Since being officially diagnosed only a few months ago, my daily life has rapidly changed. Supplements, exercise, physical therapy etc. I wear a smart watch to help make sure I do enough exercising concerning heart rate etc. One thing my watch does also is records my sleep. Light, heavy and REM sleep are all charted on a graph with breakdowns of each.
I noticed my REM sleep is terrible, and has been for a long time! While the average person is around 25% of your total sleep, mine is only 2%-13% at best!
Whats really strange is the only time is was in the average range was when I ran a fever for 30 hours, where my REM was 23-24%.
Is this something driven from my PD, and is there anything I can do to improve my REM sleep??
I appreciate everyone on this forum and have really learned a lot! Thank you all!
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SAGoodman
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Hi. Your watch tracks your REM sleep through movement. During REM sleep, muscles are paralysed, and we are still. Many people with Parkinson's don't experience this muscle paralysis, sometimes for years before a diagnosis, and that may explain why your watch isn't recording REM sleep for you. I don't know whether they experience other characteristics of REM sleep (frequency, bursts of fast brain activity). This is a topic that fascinates me, both as the ex partner of someone who has Parkinson;s, and also as the founder of a sleep tech company. I will look into it. No time for the next week, but I promise to report back.
Often, where there are disturbances in REM sleep, these correct naturally once deep sleep improves - but your deep sleep looks OK. Our approach has been to prompt deeper sleep. We did a small successful study with people with Parkinson's. I wonder whether you might get some improvement in REM sleep by deepening your sleep quality further? You might find that increasing fibre and reducing sugar in your diet helps with this.
Please ask me if you would like a link to our published trial results.
Anna, thank you so much for your knowledge about this. As you noticed my deep sleep has been fine, only my REM is very short. I also am unsure how these watches track the sleeping patterns, but have been using it over a year, and REM has been the same. Even though i was diagnosed this year, I have had symptoms for over two.
I am definitely interested in hearing about additional information regarding this, and also would appreciate you sending me the link on your trial.
715McGee I thought it may be good to add that I don't have any issues falling asleep or really staying asleep, just feel extremely tired in the morning when I wake, like I haven't gotten quality sleep.
And you mentioned elsewhere that you snore. Have you been tested for sleep apnea? There are at-home tests, or even a recording pulse oximeter would let you see if your oxygen levels drop during the night.
Another possibility is that 20mg of melatonin is too much for you. I found that as I increased my melatonin (trying to get to 10mg), my quality of sleep worsened. Instead of listening to how my body was responding, I was aiming at a dosage I thought would be beneficial. Maybe try 10mg for a week and see if there is an improvement.
Hi SAGoodman it took approx 10 years for my husband to find out that he had REM he would shout/ sceam,/ swear. he would get me by my neck and try to choke me/ he would rip off my nighty and kick me out og bed and more. We went to see our GP who gave him sleeping tablets, did not work vist again anouther GP told us to sleepin separate rooms. The last straw was when he jumped out of bed and ran full plealt at the wall, looking back now it was just like Tom & Jerry cartoon, any way called 999 who came straight away,wanted to take him to hospital, but he would not go. The worst thing was when he was in REM i could not wake him, inbetween this I was diagnosed with Parkinson's and I had an appointment with my PD specialist and hubby came with me, Now in the room helping my man was a lady profesor and REM came up (as you knowpeople with PD normally get it) and this lady gave my hubby px for Clonazepam 500mg and she told himto try it. IT WORKED no more running into walls or diving out of bed, he takes 2 at night but it could go up to 8if needed. We have never looked back ps I still have PD but touch wood hehas pnly REM.
Hairdresser1 thank you very much for sharing your experience. That is the most aggressive case I have heard of, and am very glad the doctors figured out a way to treat it! I don't have anything like that myself, and really my snoring is probably the worst symptom I have! Lol
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