irreversible damage???

So, the more research I do, the more I realize this may have been an issue since about 10 years old..... Always snored, even as a kid, always had "night sweats", we're not talking a little bit damp here, we're talking about standing puddles and having to change the bed in the middle of the night, always ahd a stamina issue, could never run or whatever even when in great shape as a hockey player.... just can't get my wind. Short sprints? Fine, just don't ask me to run more than a couple hundred yards. So, all those signs have always been there, always. Now, at 38 I have finally found something that seems to have fixed it all overnight.... not huffing and puffing after four flights of stairs like I used to, NO sweating at night, (only 4 nights but its the longest I have ever gone....), No snoring..... you get the idea.

SO my question is, have I got irreversible damage to my heart and what not?? My wife nurse explained to me what adelectysis is..... I know that i have had that based on what I know and how I always felt. She often watches me breathe when I am sleeping.... I average 18-20 per minute. Last 2 days? 9-10per minute, and much, much deeper breaths. Am I in the clear? What, if anything should I have checked???? I am more scared now than I was before, although I now believe to be doing all that I can to rectify a lifetime of bad sleep.


Another thing I don't understand.... I feel stronger the last couple of days. I haven't touched a weight in months but feel like I have been back on a routine for a couple of weeks. Is it that my muscles are more rested? or just that I can now get more oxygen therefore they work better??

Why don't we see public service announcements or commercials for this condition??? It is so important. I have to think that there are others like me that just have no clue..... how can we get the message out? What does airtime cost? could we all " pass the hat" and make our own commercial??? How many lives could be saved?

Thanks again for being here.... you folks rock!

One of the sleep labs here (not the one I go to) does advertise in the form of a public service announcement.

We also have public service announcments on TV here.

I thought "adelectysis" (atelectasis?)was a collapsed lung?

SleepyRose wrote:We also have public service announcments on TV here.

I thought "adelectysis" (atelectasis?)was a collapsed lung?

the way she described it can be the lower branches of your lungs "tree roots" can be collapsed but not the whole lung. This can be cause by a variety of things but also by lack of use.... clearly, I am using way more of my lungs now than I was before.

fkarl - I am very active in tae kwon do (I train intensively 3x per week) and I have had a CPAP machine for just over two weeks now. I have very severe OSA with over 90 events per hour.

I always thought I was just "in bad shape" (especially compared to those black belts! ) because I could never seem to "catch my wind" after drills.

I can't believe the difference I am feeling in my workouts now. I feel as though I am *flying* through the drills. I can do all the laps everyone else does, with no wish to stop. We did this ridiculous medicine ball workout the past Wednesday and although my muscles are sore, I don't have the bone-crushing fatigue which would have accompanied this in the past.

I'm just posting to say: I hear you, friend. I cannot believe this. I can't. (Someone said, "that black belt is much closer than you think now.")

The momentum on this condition and therapy is slowly gaining ground. Four years ago, I hadn't heard of Sleep Apnea till the words came out of my doctor's mouth (GP)......and then he referred me to have a sleep study. I thought I had Narcolepsy since there are symptoms that both of these "illnesses" share. More stories have been hitting the media, like Reggie White's death and automobile accidents being attributed to sleep apnea, so it's becoming more well known. Also, more studies are being done with regard to links between sleep apnea and other illnesses like depression and diabetes.

People are finally starting to "get it"......it's just taking a little while. Bringing people out of "denial" is another obstacle to overcome. There's still some stigma to it, but that will break down as more people get on the hose.


Den

MoneyGal wrote: I always thought I was just "in bad shape" because I could never seem to "catch my wind" after drills.
I don't have the bone-crushing fatigue which would have accompanied this in the past.

MG, ain't it sOOOOOO sweeeet!
In my cycling, it took about 2mths to really start to feel the improvement.
I kept testing to see how far I could push myself,
always expecting the "bone-crushing fatigue"
that had become part of my life.
In the past few months, I have started accepting
the fact that I can go out and hammer,
get a great nights rest,
and do it again the next day.
I have increased the weight that I use for my full body workouts
and see improvement the next day.

fkarl, if my body can do it a 58, you got no excuses.
Now, go wake up that 22yr old.

As far as damage done. Think your eye with a stick, if you poke your eye with the stick it does damage to the eye. If you stop poking your eye with the stick, it starts to feel better and some of the damage is repaired. Life is better, but not quite as good as if you hadn't poked you eye in the first place, but because you stopped poking it, the feeling of being better stands out.

