My strange story

You are wrong..we didn't ROLL OVER and accept the diagnoses. I don't have insurance and had to pay for it myself...and I'm not wealthy, I'm a senior on pension. I hated having to save and save just to get this gear....so I definately did not roll over. I have proof possitive that this therapy helps, I can do things now, I'm not falling asleep in my easy chair and I feel so much better. I thought I slept well, didn't know I snored like a freight train.......Now I DO sleep well and my daughter tells me I don't snore anymore. You can deny it all you like, we do know the difference, and we will be around for many years while you are knocking on the inside of that pine box

Thetoolman wrote:#1 thank you for letting me join .
(they did not ask if I lived in Georgia ,so I joined any way)
Tanks giving day last year I was admitted to the hospital wit DOUBLE nemonia, I was BLUE,could not stand, & could not breath MY LUNGS were full of liquid. They put the mask on me & forced air in so I coule breath. I was in intensive care for 5 days & nights mostly with the cpap on & making me breath. I started clearing up & stayed in the regular hospital for 5 more days. At home I had trouble sleeping lying down to sleep,my lungs were not better yet, But I could sleep in a recliner just fine.Now 7 months later every thing is 95% better . My doctor says I need a sleep study . I went. Now he says I must go for 1 more to get the bpap machine all set so I can wear it every night. -NOW- I sleep all night every night except to go to the bathroom sometimes. I do not snore,I sleep fine, The 1st sleep study said I had 149 events... thats BS!.... so I told the nurse that called to make my appointment that before I took #2 test I had to see the dr. she got huffy and I just hung up.. she(not the doctor) called back 2 hrs later & informed me that the Dr. said that if I did not make a appointment & get the bpap study he would refuse to treat me any more because of liability & I would be dead in less than 1 year!!!!! PS I have one of those things that checks blood ox & pulse it clips on your finger ranges from 90 to 97 ox level.
what do y'all think of that?

END OF RANT but still let me hear someting

I also have an untreated overnight pulse ox in the 90% to 97% range. I regularly sleep 7 hours a night, and thought I was sleeping OK, but had some incidents of daytime sleepiness, and would sometimes wake up breathing hard, as though I had been exercising rather than lying in bed.

As it happens, I seem to breath OK in light sleep, but as soon as I go into deep sleep or REM sleep I have periods of apnea. I kept returning to light sleep, often after only a second or two in REM or deep sleep. I did not wake up completely, so I had no awareness of the interruptions. The good news is that the returns to light sleep kept my blood oxygen up. The bad news is that I was getting very little deep or REM sleep. I confirmed this independently using a Zeo to monitor my sleep while I was waiting for my APAP machine to arrive.

I'm using an APAP or Provent now. I feel more awake and energetic during the daytime, have less urination at night, and, important in my case, have more incidents of not eating something because I feel full. (Sleep disturbances can interfere with the system that regulates appetite.) I'm sure treating my apnea is improving my general health.

In your situation, I suggest making an appointment with your doctor to discuss your sleep study results, your treatment options, and the consequences of non-treatment. Go in with an open mind, and listen to what the doctor says.

Part of what I am saying IS. I caught the pulminary guy lying to my face. He told me the same story about what was going on with me 3 diffeerant ways & differant endings.He also told me to not worry because ss would pay for it no matter what . I am not on s.security & I would call that theft. I don't want my insurance being robbed eather.#2. I found out that My Md. is connected with the pullmanary guy. May be the strong arm reason?. any way I don't like it...... I am not one to follow or be TOLD what -or whwere to be or do any thing. threatinning death on the telephone and putting a time onb it sounds like cancer thing like cpap . I have made an appointment with other dr. I may have fallen in to rip offs ville!! I'll bet some of y'all have also
D

Thetoolman wrote:Part of what I am saying IS. I caught the pulminary guy lying to my face. He told me the same story about what was going on with me 3 diffeerant ways & differant endings.He also told me to not worry because ss would pay for it no matter what . I am not on s.security & I would call that theft. I don't want my insurance being robbed eather.#2. I found out that My Md. is connected with the pullmanary guy. May be the strong arm reason?. any way I don't like it...... I am not one to follow or be TOLD what -or whwere to be or do any thing. threatinning death on the telephone and putting a time onb it sounds like cancer thing like cpap . I have made an appointment with other dr. I may have fallen in to rip offs ville!! I'll bet some of y'all have also
D

Remember to get a copy of your sleep study report and send or take it to the new doctor.

