Service Dogs For Sleep Apnea?

vaknot wrote:I have sleep apnea and I don't have insurance. During the night if I start choking, my dog will wake me up. She hasn't had any special training. She started doing this on her own.

how's your sleep, given those circumstances?

vaknot wrote:I have sleep apnea and I don't have insurance. During the night if I start choking, my dog will wake me up. She hasn't had any special training. She started doing this on her own.

Vaknot - it would probably be a good idea if you start a thread of your own. Good chance you would get some helpful responses.

The whole thing is getting out of hand. I am tired of seeing pot bellied pigs, dogs, cats ,ferrets and yes, a parrot on plane-- many of them for emotional support. You can buy the necessary supplies on line. Not a problem.

You can get doc to write a note if you are legit. If you are not legit, you can probably figure out a way. It used to be only service dogs were allowed. Nowadays, its anything. Much of it done just to get the animal on the plane as opposed to the cargo hold. .

This is a very interesting read. FWIW, there are service dogs for people who have narcolepsy. That is a bona fide disability but it doesn't have anything to do with sleep apnea. SSA has removed Sleep Apnea as a disability - you have to qualify under other things (they can be caused by sleep apnea). So, does the ADA consider sleep apnea to be a disability? I couldn't find anything on it other than narcolepsy and I only knew about that because one of my co-workers had a husband with it.

AMESS wrote:The whole thing is getting out of hand. I am tired of seeing pot bellied pigs, dogs, cats ,ferrets and yes, a parrot on plane-- many of them for emotional support. You can buy the necessary supplies on line. Not a problem.

You can get doc to write a note if you are legit. If you are not legit, you can probably figure out a way. It used to be only service dogs were allowed. Nowadays, its anything. Much of it done just to get the animal on the plane as opposed to the cargo hold. .

What has this got to do with vaknot's post about his dog? No one mentioned a plane or service animals.

Well for starters, the whole point of Cpap is to keep you asleep all night, not to have some kind of alarm that keeps waking you (a la apnea events) if you 'choke' or have some other sign of apnea. Very, very few people die in their sleep from choking, really only a few with (likely) other conditions not well treated. I love animals but don't see service dogs in the future for apnea. Get a Cpap and you won't have to feed it !

I'd rather pet and play with my dog, and trust my XPAP to keep me breathing! Jim

My dog might be dreaming of chasing cats, while I know my XPAP won't chace them.

As I mentioned earlier in this thread, if my dog woke me EVERY time I had apnea,
I am afraid I might harm the dog.
That is just too much responsibility for an animal, especially one who loves you and needs his own sleep.
Vaknot should check into one of the many organizations that supply cpap equipment for the extremely needy.

My cat used to paw at my face and wake me up, and then leave. (This was before I started cpap) At first, I had no idea why, and then I realized I was probably making noises more unusual than snoring. Since I would occasionally have choking fits, I figured he was helping to prevent those, whether it was on purpose, or just curiosity, who knows.

After he died, I started having choking, gasping fits several times a week. THat's part of why I decided I better get treatment. I didn't realize how much he was preventing the bad stuff until after he died. But he was also NOT helping me in a way since I wasn't seeing how bad I really was.

My dog added some helpful perforations to my hose that could save my life in a pinch if the electricity fails and the anti-asphyxiation valve becomes stuck.

xxyzx wrote: since when did social security define handicaps or disabilities

Decades.

SewTired wrote:This is a very interesting read. FWIW, there are service dogs for people who have narcolepsy. That is a bona fide disability but it doesn't have anything to do with sleep apnea. SSA has removed Sleep Apnea as a disability - you have to qualify under other things (they can be caused by sleep apnea). So, does the ADA consider sleep apnea to be a disability? I couldn't find anything on it other than narcolepsy and I only knew about that because one of my co-workers had a husband with it.

I am inferring from this website, that ADA does the same thing.

https://askjan.org/media/Sleep.html#ADA