How far would you go leading a horse to water

My neighbor and good friend has severe apnea. A blind man could diagnose him. He put on weight suddenly, has a weak chin, is taking naps in the afternoons ("just so tired"), has trouble concentrating, snores so loud, his wife sleeps with a pillow over her head, has night sweats, gets up to pee frequently at night, says he doesn't dream, has nighttime heartburn, wakes up tired. .. but "has no trouble falling asleep"

Sheesh. I gave him a checklist of symptoms and he sheepishly and half jokingly asked if he had them all, does he win a prize? He thought his symptoms were Lymes disease. He even got treated for Lymes disease. But he still has all these symptoms.

I have shared my journey with him honestly and frankly. He knows that CPAP has rescued me from the Abyss. What do I do now? Obviously he is an adult and has to make these decisions himself, but he doesn't have marginal case. He needs to see a doctor.

Is it crazy to let him sleep on my auto APAP for a night? Just to get numbers? Anyone know what happens if you don't have apnea? Will it just sit at 6cm all night and record no events?

There's really nothing else you can do. People will hear what they want to hear and believe what they want to believe.

Good issue to put up. I am in the same boat with sister-in-law - she is an ultra-sound specialist & smokes & has the classic thick neck & snores like a freight train & is starting to get sleepy bouts in the daytime.

She jokes about having OSA & I have offered to lend her a machine - but I keep telling her to go for a check up to her doc as she needs to hear it from him & not me. She agrees but has not followed through. I just keep politely reminding her but that really is as far as I will go.

It is really up to the person concerned to take the action. Polite reminders is the best we can do when dealing with adult & 'mature' people.

DSM

elader wrote: What do I do now? ?

Know that you are one of the good guys.
You have shared yourself w/him.
You have pointed him to the path.

Now, you support him however you can,
continue to be his friend,
and let it go.

.....and, know that you are one of the good guys.

carbonman wrote:

elader wrote: What do I do now? ?

Know that you are one of the good guys.
You have shared yourself w/him.
You have pointed him to the path.

Now, you support him however you can,
continue to be his friend,
and let it go.

.....and, know that you are one of the good guys.

What he said.

I have led many horses to water in my day and it was much easier than getting a friend or relative to get a sleep study.
I have a 40+ brother in law with the same symptoms and he just will not listen.
Nocreek

I really do have horses and I ride them long distances. If ever they were to not be willing to drink and I knew they needed to drink (or they would suffer dehydration), if I had to do so, I would take them to a vet and have them on IVs...it could save their lives. Plus, if they had been feeling bad and not willing to drink, treating them with fluids might be what could turn them around and get them to wanting to drink and take care of themselves again.

But we don't get to do that with humans. You did what you can do (and he is lucky to have you for a friend) and now it is up to him.

mar

I've also wondered how to use a data-capable xPAP to determine if someone has apnea (and how bad).

For instance, I didn't sleep enough in my sleep study to get an AHI. But I know from my symptoms and from my recording pulse oximeter that my oxygen was desatting down into the low 80's whenever I was in REM.

I've been tempted to try my APAP at a range of 4-6, to see what "untreated" AHI the algorithm came up with, but I don't think I could fall asleep.

So I think my recording pulse oximeter is going to be my tool of choice for "leading my horses/friends/relatives to water".

1) It's a simple wrist strap and finger clip, so it shouldnt scare people off like a mask/xPAP.
2) If someone sees data that they are suffocating, I'm hoping that it will be easier to transition from "sleep problem I can ignore" to "breathing problem I can not ignore".

Like so many problems that people have, not only in the addictions area, the main barrier to getting help is denial.

It used to be that caring friends and family had to hope that some life event would cause enough pain for the person who was in denial that they would then seek help. Then, about the 1970's, the Johnson Institute in Minneapolis started to develop the techniques of family intervention. Which, in a nutshell, sought to bring about enough emotional pain to the denier to get them into recovery.

I think the Johnson Institute is no longer, but the techniques do work in most cases, if family and friends are prepared to put in the effort.

As the wonderful alcoholism counsellor Father Martin once said - you can lead a horse to water, maybe you cannot make them drink it, but you sure can make them smell it.

cheers

Mars

Elader.....

I'd say that the first thing you need to do....is figure out how much it's worth...to you....to help get your friend out of trouble. If he's "worth" two or three hundred bucks, I can tell you what will work.

Some months ago, I knew that my "honey" had the same problem as I do.....and I knew that she'd never go for a sleep test....or strap on a CPAP machine and mask. Her problem wasn't severe....so she wasn't going to take any action on her own.

I decided that her health and happiness was worth so much to me....that I elected to purchase an Oximeter....because, I knew I could get her to check her O2 levels for at least a couple of nights.

I spent about $500 on the Oximeter and its software....and she wore it for three weeks! Once she saw that her O2 levels were below where they should be, she wanted to gather as much data as possible...to make sure that what she was seeing.....was not a mistake. She convinced herself that she needed a CPAP machine.....and one appeared!