At least in my case, it would have been in my HMO's financial interest, when evaluating my sleep study, to decide I did not need treatment for OSA. Because they reported I did need treatment, they had to provide a machine for several nights for a home titration study, show me how to set it up and use it, give me the mask and hose, evaluate the results, and write a prescription. I think they got the magnificent sum of $10 as a co-pay for those services.

I do not have DME benefits, so whether I got a machine or not made no immediate financial difference to them, either way.

In the long term, as an HMO they do have a financial interest in keeping me healthy, but that interest only comes into play if the OSA diagnosis represents a real condition that needs treating, and the APAP prescription represents an appropriate, effective treatment.

Thetoolman wrote:Part of what I am saying IS. I caught the pulminary guy lying to my face. He told me the same story about what was going on with me 3 diffeerant ways & differant endings.He also told me to not worry because ss would pay for it no matter what . I am not on s.security & I would call that theft. I don't want my insurance being robbed eather.#2. I found out that My Md. is connected with the pullmanary guy. May be the strong arm reason?. any way I don't like it...... I am not one to follow or be TOLD what -or whwere to be or do any thing. threatinning death on the telephone and putting a time onb it sounds like cancer thing like cpap . I have made an appointment with other dr. I may have fallen in to rip offs ville!! I'll bet some of y'all have also
D

Some people just don't get it. In any case, good luck man.

Z

Wow, your life is not worth $3 grand?

Unfortunately, our medical system does not have Doc McCoy's scanner (Star Trek) that can tell exactly whats wrong with someone in less than 5 seconds. The best our medical system can do is a process of elimination on what is suspected is wrong, and then either rule it out or show proof it's real.

Most Doctors have plenty of patients lined up out the door, they don't need to create new ones. If you choose to do nothing, you will be back as a patient anyways.

I finally chose to order the sleep study from online, which showed 73 apneas per hour. Bought the S9 and after the first night, slept only 5 hours, but woke up feeling like i was 20 years old again - the difference was truly a miracle. It has changed my life for the better. Judging us as "suckers" shows you are clueless as to what you speak of.

Just reading your story and answers I can feel an attitude, which was probably insulting to the nurse, who is only trying to help and will get paid whether you do the study or not. I'm not saying there are not rip off artists out there, but accusing everyone of being a rip off is insulting to the 99% of people who are not rip off artists.

If you have that many Apnea's, you are severly damaging your organs - will eventually have high blood pressure, high colesterol, "Irritability," fatigue, etc, etc. Of course at that point you will be required to take many pills daily to control your symptoms. Costing more than $3,000 per year.

Of course, if you don't take the medications, you will have a heart attack stroke out. The easy one will just kill you; the stroke may just paralyze you and you will be trapped in a nursing home hoping someone wash's you and feeds you through a tube.

I hope this helps - Good Luck with your quality of life.

TO MUCH oxygen to the brain is also bad.

Thetoolman wrote:TO MUCH oxygen to the brain is also bad.

The river of "Denial" does not only flow in Egypt. It flows strong through your veins. Sleep apnea obviously has already caused brain damage here.

149 times an hour your heart goes into panic mode and beats extra hard, stress hormones flood your system causing your organs to have to work over time. Feel good about that? It will age you in no time.

If you have dependents make sure you have good insurance and a living will. Choose now who gets to change your diapers.



Oh and a little note: Do you have any trouble getting it up or keeping it up? Well cpap can change that too.

Me thinks he is just a troll trying to make you react.
Or he is really stupid.

Look man, just stop trying to justify posting on our website, go on your merry way and for goodness sake, keep a wide berth when driving!!!! Don't harm anyone but yourself, that would be you're choice. Go troll a different blog!!

