It’s not the best picture since I took it with my cell phone looking into a mirror, but that’s me after getting hooked up for my sleep study a couple of months ago. Shortly after I took this picture I got into bed and they put more monitors on my face and plugged that wiring harness into the wall to monitor every last thing about what was going on as I slept. What you can’t see in the picture is that those wires extend down my legs too - I was a regular robot freak.
But the sleep study was well worth it because it showed that I had severe sleep apnea and it resulted in hooking me up with a CPAP machine, which I am beginning to really feel the effects of. My CPAP machine has some basic usage statistics that I can see and what it is telling me this morning is that i have used it 66/75 days for a total of 315 hours. Most of those 9 days that I missed came in the first month - I had a follow-up checkup a month ago were they made some minor adjustments to the pressure (they increased it) and since then I don’t think I have missed a day, and that includes 4 or 5 nights in a hotel.
For you math geniuses out there I’m sure you noticed that I am averaging less than 5 hours a night with it. For the first month I was averaging about 3 hours a night, since I have had the pressure adjusted I would say I am probably averaging more like 6 now. Many nights I do sleep through the night with it, other times I find that once I wake up in the middle of the night I have a hard time getting back to sleep fussing with it and so I won’t. This is part of the “getting used to it” process that I am still going through.
So does it make a difference? Hell, yes! I have to admit it’s not super obvious at first glance, but it is making a difference. First of all, the results of my sleep study showed empirically that it was making a huge difference in terms of my blood oxygen levels and my ability to get to REM sleep. The scientists looking at my charts would say it is making a huge difference in my health. But of course I never really knew about those problems - when you have sleep apnea you think you are sleeping just fine but you really aren’t. The symptoms of sleep apnea like being dog tired all day, stifling huge yawns not just after a filling meal but literally any time during the day from the first thing in the morning to late in the afternoon - those are all gone. I feel much more alert throughout the day, not to mention the odd hours of the morning and night that I sometimes find myself driving long distances - I feel safer on the road.
Life with the mask is a definite pain but I am not snoring at night, I feel rested during the day and my doctors are happy. Sounds like good news to me!
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