Sleep apnea without the apnea.

peajay

elg5cats: Do you have any pictures of your machine and testing set up you are using to post to show your work?

peajay: What, do I get a failing grade otherwise? I would post pictures were there anything interesting to see, but there isn't. It's just a pile of junk all wired together.

elg5cats: Also, I'm interested in what precautions you take to prevent a fire, shock or possible electric shock as you take your machine apart and connect to your computer.

peajay: Fire? Honestly? You are concerned that it may burst into flames? Seriously?

Peajay: Anyway...I also made an appointment with my normal doctor for wednesday morning. I think I have rather good reason at this point to suspect a sleeping disorder, but I hope that including eye movement data will make it completely obvious since I don't expect that past difficulties with convincing doctors that there really is something wrong with me will magically disappear.

Peajay: It's a great idea you have made an appointment with a doctor on Wednesday...Printing this thread to take with you can help you to explain your concerns to your doctor since you have "organized" your thoughts here. Sometimes having information for the doctor to read, helps the doctor get a good sense what your concerns and what you have tried to do to address them. This thread may help your doctor in his or her assessment. Good Luck with the appointment.
elg5cats

peajay wrote: ... I'm overall displeased with the quality of this discussion, and so I'll be posting all future updates to a moderated forum on my own web site. http://www.ecstaticlyrics.com/pinnwand/

I'm not sure that he's reading our responses anymore.

On other boards I've frequented, this guy would have been branded a troll and run off pretty quick. You all have been exceedingly patient with his foolishness.

I don't think he's a troll. He reminds me a lot of myself, a few years back. Let me explain - though my post is directed more at him - because it might help explain where I think he's coming from. Oh, and I think he's still reading it. No one writes that much and then scampers off.

Of all of their random ideas, those two actually never came up.

I'd look into OCD. You are about my age (I just turned 28) and I spent my whole life with doctors being unable to decide what was wrong with me. It started with a diagnosis of bipolar and ADHD at 9, and moved from there to a dozen different conditions. We moved a lot, since my dad was in the Navy, and every time we'd move my new doctor would decide something else was wrong and change everything around.

I knew I wasn't bipolar - I've seen people who have it - and none of their other ideas seemed to work. I got the job I'm at now about four years ago and found their mental health coverage was good...if you had a biologically based illness. I was stumped - I was convinced at this point I had PTSD from some trauma I had as a kid, but that's not biologically based. So I went down the list and knew I wasn't autistic or bipolar or any of that so I latched on to OCD (which looks a lot like PTSD in some people). The more I read about OCD, the more I knew that was what was wrong. I went to the doctor, who I adored, and presented her with a typed out list of symptoms and previous treatments (which sounds like the sort of thing you'd do) and she agreed with the OCD diagnosis. I now take a very low dose of Prozac once a day and I'm much happier for it.

The problem that you're facing, I think, is that you're obviously very bright and that can be dangerous when mixed with OCD. I'm not unlike you in that respect - I qualified for Mensa last year - but the problem is that when you're very bright, you get used to being right because hey - you usually are. You like to know things and you like to know how things work. You're sure of your abilities because how often have they failed you in the past? You might be accused of having a personality disorder because all of that "being right" can come across as "being insufferable" and people tend to shy away from you. I imagine this isn't the first time you've been accused of being a troll but really, you're just trying to show off because that's what you're good at.

Here's what I suggest -

1) Realize that fiddling with your breathing at night isn't like taking apart a normal electronic device. I'm not telling you not to do it, because it wouldn't do me any good, but realize you are not qualified to do it. Being bright doesn't prevent you from killing yourself or setting your residence on fire. If you've ever read Harry Potter, there's a line from Dumbledore that says something about how because he's somewhat smarter than the average man, his mistakes tend to have more catastrophic outcomes. Keep this in mind.

