Sleep Study Results

We had our follow up doctor's appointment with Dr. Rotenberg to discuss the findings of the sleep study. James and I were anxious to say the least. We are kind of torn about hearing any diagnosis. On one hand, we don't want there to be anything wrong with Andrew and want to hear that he's normal. But on the other hand, we think there is something wrong so it would be nice to hear they know what is wrong with Andrew so we can try to fix it. We figrued something had to be amiss since Andrew is still so restless at night and snores quite a bit.

Here's the rundown. Unfortunately, we don't remember all of what was said as we were trying to watch Andrew and listen to Dr. Rotenberg at the same time. And also, we heard a lot of what he said, but forget some of it by the time we left the office--your basic information overload.

• Andrew has on average about twenty arousals an hour (minor arousals in sleep to him totally waking up). Normally, people have less than five per hour. Approximately, two of these arousals were caused by an respiratory event (such as difficulty breathing); one of these aroussals were caused. by snoring; 2.5 of them were caused by limb movements; and 14 arousals were spontaneous. Therefore, Dr. Rotenberg says that Andrew has a "very mild obstructive sleep apnea".


• Andrew's periodic limb movements index was 27.9 per hour. During REM sleep, the limb movement index was 32.5 per hour. I can't remember what Dr. Rotenberg said was normal, but he said this was a lot. He did use the words "restless leg syndrome" (or what Daddy and I refer to as the "jimmy legs.") As such, Andrew has "moderately increased sleep-related movements".

Dr. Rotenberg took a quick look at Andrew's tonsils and said they seemed to be large, but he watns us to go see Dr. Raynor, our ENT, to see if she thinks they are enlarged enough to warrant removal in order to clear his passageways to help him breathe easier. Another option would be to do nasal sprays in an attempt to shrink the nasal tissue. We have a follow up appointment with him to discuss other possible treatment options.

James and I talked about all of this throughout the day; we are just beside ourselves. We definitely don't want to put Andrew under again for another surgery, but what it comes down to is we know we have to do what's best for Andrew and sleep is so important. Hopefully, we will have some more answers soon.

Here's a video of Cowboy Andrew at Gymboree this morning after our appointment.