty sure the CPAP has been doing more harm than good, and I need to make the sleep doctor understand that while one metric (AHI) was going down, it’s only because the more important metric (amount of actual sleep managed) went down moreso.
Like, yeah, I wasn’t suffocating in my sleep, because I wasn’t sleeping.
Anyway. Tomorrow I will probably stream the iPhone battery replacement at, say, 2 PM PDT; if you want to see me possibly destroy the only phone I have which works properly, follow my twitch channel and “ring that bell,” as all the YouTubers say.
And I hope that with this newfound state of feeling pretty okay I’ll be able to start making music and comics (and therefore streaming!) more regularly again.
Progress
It’s April 1, and nobody seems to have noticed the little joke I put on my site, or at least didn’t react to it. Which is fine, it was mostly a last-minute commentary on web UX patterns and so on.
(If you’re seeing this in the future, I added a GDPR compliance popover that prompts you with, “This website uses cookies to remember if you’ve clicked this button,” and a button which reads “I clicked it.”)
Anyway! It’s been a few days since my last post and I’m feeling somewhat better right now, so I’d might as well share what’s changed.
Backslide
So, whatever positive effect I’ve gotten from the nortriptyline isn’t enough to make up for my current baseline pain levels. At least I’m able to get out of bed again (unlike a week ago) but holy moly do I fall into agonizing pain after not doing a whole lot. This weekend I wasn’t even capable of doing my usual 3-to-5 miles of walking a day, and I’m thinking tomorrow I might end up having to take a bus or even a Lyft to work. Very frustrating.
Also, lately I’ve noticed that the extra weight of my iPad in my purse is taking its toll on me. I should probably switch back to using my backpack as my main conveyance; it’s heavier but at least it’s symmetrical and puts the stress on my back rather than my shoulder and neck.
On the plus side, I’ve finally gotten my CPAP working well enough for me. I ended up finding a decent video on how to adjust the nasal pillows and those have turned out to be much more comfortable, given a second chance. The face mask ends up being too disruptive for a bunch of reasons (the slightest movement makes it leak around the sides and I have no way of scratching my nose without hecking the fit up) and I somehow managed to lose the nasal mask (which was nearly as bad as the full mask anyway) so the fact that I’ve gotten the one I’m “supposed” to be using to work reliably and comfortably is nice.
I still feel like it disrupts my sleep somewhat, though. I hope that’s just a matter of something I Need to get used to. Hopefully I’ll eventually start getting reliable deep sleep on it once I’ve fully acclimated.
Anyway. Being up this late and typing a blog post isn’t exactly helping. But I figured an update was in order.