2) Talk to Medicade/Medicare about CBT - Cognitive Behavior Therapy. If they don't offer it in your area, check out "The OCD Workbook" and "When Perfect Isn't Good Enough" - those books helped me a lot, beyond what CBT helped with.

3) Realize it doesn't matter how smart you are if you're miserable to be around. Other people might not agree with you, but that doesn't make them wrong. You come across as a show-off who is really not looking to do anything but annoy people. I don't think that's the entire point of your posting here - you are a show-off (don't even try to deny it) but I think deep down you really just want people to tell you you're right because you need to be right.

I really wish nothing but the best for you, and you're welcome to message me privately if you're more comfortable with that.

peajay: First, yeah, get to see doctors and do their sleep tests, because they've got experience and expensive equipment.

However, that said, having experienced similar symptoms to yours I sure wouldn't put something as important as this exclusively in the hands of others.

I too got data on my breathing from my cpap machine, but I didn't even take it apart. I simply put a tiny (~0.1 ohm) resistor in series with the DC power cord and measured the voltage over it, as a simple current meter. The machine has to work harder if there is more air flow, i.e. I'm breathing in, which increases the current. The graphs from the data I logged show my breathing nicely. I also built a box that beeps if I haven't been breathing for 30 seconds.

Another thing you might want to log is your SpO2. I did some research a while ago and decided that CMS-50e was cheap and seemed hackable. I was right. You can get one for $130, and it's not only a good oximeter, it's also good fun for a couple of hours of reverse engineering. There are two data types you want to decode, one for continuous data in real time, and one for logged data, slightly less detailed, when you have had it on your finger for a night and didn't want to have it connected the whole time. Both are fairly easy, at least to get the most important pieces of information. I'm sure you'll figure it out, if not, send me a message and I'll tell you what I found. Or, you can build your own oximeter from scratch. It seems doable, you just measure light at two wavelengths, but I came to the conclusion that parsing the sensor data in a reliable way was too complicated for me. And it sure wouldn't be as compact and well polished as the commercial ones.

Some people build their own EEG devices. Look for OpenEEG. That looks really interesting, but I haven't figured out if the home built ones are good enough to notice REM, and I haven't taken the time to build my own yet.

As for diagnoses, have you heard of UARS? It's pretty much sleep apnea without the apnea, except that nobody seems to understand what it means. Or even agree on what it is. Some claim it's bogus. Others claim they just don't understand it well enough. Not that I'm suggesting that you have it -- I can't even diagnose myself, much less someone else over the net.

Oneiros wrote: ........

Another thing you might want to log is your SpO2. I did some research a while ago and decided that CMS-50e was .........

Are you able to sleep with that model securely on your fingertip?

rooster wrote:

Oneiros wrote: ........

Another thing you might want to log is your SpO2. I did some research a while ago and decided that CMS-50e was .........

Are you able to sleep with that model securely on your fingertip?

It can be done, I do it.......surprising, I agree!!!!

elg5cats

"peajay:
Anyway... While I have received some useful responses, I'm overall displeased with the quality of this discussion, and so I'll be posting all future updates to a moderated forum on my own web site. http://www.ecstaticlyrics.com/pinnwand/

...................An UPDATE................

http://www.ecstaticlyrics.com/pinnwand/ ... order.html

elg5cats

elg5cats wrote:..................An UPDATE................

Yup, just as I expected and told someone from the first post. This person needs a little blood test.
We used to call it a serum acorn level...

Yup, he'd rather talk to an imaginary audience than us "retarded f***s" who are all insane....

teresamichele wrote:I don't think he's a troll. He reminds me a lot of myself, a few years back. Let me explain - though my post is directed more at him - because it might help explain where I think he's coming from. Oh, and I think he's still reading it. No one writes that much and then scampers off.

Of all of their random ideas, those two actually never came up.

