Back during the darkest dark days of my very prolonged and very difficult adjustment to therapy, Jim, a good friend who is also a doctor, and my husband were talking about my very significant health problems that started grow out of control once I started CPAP therapy. Jim told my hubby that a big part of my problem was that "Most doctors are like mechanics. They want to fix the one body part or disease they specialize in treating and they want to treat the problem in the standard way to fix it without doing any real thinking about how that treatment affects anything other than the thing they specialize in. And right now Robin has a bunch of different mechanics. But Robin needs a 'gardener'. Gardeners look at the whole garden and focus on how to make the whole garden better and not just one part of the garden; gardeners realize that a change here or there affects the whole garden and not just the immediate thing you're working on. Robin needs a doctor who needs to look at her as a whole human being rather than a condition to be treated. And she needs a doc who realizes that all of her problems and treatments are interconnected. She needs a doc or PA who understands that what ever you do for the OSA and CPAP adjustment affects the insomnia; whatever you do for the insomnia affects the OSA and CPAP adjustment and the headaches; and the headaches; and whatever you do for the headaches affects the insomnia and the OSA and CPAP adjustment. But docs who are gardeners instead of mechanics are pretty hard to find."It take your point that matters could be better and should be. I'm sure that many specialists would love to see such improvements. I don't for one moment believe that most are indifferent etc.
It took a long time to find my "gardner", but finding my the gardner(s) is what finally got me back into the world of the living rather than the half dead.[/quote]
Jim nailed the situation big time. A sleep doctor/neuropsychiatrist out of my area that I would love to see even though he doesn't deal with apnea has taken a broad based view. Depending on the patient, he will prescribe meds, suggest supplements and even particular foods for sleep issues. But sadly, doctors like him are quite rare.
49er