I normally don't respond to posts like this, because I'm not sure if there is anything productive to add to the conversation. But it is possible that other people looking for help might read this thread in the future, so here goes nothing.

Full disclosure: while I have a Dr. before my name, I am a PhD, not an MD. But I am faculty and do teach med students.

I think a skepticism towards doctors is healthy and wonderful. You know what we call the kid who gets a D+ in my class? Doctor. And I don't want him making any medical decisions for me or anyone else. There are some great doctors out there, and many more not-so-great. I believe in questioning pretty much everything a doctor says, because as someone who grades their exams... it's ain't pretty.

But you know what I trust? Lab data. And we are fortunate that this is how we get diagnosed. If we are lucky enough to have access to a sleep study, it gathers data on our sleep. Most diabetics cannot feel when their blood sugar is elevated. Most people with high blood pressure cannot feel when their blood pressure is elevated. There are many serious diseases that you simply can't "feel," and OSA is often one of them.

I have OSA. I do not snore, at all. I never got up in the middle of the night to go to the bathroom. I did not seriously desat in O2. I thought I slept well, I was just a light sleeper.

I was wrong. I know for a fact I was wrong, not because some doctor told me, but because I now have lab data, and after treatment, symptoms I didn't know were related to OSA have started to go away.

It is noble that you are worried about doctors not ripping your insurance company off (and I am not being sarcastic here). The insurance companies do not feel the same way about you. They are looking for every excuse not to pay for treatments. If they approved the first sleep study, it's because you met objective diagnostic criteria. Otherwise, they would have (happily) denied your claim.

So here's where you are: you have (what sounds like) a crappy doctor. The whole "you have a year to live" think is called medical hexing, and I -- among others -- teach medical students NOT TO DO IT. It's bad doctoring. There are other ways to communicate to someone that they have a serious illness.

But you have something else. You have a diagnostic sleep study. The second one they want to run on you is not diagnostic, it's purely to figure out your treatment. So if you go get a second opinion, the first thing they will do is look at your data, that first sleep study. And given your numbers, they too will diagnose you with severe OSA.

So, the objective data shows you have a disease. How you treat it is up to you. Like diabetes, it's a serious disease that kills, but it can be managed. Taking ownership of that isn't rolling over. But it's your body, and you get to run it how you please.

I suggest getting a copy of that sleep study and looking at it for yourself. Don't trust the doctor -- trust the data. And then go from there.

All the best,

--T

I only had 13 events per hour (barely a sliver of what you (and many others here) have;
--and my life is so different now--it's like I've been dropped into a new, WONDERFUL life.
Of course the stuff is expensive, but I've spent more on hearing aids--just so I can enjoy conversations and nature.
Others spend more on mattresses--every day--and still suffer.
We are lucky to have a problem that is so easily solved--no surgery or drugs needed.
This is an opportunity--not a sentence.
Your attitude will determine how you spend the rest of your life (or if..)

the_nap_ster,
AS I said I already have an appointment with another MD. should I call & request that a copy of my sleep study be mailed to me or ask to come & pick it up? I am scared that they have not been truthful with me & won't want me to get a copy, As you can see I am not happy with just being pulled around by my nose so i can feel all warm & fuzzy inside . I want=demand the Doctor do there job or refund my money . These jokers have made big bad mistakes on this one..

Federal law. It's called HIPAA.
They don't want to mess with the gummint any more than we do.

I second what has been said here, and I also understand your feelings. Why don't you travel with the docs with an open (and extremely critical...) mind. See what they tell you on your journey during all the research/examinations, and try to figure out when it is time to do your own parallel research. It might turn out you could benefit from some of their knowledge, although you might feel, along the way, that bullshit comes up. Then try to find your solution elsewhere, but go for the ride as long as it benefits you. That is my strategy; I will listen to the docs as long as they don't talk bullshit, and the second they do that (and many unfortunately do) I will go my own way. Completely neglecting and ignoring them might not be the best strategy, because somewhere along the way the might come up with some information that is useful to you, and which you wouldn't have figured out by yourself (due to the lack of resources/machines/inside medical knowledge).