How Can I Help?

[Lee Lee]

It just seems like everywhere I go, work, grocery store, Doctor’s appointments…even my own family gatherings, I spot someone with untreated OSA!! What do I DO??? Oh, how I would love to save the world, but these people just won’t listen. I’ve tried everything…sweet, soft, loud, and authoritative. It falls on deaf ears. I’ve tried not to care. That didn’t work, either.
I had a medical test yesterday. The technician was an adorable 40 something year old lady, who couldn’t keep her eyes open and complained the whole time about how sleepy she was. I asked her if she had been told she snores, or holds her breath at night. “Oh, yes! My husband tells me that all the time!” she says. I say, “Have you had a sleep study to see if maybe you have sleep apnea? I do, and treatment has made a lot of difference for me.”
“Oh, no, she says, I’m not getting on that CPAP thing, no way!! I want to look sexy when I sleep!” (I’m thinking, well, I hope you’ll look sexy in your coffin.) I tried to explain some things, and she nodded her head, but I could tell she was in serious denial.
The UPS guy at my work…he has OSA for sure, he’s been told he has severe Apnea. He’s had a sleep study, but doesn’t want to get on “the machine.” He’s on the road all day, everyday, and feels like he’s going to fall asleep at the wheel all the time! I’ve tried EVERYTHING to help him, but it falls on deaf ears. He's going to kill himself, and someone else one of the days soon.
I could go on and on, but I won’t.
Anyone else have any success helping others? What am I doing wrong? I really want to help. I know I cannot save the world, but can I at least make a difference for someone! Aaaargh!!

[nobody]

I've been trying to get my mom to get another sleep study for a while now. She complains that her insurance wouldn't pay for a CPAP 15 years ago because the AHI wasn't bad enough according to them. Since then she has gone through menopause and has got fatter and sicker. She acts like OSA is not that big a deal and the CPAP is nonsense. She doesn't know how much worse it's got in the mean time. Her husband says she stops breathing many times at night and sometimes he prods her to wake her up because she's not breathing. Then he turns around and says he doesn't want a noisy CPAP in the bedroom Gee, really shows how much he loves her that the noise of a machine is a bigger priority than his wife BREATHING! What a jerk! Sorry this really doesn't help you. I don't know how to get our family and friends to take sleep apnea seriously. It's frustrating.

[Debjax]

I know. I have also taken "the call' to educate folks....and I have actually had some success. I do software training for the company I work for, and the subject of OSA somehow happens to come up during breaks in class. In the last couple of months, at least two of my clients have said they would be asking their doctor to send them for a study, another is having his 8 year old daughter sent for one.

I have some success, others blow me off. Those around me can see the difference, so they pay a bit more attention. When I tell them the affects it has on the body, some have stared at me in shock saying 'REALLY!', and I can see the wheels turning in their head as they assess their current medical states. But, you are right, many do not want the CPAP for any reason, and I find women more sensitive about it than men....

[roster]

I know. I have also taken "the call' to educate folks....and I have actually had some success. I do software training for the company I work for, and the subject of OSA somehow happens to come up during breaks in class. In the last couple of months, at least two of my clients have said they would be asking their doctor to send them for a study, another is having his 8 year old daughter sent for one.

I have some success, others blow me off. Those around me can see the difference, so they pay a bit more attention. When I tell them the affects it has on the body, some have stared at me in shock saying 'REALLY!', and I can see the wheels turning in their head as they assess their current medical states. But, you are right, many do not want the CPAP for any reason, and I find women more sensitive about it than men....

Sorry to say it, but the other avatar was cuter.

[roster]

.......
Anyone else have any success helping others? What am I doing wrong? I really want to help. I know I cannot save the world, but can I at least make a difference for someone! Aaaargh!!

Good question, I hope some of the creative types can give us a "sure-fire recipe".

I am currently working on my wife, sister-in-law, and nephew.

As you might guess, if you have read any of my threads, my approach is usually with a "nuke". This backfires with in-laws and wives.

[Hawthorne]

Lee Lee - I sometimes feel the same as you do. But remember, you may have "planted the seed". Sometime down the road, hopefully sooner than later, some of these people will say - I remember that woman saying something about sleep apnea and what it's about. They, hopefully, will go on to say - Hey, I am not doing well. I should get this checked out.

You've done what you could! Keep it up! Good for you! Remember, you can only do so much. The rest is up to them. They, or their doctor, has to take it from there.

[JimW]

Don't know for sure how to really move people on this. My wife has had a machine for (likely) a year now, with less than 10 total hours on it.

Don't suppose that the prospect of dementia would move anybody? I work as an occupational therapist in a local nursing home, and have run across multiple individuals who've had dementia who have been unable to tolerate CPAP. Also remember one person who had a machine but didn't use it every night; the difference in word-finding difficulty was evident to that person and those with whom they conversed in just one night off the machine.

[GumbyCT]

Denial is a major obstacle to treatment or even testing. Many oldtimers just feel they have lived this long with it - why bother now. Many others I think the processing power is diminished.

Not that it's any more effective but I always ask them "just how long can YOU hold your breath"?

CM brought this up in a recent post here -
viewtopic/t38249/Attn-Newbies-your-brai ... fried.html

[Kiralynx]

I ran across a comment almost six years ago -- I don't remember where I saw it, but it stayed with me.

