The following blogpost is from Felica Fibro, a great advocate and blogger for the Chronically Awesome. After the blogpost are links to Felicia's Facebook and Twitter, please take the time to visit and learn more about all of the great information she has written about. She has been a great friend to me and so many others. A true diamond in the Chronic Illness community. Thank you Felicia for letting me share your blog with the What The Jules readers. ~ Jules
This week I had the exciting experience of having a sleep study conducted. I’ve always been intrigued with how researchers say the sleep patterns of people with fibromyalgia typically are different than those without fibromyalgia. You may recall me saying that Dr. Andrew Holman said that all people with fibromyalgia should have a sleep study done. Well, my new Rheumatologist suggested that I get one during my very first appointment with him. I previously went in for a sleep consultation, where they had me fill out paper work, talked to me and decided that I should have a sleep study conducted.
I arrived to the sleep study hours before my usual bedtime (the latest check-in they offered) with my pillow and a bag full of goodies that I thought I might need. I’ll be writing a separate post about that later. There wasn’t a clock in the room, so I have no clue how long I slept or how long anything took, but I’d guess that wiring me up probably took 20 minutes. I had sensors on my legs, abdomen, chest, chin, nose, check bones, near my eyes, on my forehead, one finger and in my hair. I felt like a marionette doll! The sleep technician told me that she’d need me to lay on my back for awhile while she went into the control room and checked my connection. Laying on my back was quite painful, but the technician helped me get a pillow under my knees, which made it bearable. After replacing two sensory pads she had me follow instructions to create a control sample. I did things like move my eyes up, down, left, right, cough (I couldn’t fake snore) and blink.
The bedding was pretty light weight, so I asked for another blanket and they brought in a fluffy comforter, which was perfect! Amazingly, I actually was able to get some sleep. I very carefully was able to turn onto my sides. Around 5am I was awoken by the sound of other patients leaving. The sleep technician woke me up at 6am to unwire me and have me fill out a form. I’ve never been a morning person, so I was pretty much a walking zombie all day. I thought I might try to go back to bed when I got home, but I had to shower ASAP to get the super thick and sticky glue out of my hair. It took almost 20 minutes of me massaging the glue with shampoo and scraping it with my nails to get it all out!
Have you ever considered having a sleep study done?
The view looking down to my abdomen -
there is no way someone could sleep on their tummy wearing this!
