Do all these people have sleep apnea or is it being over-diagnosed?

[raccoon]

I never heard of sleep apnea for most of my life. Now it seems that so many people are being diagnosed with it. Relatives, co-workers, acquaintances. I know this is anecdotal. But it seems to me that now SOOOO many people are being diagnosed with it. This happens with other ailments, syndromes, too.

And none of my three diagnosed relatives can sleep with that CPAP mask on. Maybe it helps some people; YMMV.

[1620rock]

1. I can't sleep without it. It's a godsend to those of us who need it.

[DainBramaged]

4. Try bringing all of your stuff on an airplane (if you haven't already)

it's a nightmare and embarrassing. My friend has had it for years, and he was the only person I knew who had it. But now they are pushing it so that the chronic hypochondriac are pumping their doctors.....it just sucks.


http://www.americansleepassociation.com/?gclid=CLLI3cqs1qYCFcNM4Aod9yjMIA (this one is a scam)

[JoePhilly]

18. I have it, and I take my cpap on airplanes no problem.

On a golf trip years ago, I was rooming with an old friend who is a doctor. The morning after the first day, he asked me if I had ever been tested. He said that he heard me snoring, sat up and listened for a while, and notice that I stop breathing regularly.

I went to be tested, and I had a moderate case of it.

After being fitted with the machine, I stopped snoring completely. My wife was THRILLED, and has been thrilled for years now. I sleep so much better now that if I try to sleep without it, I wake up before anything dangerous can happen.

As for taking the machine on an airplane .... sucks??? No.

The machine I have fits in a backpak along with my laptop. When I go through security, they ALWAYS give the machine a dusting, which takes about as much time as it takes to put my belt and shoes back on.

Non-issue.

[tuvor]

39. My wife had no problem on a recent vacation. No checked luggage, no embarrassment.

One knapsack, one carry-on, CPAP included.

[ornotna]

9. Amen to that

A slew of problems disappeared when I was diagnosed and then put on a CPAP machine.

[CountAllVotes]

12. how easy is it to sleep w/one of these on?

Strange looking device, must take some getting used to I'd guess.

[truedelphi]

13. I imagine that those with bondage club affiliations

Don't have the adjustment problem. But for the rest of us...

[ornotna]

14. I use one similar to this

I have no problems sleeping with it myself. You get used to it.

[elana i am]

21. the noise of the machine was what was difficult for me

not the mask. i did have to get used to it for a week or two, but the difference having a cpap makes is so drastic that the mask becomes your friend and your savior.

[JoePhilly]

23. I can't sleep without mine. It took DAYS to get used to it.

And the noise is NOTHING compared to the noise you make snoring.

You do have to get comfortable with the tubing and how it moves, but that is easy too.

Your wife will be thrilled because she will no longer have to listen to you snore.

[DainBramaged]

2. Think about all of the commercials for stuff we NEVER heard of growing up

and then add the word marketing.


They are now pushing testosterone on men, because there just aren't enough cancer survivors out there using it to make it profitable, so now it's low t if you have no energy or your dick stopped working or you just don't feel manly enough.

http://www.testim.com/default.aspx

I need it to survive. it's fucking insulting. It's called Androgel.


No one had allergies, no one had heartburn, no one had ADD ahdd haddddndththhh, the number of autistic kids was so low you didn't know about them until the 80's.

And then they introduced chemicals into our lives, and then the need for medications for everything.


Go back and listen to White Rabbit, boy was the Jefferson Airplane right.

[Lydia Leftcoast]

15. I had severe allergies in the 1950s, but

I developed them quite suddenly when we moved from a quiet neighborhood in one city to a neighborhood that had a highway running through it (down a residential street) in another city.

[LanternWaste]

29. Those plastic bubbles of our youth...

Those plastic bubbles of our youth comes in many shapes and sizes I imagine.

I imagine it must get rather tiring to be insulted by people wearing CPAPs. :shrug:

[dixiegrrrrl]

32. In a Dr.'s waiting room, 7 guys came in

to get their "testosterone shots". over a 90 minute period.
( I was waiting for a neighbor, gave her a ride to Dr.).
I had never even heard of such things before, and we live in a very very tiny village.
Most of these guys were clearly under 50, too.

[Odin2005]

36. Just because they were not diagnosed did not mean people didn't have them.

"the number of autistic kids was so low you didn't know about them until the 80's.

That's because most of them were misdiagnosed as mentally retarded or schizophrenic. :eyes:

Comparing autism and ADD to this testosterone BS = FAIL.

[DainBramaged]

42. Not fail. It's all about marketing.

And if they hadn't insisted that every kid get unnecessary vaccinations, we wouldn't have this problem. Or the chemicals in cleaning products, lead paint on toys, a long list of pathogens we never had 50 years ago.......

And I didn't compare autism to the testosterone marketing. Meh.

[PassingFair]

45. FAIL redux.

My brother was diagnosed as "hyperkinetic"
when he was young.

Today he would have be diagnosed as "Asperger's".

Same kid, different times. He was unable to
sit still in a regular classroom and needed
to attend a special school.

[DainBramaged]

48. Fail this

The instances BEFORE the modern industrial era after Viet Nam were low compared to today. Some of the chemicals being used in household cleaners weren't invented till the 80's. And think about the fact that you shouldn't cook with Teflon with your pets nearby.


None of you get it. So sad.

[Odin2005]

46. "unnecessary vaccinations" Oh for fucks sake!!!

:eyes:

[DainBramaged]

49. Think whatever you'd like to think.

If the chemicals in our lives weren't contributing to sensitivity in each prevailing generation, why the push away from using them?

[Godhumor]

47. And what vaccinations are unnecessary? n/t

[Kalyke]

3. I think climate change and pollution are making instances of it

more common.