"We can't save the world, but I think that by our small actions, we do something. A small stone taken out of the way might be enough to prevent someone from falling, and by that perhaps he or she decides to do the same and take other stones..."

An acquaintance of mine sent me here when I was looking for info to help my brother-in-law. Ironically, a few weeks later, I was diagnosed with apnea, myself... and came back.

I have printed out and passed on flyers for this Forum -- at an Awake meeting, at the fitness center where I do my water therapy, to friends, to my parents (my mom has apnea, but won't admit it. With high blood pressure, high cholesterol, congestive heart failure, and she wakes up gasping in the night... but a mask and all those tests would just be too awful!)...

So far, I haven't, that I know of, gotten a single person to go for a sleep study. But maybe, maybe, I'm planting the seeds.

I do the same with my special diet for digestive disorders... I talk about it if the subject happens to come up. (Like a new server at a restaurant we like to go to asked why we ordered the way we did, and I explained about the diet.) I know I've helped a bunch of people with the diet.

I hope I'll be able to do the same about the apnea.

With the diet, we say, two steps forward, and one step back, three steps forward, and two steps back... and it seems as if nothing good will ever come of it. And then one day, you realize that even though you feel as if you spent a lot more time going backwards and having a wretched time of it, you've actually been moving forward. A few inches at a time. But those inches add up.

Persevere... and let your own example of health, alertness, and joy be a great example for others.

[Gale Hawkins]

I think more would be interested if they did not have to appear on a Reality TV show to get an RX but that is covered in the RX thread.

[roster]

I think more would be interested if they did not have to appear on a Reality TV show to get an RX but that is covered in the RX thread.

Good one Gale!

[carbonman]

What am I doing wrong? I really want to help. I know I cannot save the world, but can I at least make a difference for someone! Aaaargh!!

LeeLee, I'll just bet you're a scrapper.....
you need to dig down and summon all that energy,

then, get a mask w/headgear and a machine,
then, gently, but swiftly,
grap that adorable 40 something year old technician,
get her in a head lock,
and wrestle her to the floor,
put that mask on her and
fire that machine up and titrate her, right on the spot.

.........or maybe not.

That's what I want to do to the people I come across that don't get it.
I have three people that I work that don't get it.
One refuses to use her system at all.
One tries, but just won't try new things to make it work.
One, all I could do was send him the link to cpaptalk and hope that he looks in.
He has never said anything to me since I gave it to him.

You're a good person. It hurts when you care.
You make a difference.
You're not doing anything wrong.

Do what you can. Enjoy the little victories.
Know that you did everything that you could for the others.

Thanks! for sharing.

[Victoria]

OK, I'll admit- I avoided discussing my snoring with the doctor for the last eight years b/c I didn't want to deal with cpap. I thought it looked dumb. I still think it looks (and feels) weird. But not weird in a bad way. Lets face it, it's not very 'cool' (unless you don't have a heated humidifier, LOL) or glamorous, and its embarrassing to admit you snore, if you're a girl. However, I finally got tired of being exhausted ALL THE TIME. So.....at this point, I'm just telling my friends, ( there are a couple who knew I went for a sleep study, and yes, they teased me about it) "yeah, it looks goofy and feels goofy, but hey, at least I'm not falling asleep all the time." So there. I also have to admit that I was really embarrassed the first couple of nights to wear the darn thing, b/c....well....apparently I'm more vain than I thought. But I *think* I'm getting over it (slowly).

[Wulfman]

Actually, out here, there seems to be a LOT of people who are becoming hoseheads. I keep finding out more and more people where I work have gotten machines within the last year or so.....and from what I'm hearing, some got data-capable machines from one of the local DMEs (M Series Pro).
Other people that my wife knows are getting them, too.
For a couple of years, the hospitals and sleep clinics around here have been doing lots of advertising about sleep apnea and urging people to get tested.....along with describing the symptoms and serious effects of it. It seems to be working.

Den

[boston]

I had been told for years I had sleep apnea, never really knew what it was except I stopped breathing in my sleep. I didn't know all the side effects, etc. that come with it. Looking back, I should have been treated at 14, not 34. Everyone always said, you snore too much and too loud, I just figured they wanted me to stop snoring. Finally last year at a family reunion, I was sleepy all weekend and fell asleep constantly. A aunt I rarely see came over and told me she was very concerned about me, we talked and I told her dent worry, the last week I had been getting up early and going to bed late, everything was fine. Well, I also knew I had been falling asleep driving home from work (15 miles one way, figured at the time I was working harder than normal). Suddenly (months later) it all started coming together and I knew I had a problem I needed help with. I was going to bed 2 hours earlier than normal (to get 8-10 hrs) and was more tired than ever. So I slowly figured out it wasn't my lack of sleep, it was the quality. In fact, now I average about 6.5 - 7 hours sleep (i just cant sleep more than that most of the time) and feel better than I have in years.
That aunt lives several states away and I let her know I had done a sleep study and had OSA and was getting treated, AND I thanked her for getting the gears turning. Realizing someone that only sees me 5 days a year on average noticed something really helped me realize there was a problem. Shes getting a giant hug next time I see her.

So by all means keep talking to people, they may not hear you today, but they may very well hear you tomorrow.