Now she wants me to read her card every morning....so that she can tweak her system for optimum performance.

If your friend is worth it, buy an Oximeter....let him use it......and if he's intellectually honest, he'll determine for himself what he needs. My Oximeter has helped four people determine if they have a problem or not. It's paid its way many times over.

After your friend's experiment is finished....and you get your Oximeter back, you will have spent a few hundred bucks helping to save his life.....and you'll still have the Oximeter....allowing yourself to be tested every month or so....just to cross-check your own CPAP machine....to make sure it's doing its job.

Gerald

It took me a long time to wake up and realize the truth.
I started falling asleep driving short distances, that scared me.
The one day I realized that my son (then 2 now 3 years old) could very well grow up without a dad if I didnt treat this NOW.
He is my world and I cant/wont let that happen.

I had been told for a long time I needed a sleep study, I think everyone needs to come around on their own.
I have a good friend at work, same symptoms as me, but he doesnt want to spend the money, even has the same insurance as I do and I told him what it cost me.
He even comments on the difference in me, and asks how things are going, I use the chances to prod him along, but Im not being overbearing about it anymore.

elader wrote:snores so loud, his wife sleeps with a pillow over her head

Perhaps you, or your wife, could talk to the guy's wife about it. If he's deep enough in denial, even his own wife (if she really understands the life-threatening gravity of the situation after you explained it to her) might not be able to convince him to get a sleep study. At least she would be in a better position to keep at him about it... if she would. Perhaps she could speak to his doctor about it.

Gerald's suggestion of a pulse oximeter test is a good one. Maybe the man's wife could ask the doctor if the doc would order an overnight recording pulse oximeter test for the guy to do at home one night. That might be the small step that would get the horse moving. Most DMEs would probably do that free for one night if a doctor ordered it.

The problem with offering to let him try your machine, to get data, is that unless the recipient is already fully convinced that they have "OSA", understand it, and desperately WANT to use "cpap", that kind of help could backfire badly. I don't mean it would be dangerous. I mean -- if he does it just to humor you, and is only half-hearted about it, one experience of trying to sleep with a mask on could make him say, "This is crazy...no one can sleep like this...and toss the mask aside." We all know how sleep disrupting the first nights of trying to use CPAP can be.

It would REALLY be an uphill battle to get him to ever go for a sleep study after that. Besides the denial bit, he'd also now think there'd be no use in ever going for a sleep study since he already "knows" that he wouldn't be able to sleep using CPAP anyway.

Unless the person himself/herself was already quite sure their problem was OSA and was determined to get themselves onto "CPAP", I think it's better to have a doctor spelling out "this is how much your O2 dropped during sleep, and this is how many times per hour your airway closed... etc." That can have more impact on the doubters. If they ever go in for the study in the first place, that is. Many won't.

The General Manager at work went for the sleep study, had over 60 apneas/hour, was given a data capable machine with a smart card, but has not used it since day one. He is a drooler and claims the ffm will not work. I have printed articles for him to read, talked to him, others have talked to him, but he will not try to work out his problems. I love the idea of the recording pulse oximeter. Could a few members that have them provide a list of the good and the bad. They are too expensive to make a mistake.

TSSleepy wrote:...So I think my recording pulse oximeter is going to be my tool of choice for "leading my horses/friends/relatives to water".

1) It's a simple wrist strap and finger clip, so it shouldnt scare people off like a mask/xPAP.
2) If someone sees data that they are suffocating, I'm hoping that it will be easier to transition from "sleep problem I can ignore" to "breathing problem I can not ignore".

TSS nailed what I had in mind to say. In my own experience, it was the initial oximeter experience arranged by my PCP to try to begin to diagnose my severe symptoms, that totally rocked my world. I think that if he had just sent me off to a sleep study (PSG) before doing that little overnight oximeter reading at home, I might have procrastinated on following through with the results of that because it might have been daunting to me to consider the whole cpap thing after that experience. Maybe just because it would have been too much information for me to put together in the beginning, with my impaired coginitive abilities at that point.

But the drama of the oximeter results and the way my PCP treated those results in his follow-up discussion with me, created a motivation in me that completely over-rode any discomfort I might have perceived for the future with a cpap. Really. I was so stunned by those results and my PCP's communicated alarm, that it set the stage for me to do whatever it took to get this thing under some control. I'm not kidding that I totally welcomed that blast of air up my nose!

Elader, on a really superficial level of comparison, I'm also reminded of times when a friend fervently recommended that I read a certain book (or try something) "for my benefit"....But if I just wasn't in the place of agreeing with their repeated urging about this, it became increasingly uncomfortable and I might have either accepted the book and never read it, then had to make up excuses, or just avoided the person to some extent because of the discomfort. (Actually, I'm a pretty assertive person! ) But there are just certain situations where "you can lead a horse to water..."

Edited: Yeah, what RestedGal said! We were writing at the same time, I think.