How did you start therapy

[reallyneedsleep]

Trying to get an idea of some of the ways folks got into cpap therapy. I understand we have a few folks who took action on her own. Love to see the stats.

[snuginarug]

My pcp wrote the actual referral because that's the way my insurance works. It was my psychiatrist who strongly approved of the idea. Well, really, I had been meaning to get something done for a long time, but my psychiatrist is the one who gave me the push. We'd been working away at my intractable insomnia for years. No wonder we never got anywhere! So hats off to my very smart psychiatrist!

[topdragster]

I started my therapy one day at a time. Let it become an addiction,its a great high.

[tony72]

my mother secretly asked my pcp w/o my input to get me a sleep study..my mom has SA so does my youngest brother and myself so it runs in our family.

[elena88]

I narked on my husband to his cardiologist about his snoring and breathing, and daytime sleepiness, and he narked on me back about being a raging insomniac. Somehow, Im the one that ended up in a sleep study, cardiologist sent me to pulmonolgist..

[ZQuest]

The discussion came up with my doctor during my yearly physical..Snoring,tired,night sweats,lack of energy .sounds familiar?
Hmmm did the sleep studies and diagnosed with severed SA, now here i am six month's later with the nose to the hose
and starting to feel darn good about it.


Phil

[howkim]

When I was coming out of the anesthesia after having my gallbladder taken out, someone kept saying "Breathe! Breathe!" to me. If I didn't breathe deeply enough, some alarm went off. Afterwards, a nurse asked me if I had sleep apmea. I hadn't been diagnosed at the time, so I made an appointment with a sleep specialist (I could do that on my own with my insurance) and the rest is history.

[cflame1]

I asked my doc about getting one... so she referred me to my first one.

I asked her because my dad had been tested and diagnosed with it.

[Komodo]

It started off with an emergency trip to the Cardiac ICU.

After a battery of testing, the Cardioligist wanted to open my chest and take a peek. Because I have COPD, he had me go to my Pulmonoligist to clear me for the surgery first.

My regular doc was on vacation and I had to see a different doc in the practice. Never saw this guy before, but AS SOON AS I walked into his office, the very first words out of his mouth were: "Do you snore?" I replied yes, and then he said :"You have Sleep Apnea!" Not knowing much about OSA at the time, my reply to him was something like: "So what?" He went on to explain the life theatening effects of untreated OSA to me, including the swelling of my heart!

I went for my first sleep study the next night.

[brazospearl]

I chose option 1, went to doc & was sent for a sleep study. This is a bit misleading, as the sleep study was my idea, not his. Option 2, about demanding a sleep study, has quite a different tone that doesn't reflect the relatively good relationship I have with my doc. While it stuns me that he had never put the pieces together to arrive at the conclusion that untreated sleep apnea could be behind my ever-growing list of diagnoses for different conditions, he was perfectly agreeable to sending me to find out. I didn't have to demand a study, I just explained why I thought it might be worthwhile and he agreed. After the study he wrote the script exactly as I needed it, and is happy for me to accept responsibility for managing my therapy.

[dreamchaser]

I went for a Colonoscopy and an Endoscopy at our local hospital and during the procedure I had significant desaturations even with a nasal Cpap device on.
I was refered to a sleep doctor that very day. Within a month I had all my equipment and I started on the road to better health.
I wish I had known about this forum before I got all my stuff.
Janet

[kteague]

When I was coming out of the anesthesia after having my gallbladder taken out, someone kept saying "Breathe! Breathe!" to me. If I didn't breathe deeply enough, some alarm went off. Afterwards, a nurse asked me if I had sleep apmea. I hadn't been diagnosed at the time, so I made an appointment with a sleep specialist (I could do that on my own with my insurance) and the rest is history.

Sure wish my OSA would have been diagnosed when I spent an extended time in recovery after minor surgery because my oxygen kept dropping. That had to be at least 15-20 years ago. Even then, seems it should have been a red flag. I was clueless. Probably had never even heard of sleep apnea.

[Emilia]

I went to see a cardiologist to discuss the fatigue, palpitations, and dizziness I was experiencing. I figured a stress test was in order, and so did he. He also ordered an overnight pulse-oximetry test. The stress-echo came back fine, but when the pulse-ox test results came in, I had been losing oxygen all night with much of it spent in the 80% range. He referred me to my wonderful new pulmonologist/sleep doc..... and the rest is history! BTW: two weeks into my therapy and after the first night my dizziness was gone.....as of yesterday my energy is returning, and I have so many LESS aches and pains it isn't funny! Woohoooo!!

[Jaylee]

I was seeing a neurologist for something else and he asked questions about my sleep.

[jazzer4]

I did take action on my own.

I had been seeing my Dr. because of sleep issues for about 2 years. (Although I'm sure I've had this for 20 some years)
He never asked me any questions about my sleep, just wrote percriptions for sleeping pill.
Can you believe he even told me to drink wine and take sleeping pills before going to bed.

Finally I got so bad my brain would not let me go to sleep.
It kept me awake all night singing songs. (I did find out my brain remembers all the words to most of the Beatles songs. I never liked the Beatles so it was very annoying) I really only slept about one hour a night for 4 nights laying on the floor on my stomach. I was so distraught and sick by then. Taking a sleeping pill and only getting one hour of sleep on it is horrible. I just didn't know what else to do to make me go to sleep. Four day of Ambian hangovers. Finally I found the sleep clinic and my husband literally carried me in the door.

And believe it or not this sleep clinic was part of the Saddler Clinic I go to, but my Dr. never mentioned it to me. I found it on my own by look at their brochure.
Needless to say, I no longer go to that ..... write the percription...drink lots of wine doctor.