Every 30 seconds
The doctor burst into the room, a concerned look on his face.
“You’re on CPAP, right?”
“Excuse me?”
“You’re on CPAP?” he repeated.
“Um yes, for many years. I went through the sleep study just to get a new baseline.”
“Good. Let me just go check a few notes in my office.”
I knew it wasn’t going to be good. The night of the sleep study was just miserable for me, because I can no longer sleep without a CPAP. My sleep was fractured, and it felt like I hadn’t slept at all.
I was right.
“Congratulations, you’re #1″, he told me as I was leaving.
“#1?”
“The worst we’ve ever seen,” he said, pointing at the number “126″, indicating the number of sleep interruptions I experienced per hour during my sleep study.
Every 30 seconds.
“A dubious honor”, was all I could think to say.
If your doctor is recommending a sleep study, do it. Among the other figures he pointed out to me was that my blood oxygen dropped to 82% without CPAP, and that was after just a few hours. Who knows how low it could go over the course of a night. The stress on the heart and brain would be tremendous.
I honestly believe that if I hadn’t met my wife, who insisted I do something about my snoring and the way I stop breathing at night eight years ago, I’d be dead by now. Suffocated in my sleep, maybe, or a heart attack from the strain of living without deep sleep. Or a fiery car accident when I fell asleep at the wheel, maybe with my wife and kids in the car with me.
Something to think about.
Tags: CPAP, kids, sleep apneaMy journey with Sleep Apnea
Just got home from a sleep study, and I am tired.
Like many obese people, I have sleep apnea. I was first diagnosed 8 years ago and sleep wearing a CPAP machine, which provides a continuous column of air to keep my airways open during the night. Last night was a long-overdue follow-up study to determine if any adjustments need to be made.
Because it had been so long, they had to re-baseline me, meaning they had to do a “split-study”. During a split-study, they make you go to sleep without any machines and measure your sleep interruptions. I could not stay asleep. I’d grown so accustomed to sleeping with a CPAP that I felt the way other people might feel trying to sleep with the lights on and music blaring.
Even with the fractured sleep, they managed to measure enough sleep interruptions to warrant the second half of the study, measuring my sleep interruptions with their CPAP. The purpose is to determine the appropriate settings for my machine. Had I not had at 30 interruptions in two hours of sleep, I would not have taken the second half of the study.
It will be several weeks before the results are analyzed and any adjustments made. The first time I went through the study, I was measured with 114 interruptions per hour, or one about every 40 seconds. Obviously, this was considered very severe, and there was an immediate improvement in some aspects of my health once I started sleeping with a CPAP:
- More energy.
- Better memory.
- Less cravings for sugar and caffeine.
- Complete elimination of daytime sleepiness.
In the past year, I’ve noticed more sleepiness in the afternoon. I try to combat this with sugar and caffeine, which exacerbates my weight problem. I’ve also noticed that I’m forgetting details at work. My wife also told me I’ve started snoring again, even with the CPAP. For these reasons, I felt it was time to get checked out again.
So, even though I’m fairly miserable from last night’s lack of quality sleep, I feel good about getting the information I’ll need to take care of my apnea. Hopefully, I’ll see the same results this around.
Tags: CPAP, fitness, sleep apnea