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Sleep Apnea
FrizzleFried:
During my sleep study I averaged 32 times per hour that I'd stop breathing. The shortest being 3 to 4 seconds and the longest being over 110 seconds!! I finally went in to be tested when one night I woke up BLUE and having a REAL hard time breathing. The doctor estimates I could have been not breathing for over 3 or 4 minutes in that case. It scared the ---steaming pile of meadow muffin--- out of me.
PRE-CPAP: I'd have to get up and piss a MINIMUM of once per night, averaged 2 times per night, sometimes 3 times per night. EVERY night.
POST-CPAP: The very first day I used the machine I slept through the entire night without getting up to piss once. It's THAT much of a difference.
PRE-CPAP: I actually fell asleep at Super Bowl Parties DURING THE GAME...two years in a row!
POST-CPAP: 4 hours of CPAP assisted sleep felt like 20 hours of pre-CPAP sleep.
PRE-CPAP: I feel asleep on the 5FWY during rush hour traffic in the fast lane on my way to work at 7AM in the morning...I almost killed 3 guys working on the side of the road. I ended up causing about $50K of damage once my insurance was done paying everyone off...
POST-CPAP: No problems driving even 20 hours (Boise to San Diego)...
The bottom line is that I go NOWHERE without my machine. It's a pain in the ass at the airport (I always go to the secondary checkpoint while they check my machine for bomb materials), it's a pain in the ass to get used to, but it's most certainly a life saver.
I talked to the doc about surgery to remove some of the excess materials from my throat, the problem is that it's only effective about 30% of the time, it hurts like a ---smurfette---, and it's actually NOT recommended unless CPAP is ineffective. It's not just fatty tissue causing the problem either. For some reason when apnea sufferers go in to REM sleep, their throat muscles relax causing the throat to collapse internally....you then stop breathing....after x number of seconds the body recognizes it's not getting enough oxygen and it pulls you out of REM sleep, thereby "waking up" the muscle tissue in the throat, causing the throat to open for access to air. There-in lies the problem, apnea sufferers only get MINIMAL REM sleep...the most important kind of sleep for the body because it keeps getting kicked out of REM sleep by the lack of oxygen.
No amount of hypnosis, no amount of exercise, no amount of meditation is going to rectify what is a physical issue. Weight is a major factor, but not ALWAYS the case and some minor apnea sufferers may be able to eliminate CPAP with weight loss, the vast majority only get to a point where they can lower the PSI of the CPAP machine...not completely eliminate it.
As for my machine, I am supposed to go get it "tuned up" every couple thousand hours, but it's $80 each time, all they do is pull it apart and clean it, re-set it for my correct PSI and send it back...and I am without the machine for a week or so (miserable!)...so after sending it to them the first time I pulled it apart myself and cleaned it myself, reset the PSI for 11.5psi and done. Saved me $80 per time, and the hell that is sleeping without it. I'm supposed to change my mask every 4 months or so, but realistically it gets changed about once a year. I wash the mask, tube and filter weekly with anti-bacterial soap...supposed to do it daily, ---That which is odiferous and causeth plants to grow---...way too much time wasted doing that crap...and i've not gotten sick once caused by it. That said, I do NOT use the humidifier unit that came with it...I stick to running dry. If you use the humidifier you pretty much HAVE to clean the ---smurfette--- out daily (maybe once every 2 days).
mountain:
Good info Frizzle. I haven't received my official results yet but the technician unofficially told me it was pretty severe.
--- Quote ---POST-CPAP: 4 hours of CPAP assisted sleep felt like 20 hours of pre-CPAP sleep.
--- End quote ---
During my sleep study they put a mask on me for the last 5 hours. I went home, took a shower and went to work. Wow! I felt totally refreshed. I have read that long time sufferers will not see the full benefits for weeks, if not months. My wife first noticed the problem the first year of marriage and says it has slowly gotten worse. We have been married for 13 years!
Loafmeister:
EXCELLENT post Frizzle
ChadTower:
OTOH, I put the face mask on and had an anxiety attack after ten minutes on the first 3 tries. Just could not deal with the mask, which is odd, because I've never had an issue with a SCUBA mask. 3-4 more mask types later I finally found a nasal pillow mask that does work but it causes me as much insomnia as it solves the sleep quality.
SithMaster:
--- Quote from: ChadTower on October 05, 2008, 08:34:27 pm ---
OTOH, I put the face mask on and had an anxiety attack after ten minutes on the first 3 tries. Just could not deal with the mask, which is odd, because I've never had an issue with a SCUBA mask. 3-4 more mask types later I finally found a nasal pillow mask that does work but it causes me as much insomnia as it solves the sleep quality.
--- End quote ---
Isn't the insomnia better than not breathing?
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