How do we know that a OSA Dx isn't a scam?

larry63 wrote:Sorry blackspinner!
I hope this is all in fun...

Ah, a variation of the old "I was just kidding" when you get caught saying something you regret ploy.

LoQ wrote:

larry63 wrote:Sorry blackspinner!
I hope this is all in fun...

Ah, a variation of the old "I was just kidding" when you get caught saying something you regret ploy.

Ok, sheet, I just can't win here apparently

Thanks everyone that posted in this thread. Seriously there is a gold mine of great info here, and great advice.
I really am going to re-read this entire thread later. I owe a lot of people a lot of thanks.

Larry

Larry
Just to let you know - my Blood pressure is down, my career is back on track (programming computers) and my art work is blossoming now that I have had my cpap for more then a year. And I recently decided that celibacy might not be the answer to the relationship issue.

Note for men optimized xpap therapy often out does Viagra without the negative side effects.

But just remember several years of low O2 causes damage that is not reversed immediately by a few month of mediocre cpap usages. Kind of like when you break a leg, putting a cast on it doesn't mean you can now go for a long hike.

LoQ wrote:

larry63 wrote:So what I did was make a Pure-Data patch that recorded segments of x time every y. I don't remember what x and y where, but let's say x was 10 minutes and y was once per hour. (but maybe it was only once every two hours and I missed things).

This was all after a former experiment just using a micro-cassette recorder and having me play back the recording for myself

...

So, back to the experiment, now I have a bunch of sound files gathered through the night, and even though they were just 10 minute samples, I wasn't going to sit there and listen through an hour or more of snoring.

So really what I did was just load all of the files in Audacity (an open source sound editor), and look at the waveform compressed in the time domain
to where I could easily see the amplitude peaks in the snoring. And it was cool - I could set the time scale so what I could easily see a steady stream of snores.
Some seqments had snoring, some did not. But the ones that did, mostly had steady even snoring - i.e. if I looked at the waveform, the time distance between peaks was rather constant, with no suspicious silent intervals.

Hey loq, sorry if I sound(ed) combative, and I understand if you want to bow out, but I just want to say thanks. I learned a lot from this thread. And you should install Linux sometime (ducking and running)

larry63 wrote:Bring on the citations, dudes, if this is the case. I'm all ears (or eyes).

We are all still awaiting some real data from you too!

My test..if you don't think its working, go without it for a couple days and see how you feel! alot of people don't realize how much better they are doing until they go with out it and realize they are much worse the next day.

Larry,

The concept of "sleep debt" or any reliable predictability of repayment has been "discussed" on here before, and is not universally accepted. To me it contains too many variables to expect a one-size-fits-all. Since we are not speaking of regaining hour for hour the sleep lost, I prefer to think of it as recovery time, or, however long it takes to achieve one's personal optimal recovery. But whatever it is called, if one accepts that sleep deprivation affects body systems such as hormonal balance, insulin sensitivity, muscle repair, etc., and if one accepts that low oxygen can damage organs and the brain, and if one accepts that stress hormones that accompany apnea can adversely affect health, it just makes sense to me that efficient recovery would require extra rest and sleep through the recovery period (whatever time that may be). Sleep apnea adds another layer to general sleep deprivation. In any other assault on one's health it is generally accepted that recovery takes time and rest is advised. I don't see this being an exception.

Just a little light reading...
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18533327
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/17548824

Well, larry, I am likely a few miles off base, but one thing caught my eye. You say you snore loudly and continually, but your mask is a nasal pillow. But isn't the whole point of CPAP to get the pressure in there to stay? Is a nasal pillow going to do that if your mouth is constantly open with snoring?

I have constricted nasal passages, I've been a mouth breather all my life, and my respirologist, sleep study tech, and DME tech unanimously prescribed a full-face mask for me, a recommendation which to me made eminently good sense and still does. Of course I am also a little sceptical as to how nasal masks or nasal pillows alone can work for vigorous snorers.

I wonder if you could be a living justification for my scepticism, proof that nasal masks and nasal pillows re not the answer for the more raucous and consistent snorers 'cause they can't keep their mounts shut?

And yes, at one session I did try a chin strap. It may work for others. It doesn't for me.

If it was malarky i would still be waking up with a sore throat and wondering how i could possibly get through my work day. I work rotating shift work . Even though i dont feel a 100% mostly i believe due to working rotating shifts i feel 100% better than I used to.

Not sure what your reference to lymes is about because I peronsally grew up in an area where that disease is prevalent. My sister in law lost a baby over it and I know of some folks that suffered greatly from it until it was discovered and treated.

Getting back to pap therapy it works.

You say you snore loudly and continually, but your mask is a nasal pillow.

I use nasal pillows, I keep my mouth shut, but I still snore. It's usually when I am first coming fully awake. My numbers are good and I feel good, so it's not a constant problem (and the real test is that my husband can sleep in the bed with me again), but I do have these very deep, back of the throat snores (1 or 2) when awakening. I have no idea why.

larry63 wrote:

BlackSpinner wrote:

larry63 wrote:[
?Huh?"
It concerns me when people bring up issues like "paying off sleep debt" to explain why it may take months to start feeling better.
Bring on the citations, dudes, if this is the case. I'm all ears (or eyes). Otherwise my conclusion would be that there was either a bad dx or bad tx,
and you happened to start feeling better after several months because of some not unreleated but non-causal change.