The same applies to your O2 starved body, it time it recovers some of what's been lost, but as we are all older the recovery can be slow and not complete. Catching health problems soon, before the major damage is done is the best way to go. Jim

When the general public starts thinking of being a "CPAP user" in the same way as being an "eyeglasses wearer", there will be more acceptance of the idea of using a CPAP machine.

I think a lot of people refuse to even consider that they might have sleep apnea simply because they've heard just enough to know that means using a machine and mask at night. Gives them a mental image of a very sick person on a ventilator in ICU. Brings out the "I never want to be hooked up to a machine!!!" fears.

We don't hesitate at all to put on glasses so we can see to read or drive. We take them off when we don't need them. Same thing with a cpap machine. We put the mask on to get air while we sleep. We take it off in the morning and go on our merry way.

Slowly, but surely there is a growing awareness about Obstructive Sleep Apnea out there, but it is too slow.

Every doctor, whether it be a family practice M.D. or a specialist (especially in cardiology!), should start routinely screening their patients for sleep apnea, no matter what the person has come in for.

Given the extremely debilitating (and expensive to treat) conditions that OSA can cause or contribute to, all doctors should be making the diagnosing of OSA a top priority.

Millions more people sure need to be putting a mask on at night. After they take their glasses off.

I Have Multiple sclerosis and amongst the myriad of symptoms and effects of this disease is severe fatigue, not just being a bit tired but at times not even having the energy to sit upright, it has been one of my most troublesome effects- neither me nor my neurologist had ever considered that there could be another factor that at the very least was contributing the the severity of the fatigue. This last year has been a bad year for me with the MS and has seen me admitted to hospital 20 times, each time for at least a week. Thankfully i was admitted to the same unit on most of the occassions so the nursing staff got to know me quite well.

One of the night nurses noted that i seemed to have frequent periods where i was not even attempting to breath and i was very difficult to rouse from sleep, they checked my oxygen saturations and found that they were dropping as low as 51% and were staying in the low 70's for 15 minutes at a time. In the morning once i awoke it would take quite a while for my sats to get back to normal levels- they reported it to my neurologist and suddenly we had a potential major contributor to the fatigue, morning headaches etc and i was referred for sleep studies. I was diagnosed as having a mixture of obstructive apnoea and Central apnoea with a considerable percentage being centrals and MS has been blamed

i am still in the early stage of therapy, and the Data down loads have been quite a long way off acceptable (they are switching me to a different type of machine this week i think it is a resmed vpap adapt sv) but even with a machine and set up that is getting less than perfect results i am already finding that the level of fatigue is considerably lower which is fantastic- i am so tired of feeling like a wrung out rag! if this is the only noticable positive effect, it will well worth it!

I really do wonder why people are not screened for sleep apnoea more frequently. I certainly am quite happy to declare myself a hose head for life!

I've noticed the same sort of lung and muscle capacity improvements mentioned here; my improvements seem perhaps less dramatic, but are real.

I wanted to re-raise part of Fkarl's original post: are there things we should be checked for knowing we have OSA? If OSA, untreated (and most of us were untreated for often long lengths of time) increases the odds for diabetes and heart disease, and the treatment may lead to glaucoma and GERD and sinus problems...are there specific tests or monitoring programs we should be following more than the general population of our age groups?

I'm 44, and my approach so far has been to focus on the health habits I should've been following all along: a lean, light, fresh, and nearly vegetarian diet, lots and lots of exercise, and SLEEP. I feel better - vastly - but should I be directing my physician to conduct addition checks for certain things?

Unless there are some obvious symptoms of other things, I'd at least suggest getting a blood draw and analysis. Diabetes seems to be pretty common among OSA patients. That one can sneak up on a person in slow stages......like OSA. Problem is, once it gets beyond a certain point, it's not really reversible......you just try to live with and control it.

Den

rested gal wrote:..............

Every doctor, whether it be a family practice M.D. or a specialist (especially in cardiology!), should start routinely screening their patients for sleep apnea, no matter what the person has come in for.

Given the extremely debilitating (and expensive to treat) conditions that OSA can cause or contribute to, all doctors should be making the diagnosing of OSA a top priority.

...........

RG, I like this attitude!