How Is Insomnia Diagnosed?
This test is meant to help you decide whether your symptoms might come from sleeplessness. It does not, however, superseded a qualified diagnosis. Examining your symptoms, sleep patterns, personal circumstances, and medical history will help a medical practitioner identify insomnia using a range of approaches. They might also propose some tests.
Physical Inspections
Throughout the physical examination, the doctor will focus especially on the patient's explanations for her trouble sleeping. She would also ask about overall wellbeing and medical history of her family. She also questions the patient's over-the-counter and supplement schedule. The patient should save her sleep journal for at least one week before her doctor's visit. This will help her to remember the times she wakes up and goes to bed, the quantity of alcohol and caffeine she drinks, and any other factor influencing her sleep pattern. The doctor will look for medical reasons of the patient's sleeplessness during the exam, including a dry mouth or throat, cough, tingling or numbness in the limbs and legs, or nocturia—frequent overnight urinating. She will also check her blood for low haemoglobin or haematocrit levels, which could indicate a persistent illness or iron deficit.
Blood tests
Blood tests can provide specifics about the state of your body, including the concentrations of specific chemicals needed for optimal sleep. If you have anemia—shown by a low haematocrit or haemoglobin count—you could feel tired and sleepy during the day. In a same line, a magnesium blood test can show that you lack this mineral, which is required for peaceful sleep. By completing these and other blood tests, your doctor can help you rule out any medical or physical conditions that might be the source of your insomnia. A blood test can, for example, find low iron levels or thyroid disorders, which would disrupt sleep. Further blood or urine tests can be carried out to identify disorders such narcolepsy and movement disorders interfering with sleep. Your general practitioner will also probably ask you to do the Epworth Sleepiness Scale, a measure meant to evaluate your tendency to nod off throughout various activities.
Diary for Sleep
A sleep journal is one instrument individuals could use to monitor the factors affecting their sleep. It could mean they are kept awake at night by checking their text messages before bed or have problems falling asleep from an overly busy to-do list. Sleep medicine experts among medical professionals can evaluate this information and provide insomnia treatment. Sleep diaries let patients and their doctors evaluate the effectiveness of a treatment as well. Several researchers have developed and analysed sleep diaries in recent years in order to reach an agreement on insomnia studies. A proposed framework would provide maximum versatility to address a range of questions while maintaining a basic collection of objects that should be included into any research effort. This homogeneous approach would provide consistency in the computation of sleep indices, such as SE and WASO, and facilitate data comparison between past and future studies.
Research on Restlessness
If your primary care physician cannot find the reason of your insomnia, they could advise a sleep expert a sleep study. For this test, you will either sleep at a specialised sleep centre or at home; electrodes will be placed on your head, face, eyelids, chest, limbs, and finger. These sensors monitor brain activity, heart and breathing rates, oxygen levels, muscular contraction occurring during sleep, and body posture. Blood tests to gauge your haemoglobin and haematocrit may also be required to ascertain whether you have anaemia, which can induce tiredness and affect your capacity to fall asleep at night and get a good night's sleep. Results of a sleep study could take some time. Pack a toothbrush, pyjamas or sleepwear, morning clothes, any additional thing you might need to comfortably spend the night in bed (like a pillow and blanket). Tell the sleep technologist ahead of time whether you are allergic to the adhesive tapes used during the test or just sensitive to them.
