Four days in (Veteran US Army)

Hello new friends,

I am a 32 year old combat Veteran.
I have self diagnosed myself with the sleep apnea.
I have kept the wife awake with my snoring for more than a few years and she reports that I stop breathing many times each night.
I have felt exhausted for several years now, which I chalked up to PTSD and Veterans generally just falling apart.
I got a hold of some used equipment.

The first 3 nights were pretty rough to fall asleep and stay asleep.
Last night, I finally got that booger dialed in right.
I slept 9 hours without losing the mask and only awoke a few times. Also, I am proud to report that my wife slept a whole night without waking up to my "sawing logs." She is 100% on board now.

Today I am feeling pretty normal, as compared to what I have felt like for the past several years.
I am looking forward to see some improvements.

I took this journey upon myself due to the disaster that call the affordable healthcare act, which caused my company to abandon insurance for all employees.
The VA is good, depending on who you talk to, for any type of disaster. Other than that, they lack in the daily health care of many Veterans.
I do have a sleep study scheduled with them, but the soonest they could get me in is in mid July.

I have been lurking on this board for a week or so and learned a great deal. I look forward to the support and knowledge that this group provides.

robert.clark27 wrote:I have felt exhausted for several years now, which I chalked up to PTSD and Veterans generally just falling apart.
I got a hold of some used equipment.

you're in the same boat as me, treatment wise.

fill in your profile with what kind of equipment and mask you have, hopefully you've got a data capable machine and can download sleepyhead, and even better fine tune your treatment.

congrats on your first (successful sounding) steps !

@palerider There you go. I had it filled in, but did not select yes in the drop down menu. I think it should show up now.

Totally off topic question that I am curious about...based on your experience, does the quality of VA care change at all related to whether a democrat or republican is in office? Thanks for your service. Sounds like you are moving right along in your cpap treatment, hope your sleep keeps improving.

I was only enrolled for the last few months of Ws term.

The wait times have increased and the quality of doctors has declined over my last 7 years of treatment.

I don't know that any of the candidates running right now can fix any of the issues.
Dr. Ron Paul, who ran in the last election, had planned on shuttering the VA and replacing it with a voucher type system that would allow us to seek the best treatment available, while also creating competition and lowering the overall cost of care. None of the current candidates have offered anything similar.

If we continue down our current health care path and everyone in the country is subjected to government run healthcare, I fear that everyone will quickly learn of the difficulties that Veterans face.

robert.clark27 wrote:@palerider There you go. I had it filled in, but did not select yes in the drop down menu. I think it should show up now.

whatever you picked isn't showing up. many of the "not brand new" links are broken... you'll need to put it in your signature.

model cpap and mask do you use? check on the back, or bottom of the cpap for a REF or model number.

robert.clark27 wrote:I was only enrolled for the last few months of Ws term.

The wait times have increased and the quality of doctors has declined over my last 7 years of treatment.

I don't know that any of the candidates running right now can fix any of the issues.
Dr. Ron Paul, who ran in the last election, had planned on shuttering the VA and replacing it with a voucher type system that would allow us to seek the best treatment available, while also creating competition and lowering the overall cost of care. None of the current candidates have offered anything similar.

If we continue down our current health care path and everyone in the country is subjected to government run healthcare, I fear that everyone will quickly learn of the difficulties that Veterans face.

Thanks, was expecting that might be the case. Sorry to hear it keeps getting worse. Yes, interesting and scary candidates this year.

robert.clark27 wrote:I was only enrolled for the last few months of Ws term.

The wait times have increased and the quality of doctors has declined over my last 7 years of treatment.

I don't know that any of the candidates running right now can fix any of the issues.
Dr. Ron Paul, who ran in the last election, had planned on shuttering the VA and replacing it with a voucher type system that would allow us to seek the best treatment available, while also creating competition and lowering the overall cost of care. None of the current candidates have offered anything similar.

If we continue down our current health care path and everyone in the country is subjected to government run healthcare, I fear that everyone will quickly learn of the difficulties that Veterans face.

Thanks for your service and thanks for telling us your VA experiences... I wasn't aware there were so many problems. Things are only gonna get rougher as the medical mafia gets it's greedy claws even deeper into everyone's wallets (substitute the word 'government' for the previous word 'medical' if that turns anybody's crank).

As PaleRider said, I hope your machine is data-capable. And one that will work with Sleepyhead software. A sleep study is by no means a guarantee that you are going to get a good prescription setting. Since you are already starting out on your own, Sleepyhead can help you monitor results and allow the seasoned folks here to make suggestions that will help optimize your treatment. They will do better than the doctors. That has definitely been my experience.

Good luck to you.

My husband has been treated at our local VA hospital and his care has been amazingly good. Our only complaint is the parking. The walk is usually about a block but it is uphill going in and it isn't easy for either of us. All of the staff are courteous and helpful from the cleaning staff to the doctors. The wheels of the setup for sleep apnea turned very slowly but once you get everything set up it is great. The whole mask including headgear can be replaced every 3 months. My husbands heads sweats so bad that he destroys headgear sooner than normal.