Clueless Family with Apnea--RANT!

[socknitster]

Last night my uncle, a man in his late 50's or early 60's with a lot of health problems called me to ask me about making something out of wood for my son for Christmas. He was forced into early retirement, likely partially due to health issues and is filling free time in his woodshop.

After chit chat, I steered the conversation to apnea. I understood he had been diagnosed with it some time back, was he using cpap now?

No, no couldn't tolerate it. Got the surgery instead. Anyway, it is his osteoporosis causing the apnea anyway, so nothing can be done about it. The surgery was for a deviated septum. Now he is fine, though he admits he sleeps better on his side or in a recliner.


WHAT????????!!!!!!!!!!

Boy has the healthcare system failed this poor man. What a crock of shit.

You don't cure apnea by fixing a deviated septum. His "intolerance" of cpap was AT THE SLEEP STUDY. He never tried it again because it "made him claustrophobic" --which means he never got a chance to try another mask, nothing.

Now, normally I would have tried to do some education here. But this is the MOST STUBBORN MAN ON THE PLANET. Add that to the whole "respect your elders" thing that was drummed into me--meaning you DO NOT under any circumstances contradict an elder (hard to shake that, I'll tell you!). I hung up the phone feeling miserable. I can't stand the thought that a machine that would blow air up his nose could make him feel so much better.

Now, his father, my grandfather I am CERTAIN also had apnea. I used to take naps with him when I was less than 5 and once I was diagnosed myself the lightbulb went on for me. He wasn't just snoring, it was apnea too. Now he was the former title holder of the "Stubbornest Man in America" and it was passed down when he died due to complications of hi bp, diabetes, heart problems, and cancer.

And my MOM does the same damn thing (same family, of course!) and has been in denial since I was diagnosed. She has high bp, diabetes, heart problems and is very overweight. She blames it on MY DAD--supposedly that is where I got it from. When I point out that Dad doesn't have any of the co-commitant diseases, she gets ANGRY with me.

She recently finally landed a job it a hospital and will soon have excellent health benefits. You better believe I already told her that talking to her doctor about a sleep study should be the first thing she does.

AAAAAAAAAAAARRRRRRRRGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHH!

Why does my family have to be so stubborn and clueless.

Thank God I grew up trying to be the opposite of everything I saw around me.

Forgive the rant, doesn't anyone else have family like this?

Jen

[Tasmania]

I would have nominated my dad for the world's stubbornest man award but with regard to CPAP and apnea he actually bucks his usual pattern. True... he went through a lot of trial and error with masks before he found something he could live with... but... hey... don't we all?

On the other hand... his brother... who is cut from the same damn cloth but with diametrically opposed socio-political views and a major "big brother treats me like an idiot child" chip on his shoulder (makes for wonderful holiday dinner "debates")... well... Uncle Steve takes the award with regard to apnea. He's a big guy. In all dimensions. He was diagnosed with diabetes a couple year back. There's a MAJOR family history of heart disease (just about every man and a few of the women for the last few generations has either died of heart disease or experienced at least one major health crisis due to heart disease) He has big time high blood pressure problems and lord knows what else. So of course he was also diagnosed with sleep apnea about a year ago... surprise... surprise... surprise....

But will he use CPAP... HECK NO!!! He won't even TRY to find a more comfortable mask or an auto adjusting machine. He just flat out refuses to have anything to do with it. Heavy sigh...

[JeffH]

Add me to the list. Apnea helped kill my old man, and he had the stubborn gene too.

My family is so nuts I purposely didn't have kids because I knew the gene pool needed to come to an end.

[Wulfman...]

Jen,

I can tell you that you're not alone in that experience. I've seen it many, many times in the posts on here and from knowledge of conversations with others.
"I ain't gonna be hooked up to no damn machine!" is about the gist of it.
Sadly, the healthcare system (actually a misnomer....should be "SICKcare") has failed far too many people.....somewhat because of the $$$ involved the quality of physicians that people have experienced and then there's some of us that are in denial or too "macho" to let a little breathing problem get the better of us.


Den

[Snoredog]

LOL you know what they say, you can pick your friends but you can't pick your relatives

I know my dad had OSA, he died of a sudden heart attack in my arms out in the front yard of our home 3 days before my 16th birthday, he was 51. He had just gotten up from a afternoon nap about 30 minutes earlier. He snored like a train. My mother who's still alive and now 90 said he used to stop breathing during sleep all the time, she would poke him to get him breathing again.

I have 4 older brothers, I know they have it also. I don't say anything to them any more.

[split_city]

Talking about family members and OSA, here's an interesting paper by Richard Schwab. The paper looks at upper airway structures within families. Sorry if it has been posted before!

