Sigh..

[textualdeviance]

Well, it's official. I have sleep apnea. Doc says from my history, I've probably had it since I was little. Apparently, during the test, they count number of breath obstruction "incidents" and normal is less than 5, severe is more than 30, and mine was 24. Every time I went into REM sleep I stopped breathing, and I only once went into "deep" sleep-- stage 3-- and never got into stage 4. I guess that would kind of explain why I'm so damned tired all the time. My body's not getting any sleep and I'm oxygen-deprived. I go in again Sunday for a test with the cpap and we'll see if that works or not. I hope so. With all the health problems I have, it would be nice to know at least one of them is actually treatable.

Comments

[cherryheavy.livejournal.com]

I had a co-worker a while back who was head of marketing for the company I did email support for. She was a really exuberant person, and very communicative. She was excellent at client relations.

But she never came to work, she had a terrible memory and was constantly not 'well' enough to work, and left early all of the time.

We got really angry at her, because she was paid salery, and we felt that she didn't diserve the money she was acruing, because when she wasn't here, the customer support manager, my boss, was in charge of picking up her slack.

It turns out that she had sleep apnea and had absolutly no clue. Apparently they hooked her to a breathing machine at night, and with some bedtime comfort adjustment (stabalizing pillows, etc) she began to come into work every day, work the full day, and everything about her improved. She even lost a bit of weight because she had so much more energy.

I guess the whole point of this is, I wanted to tell you that she said that, while at first the breathing machines were strange to get used to, she got used to them easily, and they never bothered her. She said that the machine wasn't uncomfortable at all, and once she was asleep, it never woke her up.

So, don't lose heart! You may be in store for some really good, deep, healing sleep which will result in energy, wakefullness and better health.

[msallegro.livejournal.com]

It's hopeful, yes. I actually decided to get tested for this because my dad was diagnosed with it last summer, and our symptoms sounded similar so I figured I'd give it a go and sure enough, this is it. I've talked to a few people now about this and they all say it's been a really big difference to them. Crossing my fingers that this helps me.