redback wrote:Hello everyone,
I have recently been diagnosed with sleep apnea. I did a home sleep study and the results were conclusive - moderate obstructive sleep apnea.
cpaptalk is an amazing website.
Don't know what a home sleep study is but hoping it is the same as one done in a clinic where they have ALL the gear to track your bodily functions, like blood pressure and blood oxygen saturation, etc. I do not believe that one can call ANY form of OSA as being moderate. It is life threatening and life altering regardless. I suppose those with centrals would disagree but any form of sleep apnea demands immediate medical intervention and personal devotion. And yes, you are among friends, many of whom are far more experienced than I.
I have spent many hours reading posts. Not only is the information utterly invaluable, the stories are truly inspirational.
I moved to Qatar in the middle east in august 2009. I have never had a health problem in my life. Always sailed through medicals and I considered myself a fit person.
My full medical on arrival in Qatar was absolutely fine. I have been a weightlifter for 30 years and I got a "wow" from the person doing the lung capacity test. Everything normal.
I then started to visit our medical centre for various minor ailments and each time my blood pressure was rising to the point where I was prescribed medication. The doctors looked on the high blood pressure as an illness not a symptom so were quite happy to dispense chemicals to make it go away. This is complicated by the fact that I have big muscular arms and the cuff used to measure my blood pressure was too small and thus gave ridiculous readings. My record reading was 234/110 and I was sent to hospital where an hour later my blood pressure was 130/85 using the correct size cuff. This blurred the issue a bit but my blood pressure was definitely rising.
High blood pressure is a byproduct of sleep apnea or defunct lung capacity and is THE SILENT KILLER. And make no mistake whatsoever, it will kill you dead in your sleep and your partner in bed right beside you will say "he died peacefully in his sleep". It is a wonderful way to go if you are ready. You will suffer a massive stroke, a massive heart attack or pop an aneurism and bingo... gone. I sat in front of the two top respirologists in the country here and was told that in no uncertain terms. Sleep apnea and diminished air intake while asleep kills you dead, reduces quality of life and reduces life expetency significantly. Not a theory but a fact.
I have an identical twin brother who was diagnosed with OSA 7 years ago. I mentioned my issues to him and he said he had the same symptoms before he was prescribed a cpap which changed his life. I mentioned this to my doctor who scoffed but referred me to the sleep clinic in Qatar who gave me a home study kit who 3 months later, after me practically screaming down the phone at them, let me have the report which shows I have OSA.
If you are in Qatar, they have some of the finest doctors, hospitals and clinics in the world as they can afford them. You need a real live sleep clinic style opinion. Then you need to get yourself a data recordning APAP machine like the ResMed S8 Auto II or Resmed S9 Auto and watch what is going on. You also need desperately to ensure you are recording your pulse rate and blood oxygen level through the night and there are mail order fingertip devices available online for $120 from the USA or from China that will do so. If your blood oxygen saturation is falling below 90% at night you are in serious trouble as your blood pressure at the same time is likely skyrocketing which is going to kill you dead asides from ruining the quality of your sleep. (Do you dream? That would indicate you are reaching REM sleep which means you are passing through Stage 4 sleep where your body and brain regenerates itself. And it's a good indicator. No dreams means you are unlikely to be getting a good sleep but it is not the ultimate guarantee. An EEG and sleep study will help to reveal that and your own recording of data and following it will also be a big help. You MUST do this if you want the zenith of treatment and you must find an MD that is willing and prepared without any hassle or discontent to take your data and view it. Not just lip service. I am blessed here. Truly blessed. Am about to go through a whole batter of testing again and one of them will be two or three sleep studies because a single sleep study does not necessarily reveal everything that needs to be revealed and may not offer sufficient time to titrate the pressure being blown into you to assist. More pressure is not necessarily better and if you have reached a respirologist that pushes that in any way you need to be thinking about change. And when I say respirologist I am not speaking of a technician but rather a highly trained MD specialist. The technicians are no dummies to be sure are are apt to be more honest and straightforward with you but you really do need a good MD on your team.
Recently I have experienced nights where I cant fall asleep. I feel myself dozing off but I feel myself coughing, catching my breath and then waking up. This has happened three times and I am a wasted wreck the next day. Twice I have experienced waking up with pounding heart out of breath. This is really scary. Now every time I have my blood pressure taken I have a high pulserate and heart rate.
