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GumbyCT wrote:IF I die in my sleep someone else will have to do it.

live life and have fun. if you die, some other guy pays the bills.

greatunclebill wrote:

GumbyCT wrote:IF I die in my sleep someone else will have to do it.

live life and have fun. if you die, some other guy pays the bills.

Taken out of context...but I don't disagree

Live for today - tomorrow may not be ours.

GumbyCT wrote:I had a head on crash my motorcycle into a VW beetle. Your whole life flashes before your eyes in nano-seconds.

I can only imagine the suffering afterwards. Having a "Significant Arrhythmic Event" is much nicer. It's the way to go. No pain, quite the opposite. Some people have heart attacks, no thanks. Heart stoppage is just nice.

greatunclebill wrote:live life and have fun.

The mantra of the near-deaths. The only thing you take with you is the love given to you. Hug your wife/husband, kids and best buds often, you never know when.
You only live onc... ah, OK, twice... in my case. Nice thing: You go through a self review afterwards. I decided I would not change a thing. Now THAT's a sweet feeling.

Many years ago I read a stat that stated the survival rate for untreated OSA of 5 years duration was only 40%.

Wake Up world -- no pun intended.

MaxDarkside wrote:The only thing you take with you is the love given to you.

When I heard I can't take my money with me, I decided... I just ain't goin

obtw- my wife told me back in 1983 I stopped breathing... untreated OSA goes on for a lifetime. Til death do us part.

Dieing is a big event in your life...you wouldnt want to miss it.

My nursing supervisor had a husband whom had sleep apnea he fell asleep on the couch while she fixed dinner and when she went to awake him he was dead. That is the truth folks and info first hand as far as I'm concerned.

My husband's sister went to bed and the next morning a neighbor found her dead in bed. The coroner ruled it "natural causes" and said her heart had stopped during the night. I have not seen the death certificate. Autospy didn't show any thing out of the ordinary. She was only 50 years old. We feel it was due to sleep apnea and the related factors that it causes.

So -- that makes me really diligent in using my machine.

Years of apnea--even mild apnea--takes its toll.
As mentioned by one much wiser than I, "death by a thousand cuts"
It is entirely possible to be killed by apnea, but it generally happens so slowly
the recorded cause is attributed directly to: heart disease, etc, ---(a result of continued untreated apnea.)

sleepycarol wrote:My husband's sister went to bed and the next morning a neighbor found her dead in bed. The coroner ruled it "natural causes" and said her heart had stopped during the night. I have not seen the death certificate. Autospy didn't show any thing out of the ordinary. She was only 50 years old. We feel it was due to sleep apnea and the related factors that it causes.

So -- that makes me really diligent in using my machine.

My daughter found a 49 y/o woman she knew dead behind the wheel of her car. No autopsy but I would guess it was untreated OSA too. Said the woman knew she had OSA but decided not to treat it. End of story.

The ONLY reason I have mastered this therapy and....


Continue to

put the mask on my face consistently each night....

is


so

I
can

continue


to pay

Alimoney


I wouldn't want to short change her

Just thought you'd like to know

Note to self: Don't forget to take meds too

Maxie wrote:Do you know of people who went to bed and "quietly" died in their sleep or maybe you know someone who knew someone who died in his her sleep? Now that I know more about sleep apnea I think that surely these deaths are sleep apnea related. I know of at least one person who woke up gasping for air and subsequently died and her cause of death was death from sleep apnea. She knew she had it but didn't think she could afford to have it treated. I've heard it said that no one actually dies from sleep apnea but I disagree. What are your thoughts on this? I realize it's a morbid subject but I've just been thinking about the people who "went to bed and didn't wake up." Rarely do I hear sleep apnea mentioned in connection with their deaths.

Yes... my dad. I remember walking down the hall when he was still 'asleep', and hearing the window-rattling snores suddenly stop. I'd wait, and 30 to 40 seconds later there would be a strangled gasp, then rhythmic breathing until the snores started again. This was in the late 60's, when doctors told you that snoring was just what guys did, and if it really bothered, to sleep in another room, or sew a tennis ball in the back of his pj's. Certainly no medical treatment was available. My dad died in his sleep, and the cause of death was listed as 'heart failure'. I'm stocky like him, with a thick neck; and I used to snore like a freight train. Thankfully, I live in a time when there is a successful (if somewhat inconvenient) treatment for apnea. I KNOW it killed my dad, and I was highly motivated to make cpap work. Did he die of suffocation? No. He died of heart failure; but heart failure brought on by the effects of years of sleep apnea and the constant jolts of adrenaline shocking him back to consciousness so he would begin to breathe again; coupled with the degradation of his nervous system, heart, arteries, and other body systems from chronic lack of sleep.

I only know that my friend's husband said he woke up and his wife was gasping for air and by the time the paramedics arrived she was dead. No, I didn't see the autopsy but I'm willing to take the word of the person next to her in bed. I think that would have been a pretty awful experience for him to wake up with his wife gasping and all he could do was call 911 and that turned out to be useless.

I cannot comment intelligently on that specific circumstance, or course--I wasn't there.

However, my understanding as a non-medical person and fellow patient is that gasping for breath is common in a non-sedated person who is dying, regardless of the exact cause of death or the timing of it.

http://jme.bmj.com/content/28/3/164.full

The confusing thing for us non-medical people is that the pros will call the cessations in breathing that lead up to death "apneas," which we, of course, as OSA patients, associate with our condition of OSA. That does not necessarily mean that the person "died of sleep apnea" in the sense most of us would mean, I don't think.

But, hey, what do I know?

Then again, maybe that knowledge would be comforting to the friends and family of the deceased?

I have no idea if the blog that the following link is from is any good, but personally I do agree with how carefully worded (factually, anyway, if not grammatically) the answer given there is:

http://www.ionmyhealth.com/blog/can-sle ... use-death/