Sleep apnea

About three weeks ago, I was diagnosed with sleep apnea, and was given a C-PAP to breath with. Here’s the kicker, my Doctor said that due to years of being sleep deprived, my metabolism was in the basement. Sure enough, three weeks later I’m 18 pounds lighter with no changes to my diet or workouts. Has any body else heard of any thing like this?

Can you fill me in on what this is and its effects. Can you also fill me in on the cure and how its made you feel. I think apnea is not breathing regularly when you sleep and I suspect I have something of the sort (exacerbated by forced breathing of lifting that I hope to minimise by meditation). How were you diagnosed and was the cure expensive?

Sleep Apnea is more than just not breathing regularly. It actually represents periods of cessation of breathing with subsequent hypoxemia (or drop in oxygen concentration) in the blood. It will often occur when the drive to breathe is less, usually at night. As Chuck said, the body never quite gets adequate rest because of these periods of low oxygen.

There is no one cause, but there are two main CATAGORIES of causation: CENTRAL (which you'll often see with pre-mature infants) and OBSTRUCTIVE (in other words, the airways become obstructed due to enlarged tonsils,intermittent airway collapse, adenoids,and a common cause, obesity).

Diagnosis is via an OVERNIGHT SLEEP STUDY that records breathing patterns, and with more elaborate studies, oxygen concentration.

C-PAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) delivers oxygen and keeps the airways open. With the delivery of 02, the body does not have to work as hard to deliver adequate oxygen to the tissues.

Treatment is basically attempting to correct and/or support the underlying cause.Hope this helps.

I am very interested in hearing more about this as I am a restless sleeper, but am more interested for my father, whose choking gasps and buzz saw snores can be heard a great distance away. Do you have to have this perscribed or cna you just try a home unit???

Jay: It has to be prescribed. You would also want your dad to see either an ENT (Ears/Nose/Throat) or a Pulmonologist so proper diagnosis is made. You really want to know what the underlying cause is. Often it is something simple. But if more serious, you would want to know that also.

Ask your Dr. if you are a canidate for Somnoplasty. I had major snoring and some apnea and it is much improved

JD

My dad had sleep apnea, they did a surgery on his nose and corrected the problem. I cannot remember exactly what they did to his nose, but his snoring was cut in half and he no longer stops breathing in the middle of the night. His mom had sleep apnea as well, but she wasn’t a canidate for surgery and had to sleep with a breathing aparatus (sp?) for the duration of her life.

I heard a new treatment is on the way. What it is is your doctor or dentist will be able to numb a part of your throat which will allow for better breathing. They have to inject some material in there. The only problem is it requires FDA approval and that will take another year (FUCKING FEDS). Oh, and you have to get these injections about once a year.

Chuck, how does it feel to sleep with a C-PAP on. Do you experience a lot of discomfort with it? Any answer would be highly appreciable. Thanks.

I am not an expert, but anyone that has heard my dad snore, stop breathing, gasp, groan in his sleep knows that he has SA real bad. I was wondering if it would be possible to buy one in Mexico or elsewhere. I wouldn’t mind trying this, too. I may record myself with a sound activated recorder a few nights.

Yes, it is a little difficult getting used to the C-PAP machine, especially the “face mask” that goes over your nose. However, I have found that if you drop room temp. a degree or two, that it seems to make it more comfortable. Yhe good news is that after years of hitting the wall around mid-day, since using this device, I have only had two days of that horrible fatique. Also, I would like to add that I did not have many of the classic symtoms, I did not fall asleep every time I sat down, did’nt get drowsey while driving, did’nt wake up in the night gasping for breath.

The sleep study revealed that I stopped breathing 69 times in the first hour of sleep, my oxygen level dropped from 99 to 78, and they said I “woke up” 376 times during the night. Also now that I no longer snore, my wife is finally getting some rest too.