Oh and it feels strange to be posting during the day (there) while it's night (3.30AM) here. Good old sleep studies

http://ajrccm.atsjournals.org/cgi/reprint/173/4/453

RATIONALE: Sleep apnea is believed to be a genetic disorder. Thus, we hypothesized that anatomic risk factors for sleep apnea would demonstrate family aggregation. OBJECTIVES: We used volumetric magnetic resonance imaging in a sib pair "quad" design to study the family aggregation of the size of upper airway soft tissue structures that are associated with increased risk for obstructive sleep apnea. METHODS: We examined 55 sleep apnea probands (apnea-hypopnea index [AHI]: 43.2 +/- 26.3 events/h), 55 proband siblings (AHI: 11.8 +/- 16.6 events/h), 55 control subjects (AHI: 2.1 +/- 1.7 events/h), and 55 control siblings (AHI: 4.2 +/- 4.0 events/h). The study design used exact matching on ethnicity and sex, frequency matching on age, and statistical control for visceral neck fat and craniofacial dimensions. MEASUREMENTS AND MAIN RESULTS: The data support our a priori hypothesis that the volume of the important upper airway soft tissue structures is heritable. The volume of the lateral pharyngeal walls (h(2) = 36.8%; p = 0.001), tongue (h(2) = 36.5%; p = 0.0001), and total soft tissue (h(2) = 37.5%; p = 0.0001) demonstrated significant levels of heritability after adjusting for sex, ethnicity, age, visceral neck fat, and craniofacial dimensions. In addition, our data indicate that heritability of the upper airway soft tissue structures is found in normal subjects and patients with apnea. Thus, it is not simply a consequence of the prevalence of apnea. CONCLUSIONS: This is the first time family aggregation of size of the upper airway soft tissue structures has been demonstrated.

[odawa]

my mom is the same. She snores and grunts makes all of these noises, when she can get to sleep. I told her she should get tested and she says I know. I prob have it, I just dont want to be bothered with the machine and masks. I couldnt live like that. I told her how not getting treated will shorten her life.
She says Yes I know. I have alot of things wrong with me, something is going to kill me.
wow I told her, I'm sure not getting medical attention would be a form of suicide.

[Snoredog]

my mom is the same. She snores and grunts makes all of these noises, when she can get to sleep. I told her she should get tested and she says I know. I prob have it, I just dont want to be bothered with the machine and masks. I couldnt live like that. I told her how not getting treated will shorten her life.
She says Yes I know. I have alot of things wrong with me, something is going to kill me.
wow I told her, I'm sure not getting medical attention would be a form of suicide.

actually she's right, seems the first 45 years you build up to that peak, then things start working against you with every thing trying to kill you off. Wouldn't surprise me if half these ailments have cures but if that was allowed we'd soon be in a over populated state.

[Tasmania]

Add me to the list. Apnea helped kill my old man, and he had the stubborn gene too.

My family is so nuts I purposely didn't have kids because I knew the gene pool needed to come to an end.

It seems my three half-brothers and I came to the same conclusion all on our own. Not one of us has had kids (I'm the youngest at 32) and when we finally started to talk to each other about why, it turned out none of us wanted to pass on the genetic crap shoot that runs down my dad's side of the family. True... they all tend to be brilliant folks... but that somehow gets offset a wee bit by the high incidence of bi-polar disorder, OCD, OSA, diabetes, heart disease, high blood pressure, obesity, and cancer. Oh and did I mention that all those things seem to run in a pack... get one ... you usually get them all sooner or later...

Oh well... there are plenty of cousins out there having kids... so the world won't be missing it's supply of paranoid obsessive terminally ill geniuses anytime soon.

[Gerald]

Jen.....The answer to your question is simple. Much of our culture does its best to make people "comfortable with contradictions"....they go through life with "nothing adding up".......and they're happy with that.

Some of us go through life using The Scientific Method.....everything has to add up......nothing can be contradictory.

Gerald

[Guest]

LOL you know what they say, you can pick your friends but you can't pick your relatives

...

I thought it was "You can pick your friends and you can pick your nose, but don't pick your friend's nose."

I guess both hold true..

[Guest]

interesting - the board shows me as logged in and visiting, but won't allow me to sign in and post as myself.

___H

[Wulfman...]

interesting - the board shows me as logged in and visiting, but won't allow me to sign in and post as myself.

___H

That's alright.....you still look the same either way.


Den

[KimberlyinMN]

Yep, I can relate. My mom's sister and brother have it. They both had surgery that seems to have worked. I have apnea and so does MY brother. I'm 99% positive that both of my parents have it but neither of them will have a sleep study done. You can't force them to have it done so.... other than telling them how much better I feel, there's not much else a person can do.

Kimberly

[Bert_Mathews]

socknitster;
Title holder of the "Stubbornest Man in America"

I was 100% sure my dad held that title and might of had an engraved plaque some place added he was hillbilly??? { when we had to put him in a nursing home -- He STOPPED eating & drinking // twenty long days before he passed?? }

I see myself doing and acting the same as he did ???? so my kids think I have been bullheaded for all 67years................
They are right most of the time If it wasn't for a grandson I might of given up on the CPAP I have many friends that just store the machine in a closet ????
I spend allot of time being a Evangelist It does work -BUT- being the "Stubbornest Man in America" Dose HELP.........

Bert