So when I mentioned the sleep apnea thing back at the start of April, a whole bunch of folks were like “Get thee to a CPAP Machine.” To which I nodded sagely and said, well, yes, that’s on the list, we’re just waiting to see how bad things really are.
Last week, I took twenty-four hours off work and did my first official sleep test to see how things were. I spent a couple of hours hooked up to electrodes and other stuff while I slept. It gathered data.
Turns out, things were pretty fucking bad. The diagnoses for chronic sleep apnea kicks in at around 30+ interruptions in sleep per hour. I was averaging 60-70 interruptions an hour, with a couple of periods where I’d stop breathing for up to a minute and a half at a time. When I start doing the math on that, my ongoing feeling of utter lethargy starts making all kinds of sense.
“We should probably get you on a CPAP trial, ASAP,” the nice lady from the sleep clinic said. Then we made an appointment Monday to start a one-month trial.
I’m not sure I remember what it feels like to be a fully-rested human being, but I’m hopeful I’ll get a reminder sometime in the next few weeks. Thanks, everyone, who weighted in with their advice and experiences.
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5 Responses
Peter,
It most definitely works. I like you was experiencing about 70 events an hour. I’ve been on CPAP for two months and now have between 3 to 10 interruptions. I definitely feel rested and the urge to drop off to sleep in the middle of the day has mostly gone.
Obviously, YMMV but I highly recommend it.
I also got used to the full face mask – I mouth breathe – very quickly. For me the trick was going to bed when I was genuinely sleepy. Now I barely notice. In fact the feeling of the mask on my face is reassuring.
Cheers. They ended up giving me one of the nose-plug masks and a full-face mask to take home for the trial, so I'll be seeing which works best for me. My suspicion is that it'll be the full mask, being a fellow mouth breather 🙂
I'm curious to see if the change will be as sudden and dramatic as has happened to some others I know with CPAP machines.
One night down, and I can see how a sudden response would happen. I slept with the machine on for about six hours and woke up feeling…well, tired, but a very different kind of tired to what I\’m used to.
The real litmus test will be whether I\’m still awake when I get home from work. Three o\’clock is usually the end of my productive working day, courtesy of daytime drowsiness.