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Wed 16 Aug, 2006 05:23 am
**Obstructive sleep apnea, sleep apnea or a combination of the two affects millions of Americans & the effects on the body can be quite severe. I receive treatment for my obstructive sleep apnea from a pulmonary medical group; who treat the disease from a pulmonary point of view. What happens when you stop breathing for a minute or so is that on & off all night long the concentration of oxygen in your bloodstream is very inadequate which could have very serious side effects to your body
physically and emotionally. So the patient spends the night just getting into a good sleep then being awakened by sleep apnea and lack of air.
**Even though I am treated for my OSA .... I continue to experience a
very poor quality of sleep. When I was first diagnosed with sleep apnea and returned to the sleep lab for the 2nd time when I was fitted with a mask and then spent the night at the sleep lab using a machine called a CPAP for "Continuous Positive Airway Pressure". This doesn't use oxygen, but it forces room air into your nasal airway with a certain amount of pressure (determined by the doctor for the pressure needed to keep your airway open all night long)
**At my best during my sleep lab experiences I have what is called a
25% sleep efficiency ratio. What this means is that I'm only getting
one-quarter of the amount of Stage 4 sleep required for a healthy adult
to remain a healthy adult. It seems that I spend most of my sleep time
in stages 1 thru 3. The unfortunate effect this has on my body is just constant, chronic sleep deprivation.
*If you take a dozen superbly healthy, strong athletes and deprive them of stage 4 sleep for one 1 week, you'll have 12 miserable people who ache
all over, are tired, yawning constantly, fall asleep sitting upright in a chair
become cranky and irritable and also generally somewhat depressed in addition to the actual physical pain they endure from the lack of the kind of restorative sleep in stage 4.
**My most recent sleep lab experience was about 9 months ago and
at that time the doctors had to increase the pressure to +20. This is the
very highest CPAP pressure that my machine can put out. But the worst of it all is that during my sleep study NOW, I slept for about 7 hours but I had absolutely NO STAGE 3 NOR STAGE 4 SLEEP WHATSOEVER. I am so very miserable and my body hurts all over. I also have rheumatoid arthritis. It is hard to know what is causing which pain. I am wondering
if there is anyone else out here on A2K who also has obstructive sleep apnea problems AND/OR severe insomnia along with their sleep apnea.
I simply MUST find a way to help my body get some rest. I become so confused that I can't even think straight.
**Otherwise I've just posted this thread so that it is here for those A2K
members who don't know if they have sleep apnea. Believe me, your
bed partner will be able to tell you for sure if you need to be tested for
sleep apnea. Snoring and periods of silence followed by rapid loud intake of breath all at once are some telltale sounds. Believe me I drove my bed partner nearly insane before I made the appt. for a sleep study.
babs- I have sleep apnea, and use a C-Pap machine, which is on "8". When I have trouble sleeping, I take a Benadryl and a 5mg. Valium. Knocks me right out!
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