What's a knicker? And rest assured, many, if not most, Linux users are generally not geeks. We're simply practical. We're not sheep who will pay a company about a thousand dollars per computer for and operating system, office suite, antivirus apps, and other. Yes, dealing with Linux at times can be pretty annoying, but so can dealing with a user who has a worm or virus on their Windows machine.

Here's some citations for you!

Title: Sleep debt: Theoretical and empirical issues*
Source: Sleep and biological rhythms [1446-9235] VAN DONGEN yr:2003 vol:1 iss:1 pg:5

Title: Adaptation of the 24-h growth hormone profile to a state of sleep debt
Source: Regulatory, integrative, and comparative physiology [0363-6119] Spiegel yr:2000 vol:279 iss:3 pg:874

Title: Estimated sleep debt and work stress in Japanese white-collar workers
Source: Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences [1323-1316] Kageyama yr:2001 vol:55 iss:3 pg:217

Title: Sleep debt, sleepiness and accidents among males in the general population and male professional drivers
Source: Accident analysis and prevention [0001-4575] Carter yr:2003 vol:35 iss:4 pg:613

That should get you started.

Knickers is an old-fashioned word for pants or underwear. We might also say "don't your panties in a wad".

tony72 wrote:you woke up and noticed you weren't breathing,how is that possible?

let me put it this way - have you ever had a dream where you were desperately searching for a bathroom and woke up having to pee really bad - well i would be dreaming i couldn't get any air -struggling like crazy - then i would wake up and become aware it it was not a dream - it is the creepiest feeling i have ever had - if you never experience it count yourself lucky

Gasping for air is an indicator of OSA, not the indicator. Prior to my tonsil.adnoid.nasal surgery I snored like a freight train. After; my wife said I was "scary quiet", yet still had an AHI of 27 (consisted of all hypopneas).

YMMV

billbolton wrote:

larry63 wrote:Bring on the citations, dudes, if this is the case. I'm all ears (or eyes).

We are all still awaiting some real data from you too!

Ok, I was able to optain a report generated by some F/P software.

Some interesting points:

- Apparently the max allowable leakage for the F/P SleepStyle 244 is 60 lpm regardless of mask.

- 17 % of the time I spiked above that, up to 100 lpm.

- But I don't know why I didn't figure out the obvious before, but I was only averaging about 5 hours of therapy a night. This is because I often
suddenly fall asleep on the couch or at the kitchen table or in front of the computer at some unknown (obviously) time, and then wake up
sometime during the middle of the night, and stumble upstairs and put the CPAP on and then catch three or four hours of Z's. What shocked
me from looking at the report is that this happened the majority of nights, contrary to me estimation.

I will leave the subject of what to do about the last problem for another thread, but it seems to me, although both problems seem to be solved,
the most important one is the last point, because roughly 40 % of not having therapy is probably a more important issue than the 17 % of non-
therapy due to simply crashing on the couch or computer desk without CPAP.

Guest wrote:

larry63 wrote:

BlackSpinner wrote:

larry63 wrote:[
?Huh?"
It concerns me when people bring up issues like "paying off sleep debt" to explain why it may take months to start feeling better.
Bring on the citations, dudes, if this is the case. I'm all ears (or eyes). Otherwise my conclusion would be that there was either a bad dx or bad tx,
and you happened to start feeling better after several months because of some not unreleated but non-causal change.


What's a knicker? And rest assured, many, if not most, Linux users are generally not geeks. We're simply practical. We're not sheep who will pay a company about a thousand dollars per computer for and operating system, office suite, antivirus apps, and other. Yes, dealing with Linux at times can be pretty annoying, but so can dealing with a user who has a worm or virus on their Windows machine.

Here's some citations for you!

Title: Sleep debt: Theoretical and empirical issues*
Source: Sleep and biological rhythms [1446-9235] VAN DONGEN yr:2003 vol:1 iss:1 pg:5

Title: Adaptation of the 24-h growth hormone profile to a state of sleep debt
Source: Regulatory, integrative, and comparative physiology [0363-6119] Spiegel yr:2000 vol:279 iss:3 pg:874

Title: Estimated sleep debt and work stress in Japanese white-collar workers
Source: Psychiatry and clinical neurosciences [1323-1316] Kageyama yr:2001 vol:55 iss:3 pg:217

Title: Sleep debt, sleepiness and accidents among males in the general population and male professional drivers
Source: Accident analysis and prevention [0001-4575] Carter yr:2003 vol:35 iss:4 pg:613

That should get you started.

Knickers is an old-fashioned word for pants or underwear. We might also say "don't your panties in a wad".

Thanks! Although, I'm not sure how I can access these.. but the subject of the first paper sounds the most relevant.