I'd look into OCD. You are about my age (I just turned 28) and I spent my whole life with doctors being unable to decide what was wrong with me. It started with a diagnosis of bipolar and ADHD at 9, and moved from there to a dozen different conditions. We moved a lot, since my dad was in the Navy, and every time we'd move my new doctor would decide something else was wrong and change everything around.

I knew I wasn't bipolar - I've seen people who have it - and none of their other ideas seemed to work. I got the job I'm at now about four years ago and found their mental health coverage was good...if you had a biologically based illness. I was stumped - I was convinced at this point I had PTSD from some trauma I had as a kid, but that's not biologically based. So I went down the list and knew I wasn't autistic or bipolar or any of that so I latched on to OCD (which looks a lot like PTSD in some people). The more I read about OCD, the more I knew that was what was wrong. I went to the doctor, who I adored, and presented her with a typed out list of symptoms and previous treatments (which sounds like the sort of thing you'd do) and she agreed with the OCD diagnosis. I now take a very low dose of Prozac once a day and I'm much happier for it.

The problem that you're facing, I think, is that you're obviously very bright and that can be dangerous when mixed with OCD. I'm not unlike you in that respect - I qualified for Mensa last year - but the problem is that when you're very bright, you get used to being right because hey - you usually are. You like to know things and you like to know how things work. You're sure of your abilities because how often have they failed you in the past? You might be accused of having a personality disorder because all of that "being right" can come across as "being insufferable" and people tend to shy away from you. I imagine this isn't the first time you've been accused of being a troll but really, you're just trying to show off because that's what you're good at.

Here's what I suggest -

1) Realize that fiddling with your breathing at night isn't like taking apart a normal electronic device. I'm not telling you not to do it, because it wouldn't do me any good, but realize you are not qualified to do it. Being bright doesn't prevent you from killing yourself or setting your residence on fire. If you've ever read Harry Potter, there's a line from Dumbledore that says something about how because he's somewhat smarter than the average man, his mistakes tend to have more catastrophic outcomes. Keep this in mind.

2) Talk to Medicade/Medicare about CBT - Cognitive Behavior Therapy. If they don't offer it in your area, check out "The OCD Workbook" and "When Perfect Isn't Good Enough" - those books helped me a lot, beyond what CBT helped with.

3) Realize it doesn't matter how smart you are if you're miserable to be around. Other people might not agree with you, but that doesn't make them wrong. You come across as a show-off who is really not looking to do anything but annoy people. I don't think that's the entire point of your posting here - you are a show-off (don't even try to deny it) but I think deep down you really just want people to tell you you're right because you need to be right.

I really wish nothing but the best for you, and you're welcome to message me privately if you're more comfortable with that.

TM

From this post it is easy to see why you qualify for Mensa - well handled

DSM

Did you notice the ballistocardiographic effect at about 12:17:30 of that boy's graphs?



Muffy

peajay wrote: . . . pondering the vague and smudgy appearance everything had . . .

I must say: Somehow, after reading this thread, I can relate.

peajay wrote: . . . I was so tired I couldn't hardly think . . .

Apparently, yes.

peajay wrote: . . . a real doctor . . . decided . . . something was the most swolen he had ever seen. . . .

I concur with that diagnosis.

peajay wrote: . . . he gave up and suggested I return to the psychologist. . . .

Sometimes docs do and say the right thing.

jnk wrote:

peajay wrote: . . . pondering the vague and smudgy appearance everything had . . .

I must say: Somehow, after reading this thread, I can relate.

peajay wrote: . . . I was so tired I couldn't hardly think . . .

Apparently, yes.

peajay wrote: . . . a real doctor . . . decided . . . something was the most swolen he had ever seen. . . .

I concur with that diagnosis.

peajay wrote: . . . he gave up and suggested I return to the psychologist. . . .

Sometimes docs do and say the right thing.

INK
some Christian kindness might achieve more than a gratuitous boot to his head.

DSM

DSM (guest) wrote:some Christian kindness might achieve more than a gratuitous boot to his head.

Oh, peajay, you came back!