I would be willing to bet my last dollar that if you do not have OSA then you have what I have and that is a combination of OSA and diminished lung capacity and diaghram strength that impairs my ability to take in air when I am sleeping ( spent almost a month with machines breathing for me last summer and this is the result) - the fact that your are a body builder has little bearing on this unless you are doing cardio galore... my rehab includes body building with weights but the biggie is my cariopulmonary rehab that is rebuilding my lung capacity I hope. Waking up in a sweat, gasping for air, heart pounding, or anything like this is a definite indication of low blood oxygen saturation and high blood pressure and I would bet my last dollar on that. It was exactly my symptoms when I came home from hospital. With APAP blowing air I no longer have any of that at all and I regularly take the data from my APAP machine and feed it into my computer to follow it along with data from my fingertip blood oxygen saturation meter. In fact, my SO2 meter is set to alarm should my SO2 fall to 89% to wake me up and tell me that something is terribly wrong and I am in danger. If that happens I take my own blood pressure using an Accutor 4 BP meter (auto) and invariably find my BP to be up. In fact, there were some nights after I took sick that even with O2 blowing (pure O2 at max) that my BP was so high they had to inject me with BP meds to get the BP down rapidly for fear of a massive stroke or heart attack. Now it is pretty much fine. I no longer have any of the symptoms you mention thank goodness. I repeat myself for clarity... the symptoms that you are describing are symptoms that may lead to your demise. DEAD. Peacefully in your sleep they will say. We know better now and I have confirmed with two of the top respirologists in the country; one of whom is a professor of same at the local university medical school. PLEEEEZ take care of it immediately. Your life is in danger.
Now to my questions.
I had no symptoms before coming to Qatar. I have a thorough medical every year. Has anyone ever heard of OSA developing so quickly? In 10 months I have gone from no symptoms to HBP medication and tachycardia.
Mine came on in a blink due to other factors; I can't honestly say that I have heard of it coming on like that but then again you are in a country where there are bacteria and bugs that your body is not used to. There is malaria. Whatever. The fact that you exhibit symptoms is the important thing here and needs attention TODAY. Not tomorrow,not next week, but TODAY. You are exhibiting the symptoms that KILL YOU DEAD in a blink.
I have noticed that any form of upper respiratory issue means I am exhausted. The slightest cold or sore throat results in a marked deterioration in sleep quality. I have also noticed that swimming causes me to have bad sleep. I suspect the chlorine is drying out my throat. One of my episodes where I got no sleep was after a long swim. Has anyone experienced this?
I have a full sleep study scheduled in 2 weeks. This includes a cpap titration. The problem I have is that it will be at least three months before I see the results of that test and then at least another three months before I receive any treatment. Things go slow here in Qatar. However, I may not wait for treatment here. I may opt to go to Dubai where I can have a sleep study and treatment in a week. This involves time off work which my employer is not too happy with but I may simply have to do it as my symptoms seem to be getting worse.
NOT ACCEPTABLE. PERIOD. NOT, I REPEAT FOR EFFECT, NOT ACCEPTABLE. If you need to travel for immediate attention then you need to do it. You need multiple sleep studies and you need results immediately. A wait of more than a week is totally unacceptable. Totally. You need a sleep study without CPAP, then you will need at least one or more sleep studies AFTER you have settled in with your CPAP machine and get used to your new sleep environment and mask (OH... the mask). Please do not wait. Your life depends on it and I have lost friends in past years who died peacefully in their sleep who were probably OSA. Problem is that at autopsy they are not going to see high blood pressure or reduced blood oxygen or such. They are going to see a massive stroke or heart attack and besides, if they are busy, they are going to put down 'natural causes' of whatever type comes to mind to keep the ball rolling. This is why OSA is such an elusive killer. Just the fact that you will feel better than you have been feeling should be sufficient cause to press for immediate action and your employer, having sent you to Qatar, must surely be providing you with AAA five star health care package in your pocket. Use it. You may need to fight for it as the insurance companies are reluctant to pay for anything they can get away with not paying for. From experience.
This is a long post and I appreciate anybody taking time to read it or answer it. This forum has revealed to me that I am not alone and that counts for a lot.
Realize that here you are amongst friends. You are on the #1 board as far as I am concerned and you are very fortunate to have found us, as I was when my problem arose. The level of expertise on this board is amazing as is the amount of experience. Take it all with a grain of salt, of course, as most are not MD's, but take it! It is from folks that have been down your path one way or another. Sounds to me like you have other factors at play here and when you see your respirologist(s) you need to be totally honest with them about your past health issues and any drugs or medications that you have been or are presently taking, even if they forget to ask. You need to have in your hand a list of drugs that you are presently and have ever taken as well as a list of conditions (like chlorine exposure) that exacerbate the problem. The more information you can provide in point form the faster and better treatment you are going to receive. In closing I would just once again urge you to take hold of your own health, be your own advocate and if you have a partner, make that partner fully aware of EVERYTHING and if appropriate give them full power of attorney if you are incapacitated. I can tell you that if I had not given same to my wife I would not be here today.... it was she who gave the MD's authority to do things like feed me front line drugs, intubate me when needed, suction out my lungs knowing the damage it might cause even unto death itself; and so on. Gotta do it and it is not going to be an easy job should you ever have to call in that favour. But it is necessary. Before scaring you to death myself, understand that what you are experiencing many of us have gone through already and I am relating experiece to you.... we are here to tell the tale (myself even though being code blue twice... once while going down the front stairs of my home into the awaiting ambulance and thank God for perimedics). GOOD LUCK TO YOU. BUT UNLESS YOU INITIATE THE ACTION AND ARE A PAIN IN THE ASS IF NECESSARY IT JUST AIN"T GONNA HAPPEN AS THEY SAY. Go to it. You will feel better and more comfortable with your health as you progress. We are here to answer your questions always.
