Dumb Like Me: A Year Low On Oxygen
datasyndrome.com
datasyndrome.com
At the prodding of my wife, I saw a physician about it and got a sleep study done. I found I out had obstructive sleep apnea. They put me on a CPAP device.
I remember the first time waking up after using it. I felt like a new person, like I was a walking zombie who got a second chance at life. It's been a year since I started using it, and it's hard for me to imagine how I survived previously without that CPAP device. Life has become so much easier. I feel smarter, because I have the ability to focus my attention much longer, participate in conversations more easily, and not be so easily confused during meetings. When you're just a bit smarter, it has compounding effects on your life.
The worst thing about this, was that since my tiredness was so chronic, and since I had never experienced being totally rejuvenated, I never thought I had a sleeping problem. I just attributed to being an immutable property of who I am, or my physical body, and never something that could be corrected.
They take them off during the night, the mask comes undone when they roll over, etc. Like those mobility carts advertised on late-night TV for obese/walk-impaired people, the CPAP appears to be primarily another profit centre for manufacturers who feed on the Medicare/Medicaid, welfare and insurance systems.
Meanwhile there's no question that the problem is real. But more direct solutions are better: take learn how to breathe deeply, exercise, lose weight (most people on CPAP are obese), eat better, take vitamins (E, B12 and iron, aid oxygen transport), drink coffee!
The solution is to get help and keep trying. There are humidifiers if your nose gets dried out, and many styles of masks and machines.
I would not espouse such opinions without first finding some scientific literature to back up your claims. My device has cost me only 1500, and the returns on increasing my quality of life is well worth it.
The things I tell you here are things I've told my parents in law, family members and friends whom I love, have been effective and are living healthier now due to CPAP.
The very first thing to know is that when you have Sleep Apnea, your airway closes during night and you can not get oxygen. Your body much choose to either breathe to wake. It chooses to wake many times a night which prevents restorative sleep. This physical reality and the bodies reaction to it can not be fixed by learning to breathe deeply. While weight loss can help, many in shape people are also affected simply due to their particular airway anatomy. Drinking coffee to offset these systems is akin to extreme overclocking of computer - eventually you will burn it out. In this case, what burns out is your heart or your veins.
In insurance coding, every CPAP is coded E0601. Say you went to a car lot and the sales person would be paid by a third party the same amount of money no matter what car you received. Say they also knew you needed a car. This is how the "CPAP through insurance" system works today. There is no incentive to provide high end equipment, though it exists, works far better than basic equipment and "makes CPAP work".
CPAP.com is different than traditional providers. We do not accept insurance of any kind. We accept cash in exchange for equipment. This allows us to do several things that traditional providers can't:
1. We carry all equipment, not just one line of bargin basement stuff. There is high end equipment only available on the internet. There are very affordable $179 CPAPs that fit in your hand available. There are travel solar panel systems for CPAPs the size of your hand coming out. There are very low profile, light weight, well sealing CPAP masks available today. We post all reviews given on the equipment. No filters, no censoring, the straight story on user experience. We also post sales data as percentages that update weekly and publish it in aggregate and to each product page. In this way, you can see what "the market" for CPAP chooses, compare that to your needs and make an informed choice.
2. We answer the phones and we know of what we speak. Once your insurance is billed, there are codes for follow up services. That means every call you place to a provider after billing is an expense.
3. We have incentive to solve your problem. You are the customer, not the insurance company. Why would you put your cash on the barrel instead of just paying with your insurance card? We have to hustle to earn you business. We have to solve your problem remotely and immediately. We can and do. We are laser focused on solving your problem - not billing your insurance, not pandering to your doctors, not pleasing Medicare. You are the center of our world.
I've got a lot more to say about why we are different, but I will wrap the sales pitch.
Go visit www.cpaptalk.com. CPAP.com built it but doesn't advertise on it. No advertising is accepted. CPAP users there are free to speak with each other without filter or interference. It is the place to get uncensored answers from real people who have made CPAP work for me and can make it work for you.
Our CSR Manager is Elizabeth Vollmer and you can reach her at 1-800-356-356-5221 x216 or elizabeth.vollmer at cpap dc. Tell her you read the HN post.
You can reach me at 832-413-2462 or johnny at cpap dc, it rings cell or office. After hours, whatever - I will answer and do my level best to help.
On CPAPtalk, a lady with the handle of RestedGal is a legend and saint. I bet she's up to 5,000 people directly using CPAP because of her efforts. If you want to keep it internet private instead of calling, register and private message her.
Core message: CPAP works. We believe it in because CPAP.com's business is turning CPAP through insurance refugees into happy CPAP users, because we see it work on CPAPtalk and because we care about the treatment and you.
After a couple of months of this, I finally went to the doctor, and immediately got an MRI for possible brain tumor. Thankfully it turned out negative, and that's when I did some self-diagnosis and thought I must be sleep-deprived. I was getting about 4-6 hrs sleep every night for years, so I immediately started getting into bed at 10pm and would lay there until I eventually fell asleep.
Within a week, my headache disappeared and I felt much better. The funny thing is that since then, I can't stay away past 10:30pm, regardless of how long I sleep. By 9:30pm I'm exhausted, and after staying up past midnight for years/decades, a few months after sleeping at 10:30pm, I have almost no capacity to stay up late anymore.
