Unclear results from sleep study - what to tell my employer?

love_love

Going to try and make a long story short!

I had a sleep study done earlier this year (overnight stay, and intermittent naps throughout the following day). The study was done because of suspected narcolepsy. The consultant spoke to me after all the naps were done, and said that it definitely wasn't narcolepsy because my REM sleep from the previous night was normal (or something like that I think? I can't fully remember). I had 4 naps and fell asleep in all of them, but she said the results were inconclusive as I took a while to fall asleep in the first one, and her and the person who was actually conducting the study/assessment disagreed about my third nap (?).

This is where it gets (even more) unclear. I had told the person conducting the study that I suffer from anxiety, and reminded them of this throughout the day, especially before and after the first nap, as I was very anxious due to the pressure I felt to "perform" and so my heart was pounding the whole time. There was also a "clicking" sound in my room that I couldn't source which made it more difficult to relax because I was anticipating it and it would shock me awake as I was drifting off. The person told me that she would advise the consultant, as this would be relevant to the results. However, when the consultant came to speak to me about the results, I mentioned my anxiety (in reference to the first nap) and it was the first time she had heard about it. She said she would have to take that into account when assessing the results further, and suggested that I may have hypersomnia or even chronic fatigue. I asked what I could do to help alleviate the symptoms - she advised the only thing she could treat me with would be stimulants, which I can't take because of my anxiety. Unfortunately I came out of the experience feeling almost more disheartened than going into it, because she seemed to be advising that I'd just have to continue on as I have been.

My understanding is that she sent a report to my GP but I have not had a dedicated appointment with my GP to discuss the results, as I think the results just said that I don't have narcolepsy. (I'm going to call my GP and see if they can offer me any further info on whatever the report says.) The reason I'm querying this now is that I'm back in a bad patch of falling asleep at my desk in work, as well as finding it very difficult to get up in the mornings, and sometimes being late for work which I've been advised will soon become an issue if it continues. If the report really just says I don't have any issue, do I just have to suck it up? If the report says I might have an issue, how do I approach my HR about it? I feel completely in the dark, and I don't feel comfortable speaking to my HR without having some advice because I don't feel that issues with sleep would really be understood.

Fathom

love_love wrote: »

My understanding is that she sent a report to my GP but I have not had a dedicated appointment with my GP to discuss the results

Follow-up with your GP.

love_love

Fathom wrote: »

Follow-up with your GP.

Have done, the results were that I have no disorder. The information in the report is extremely misleading, it says that I was happy to hear I had no disorder (they didn't tell me this at the time - they told me I didn't have narcolepsy, and that they'd have to consider the results to see what I might have) and that a shorter commute would help (don't know how, since I've been falling asleep during the day since I was in school over 10 years ago, and varying commutes haven't changed that).

I've actually also spoken to my HR department - as I suspected, there's nothing that they can do or allowances they can make since I don't actually have anything diagnosed.

Fathom

Interesting article about shift work sleep disorder... Christopher L. Drake, et al., Shift Work Sleep Disorder: Prevalence and Consequences Beyond that of Symptomatic Day Workers, Sleep, Volume 27, Issue 8, 1 December 2004, Pages 1453–1462.