I still think I have other sleep problems like obstructive sleep apnea, because I still don't get good quality sleep, so I'm scheduled for a sleep clinic in the next few weeks. I went to a seminar hosted by Kaiser on this, and the symptoms of obstructive sleep apnea were so exactly the same as what I was experiencing that I almost burst into tears because I realized I wasn't crazy, and it felt like there was finally some hope.
In summary: get your sleep, it is precious!
On a more serious note, if tests show apnea be sure to inquire about all remedies. I spent months in a love/hate relationship with CPAP before I discovered a more expensive but much more convenient dental appliance. So grill them till you hear all options.
Mine is "TAP". Two thousand bucks later I feel alive again.
And the problem is that after a while it reaches the point where I don't feel "tired" during the day, but I know I'm not performing my best. Recently I'm finding my tolerance of sleeplessness much lower, and like the sibling poster I put it down to increasing age (though I'm still in my early twenties).
I know the existence of 'burnout' (and all the baggage that term comes with) is debated by some, but the physical effects of not having enough rest are all too real. I know you know this already, but - sleep, people. You'll thank yourself for it.
1) For onlookers, especially with a chronic condition, this is symptom-free. You might just appear to be more cranky, or forgetful -- normal signs of aging.
2) Even for the person experiencing it, chronic hypoxia doesn't necessarily "feel" like anything. I was regularly getting my blood oxygen down into the upper 60s and as long as I had enormous amounts of caffeine I was good to go. Over time, especially after getting a CPAP, I realized to look for symptoms: skipping over words in the middle of a sentence and guessing incorrectly what they were, a more difficult time focusing (both mentally and with my eyes), and so on. Hypoxia in pilots has been studied over and over again, and no matter how hard you train, it still sneaks up on people and takes over. Scary stuff.
3)You do not necessarily experience an overnight resurrection when this condition is fixed. Many do, but many do not. Sometimes you just realize that you're now entering a long phase of recovery.
I can't adequately describe the emotional transition that goes with recognizing hypoxia and getting it fixed. There's a sense of joy, sure, but also a sense of fear: you realize just how close to death you were living, and how dependent you now are on a machine (or drug or whatnot). Living low on oxygen is a frightening and life-changing experience. Once I realized I was basically strangling myself every night -- passing out and then coming to over and over again just enough to be able to breathe again -- it dramatically changed my image of my body not letting me down. Hypoxia teaches that you can be severely broken in ways that you are not able to discern. Not fun.
It is truly amazing the difference, not only in wakefulness but in attitude and ability to intellectually focus that a good night's sleep brings.
I think this is the most impactful part, could you elaborate? Describe a few of those experiences? People talk a lot about privilege, how taller people make more money for no apparent reason, how good looking people are treated better, particularly women, but IMHO it's intelligence that gives one the biggest boost in (non-romantic) relations with others in today's society.
Sure, there's an awkward geek who doesn't get as much as they could with their IQ scores but if you're relatively intelligent, and especially if you're also talkative, you can see the attitudes of people (from the cable guy and cashier at the store to course instructors and priests) changing in real time as your sentences get longer and not corrupted with filling words, as you with drop a few two-dollar words or describe an even relatively simple physics mechanism.
Their eyes light up. Maybe it's just because they have to give you more attention to process what you're saying but the difference is more than noticeable.
But again, humans being humans, that's not limited to very intelligent people.
In high school I was pretty scruffy. The Man wasn't going to keep me down with his "combing" and whatnot. Fight the power!
Anyhow, I got off shift at my dumb grocery store job and went to see the doctor for a checkup. Tired and grubby, I didn't say much during the early part of the visit. He was not quite contemptuous, but not far off. Until I got all nerd-fu on him, using medical terms and pronouncing long generic drug names correctly. Suddenly, I got respect. Instant respect. It was an eye-opening moment for me.
> but IMHO it's intelligence that gives one the biggest boost
I don't think it was just intelligence at work here. There was definitely a big element of social class. I may have looked like a white-trash stoner, but when I opened my mouth, suddenly I was in the club. I went from "other" to "in the tribe".
I could have gotten the same effect by dressing well. But that's partly because I'm a straight white male; all that was keeping me out of the elite that day was a haircut, a shave, and an expensively comfortable outfit.
Maybe the writer lost some verbal quickness and assumed that was caused by his loss of intelligence. That can certainly be evaluated in a snap judgement, but it's different from intelligence.
Of course I'm just being defensive here. I always speak slowly, but I still think I'm smart.
I bet that could be a diabolical problem - you need cognitive surplus to recognize you have a problem, and investigate what the causes might be and how you can identify them. And the problem you have is robbing you of that cognitive surplus.
I can't imagine going through this every second of my day for as long you do did. And in comparison those few hours when I can't breathe and I'm waiting for my medicine to work feel like a blessing in the sense that it could very much worse like what you experienced. Wow.
post-surgery, my RBC count was abysmal. Simply walking would cause an intense headache. I feared it would never improve, and that I would be stupid forever.
but I did.
Similar story posted some time ago.
From me and people I know, you might feel bad and just stop functioning (tiredness, lack of energy) from undiagnosed allergies without throat symptoms, iron deficiency and a simple bacteria infection in a tooth.
Also note that you might e.g. increase in weight from being tired and then get sleep apnea, so there might be a reason behind some problems.
Please don't waste as much time as I personally did. (Yes, more than one year.)
Disclaimer: I am no medical expert and don't know about relative risks.
He says that many Asians with sleep apnea are NOT obese. They are predisposed by racial variations in anatomy.