I have sleep apnea (not officially diagnosed, but I have all the symptoms). I just don't have the time to go to a sleep study to get the machine.

[LiberalEsto]

5. Mine was a family of heavy snorers

Father, mother, brother, me.

Last year my brother began falling asleep unexpectedly at work and was afraid he'd accidentally fall asleep driving. The sleep clinic diagnosed sleep apnea and put him on a CPAP. Now he can function and work.

Thirty years ago someone like him probably would have ended up dying of a heart attack or a driving accident.

I've got mild sleep apnea. If I sleep on my sides instead of my back, it's not a problem.

[CountAllVotes]

6. it was called not sleeping well

and likely went ignored. Now they have a name for it.

Like Alzheimer's = arthritis of the brain I seen it documented as in 1976. :wtf:

[FSogol]

7. Does being overweight increase the chances of having sleep apnea?

That could be one reason for the increase.

[pipi_k]

8. I think it does, and agree that it's probably the reason for the increase n/t

[cutlassmama]

16. Yes. The fast food industry has caused the uptick because

Americans are so overweight now.

[elana i am]

22. yes, but you don't have to be obese to have it either.

[pipi_k]

26. True....

My second husband wasn't obese, but he was an alcoholic. He had apnea really bad.

Which isn't to say that people who have it are either obese or alcoholics...

Just that alcoholism was another factor. For him, at least.

[prolesunited]

40. Alcohol was likely a huge factor

I bet if he went to sleep sober, he hardly snored.

[hedgehog]

24. Given the fact that untreated sleep apnea screws up insulin levels,

it's often a case of which came first, the chicken or the egg?

[JoePhilly]

25. Yes. Increased weight can cause ...

a kind of fatty build up in the back of your throat and airways. As those airways get tighter, the more likely that close up briefly when you sleep.

This description is overly simple, but that is the basic situation.

[hootinholler]

10. Considering that a sleep study is generally conclusive...

I don't think it's being over diagnosed. For me it was a night and day stark difference when I went on the BiPap machine.

To be clear, I had/have a very severe case.

-Hoot

[JoePhilly]

27. +1

[Rainbowreflect]

11. It helps my husband and the fact that he does not snore helps me.

We both get much better sleep since the CPAP.

[elana i am]

17. it may not be overdiagnosed so much as finally

being taken seriously and considered an illness.

i have a cpap machine and my life has been changed because of it. i assume that your relatives have had sleep studies? my sleep apnea was serious enough that i was having periods of not breathing during the night and startling myself out of a deep sleep about every 3-5 minutes because of it. i woke up every morning with a hangover-like headache and had complete exhaustion 24/7. it turned out that i was suffering with lack of oxygen to the brain at night and not ever achieving rem sleep.

it took years of misdiagnoses and finally a switch to the right doctor who was knowledgeable enought to connect the dots and take my complaints seriously before i could even get tested for sleep apnea.

[raccoon]

43. Yes, they had sleep studies. None of them could adjust to the CPAP;

one of them, it caused her acne.

I'm glad it has helped you.

[suston96]

19. Going in for testing tonite.....

I hope they don't wake me up to give me pills....

Oh, never mind. It's a laboratory not a hospital.

[JoePhilly]

28. No pills ... but lots of sticky wires attached to your head and body.

[Shandris]

34. Gah, that gunk takes a MONTH to get off, I swear.

And it rubs little sore patches behind your ears.

Have some lotion or vaseline or something on hand for after you get home OP. The sticky gunk they use has a pretty high grit content and will do terrible things to your skin in soft spots. Not overly painful or anything, just...irritating as all get-outs. Otherwise, it goes pretty smoothly. You won't have any problems.

Good luck with your test!

[suston96]

50. All done.....but I didn't get to try to sleep with the CPAP....

I will get my results when I see the doctor. And yes, I gotta get that stuff off. Wetting it down worked on my head so I'll try a shower.

Another damn shower and it ain't even the end of the month.

[cbdo2007]

20. sleep apnea is actually way UNDER diagnosed

Most overweight men have it yet very few go in for treatment. I guess it's not that it's under diagnosed as just that most men won't seek treatment for it.

I was diagnosed with it at about 25 years old (and I'm not overweight) but I can't stand to sleep with the CPAP mask on so I never wear it. On the other hand, my grandfather swears by his and wears it every night.

[hedgehog]

30. One reason you never heard of it is that it was only identified about 40 years ago.

"In the 1950s as a medical student at the University of Chicago,<1> he was the first to intensively study the connection between rapid eye movement and dreaming. His fellow student Eugene Aserinsky had mentioned to him that "Dr. Kleitman and I think these eye movements might be related to dreaming".<2> Aserinsky, along with his and Dement's adviser Nathaniel Kleitman, had previously noticed the connection but hadn't considered it very interesting. Dement had an interest in psychiatry, which in those days considered dreams to be important, so he was excited by the discovery and was eager to pursue it. He began his work in sleep deprivation at Mount Sinai Hospital in the late 1950s – the early 1960s. He was among the first researchers to study sleeping subjects with the electroencephalogram (EEG), and he wrote "I believe that the study of sleep became a true scientific field in 1953, when I finally was able to make all-night, continuous recordings of brain and eye activity during sleep." Studying these recordings, he discovered and named the five stages of sleep.<3> In collaboration with Dr. Christian Guilleminault, Dement proposed the measure that is still used for the clinical definition of sleep apnea and the rating of its severity, the Apnea/Hyponea Index (AHI).

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_C._Dement

[REP]

31. For a while, few thought young, normal-weight women could have it; that thinking nearly killed me

When I first started having symptoms in my 20s, I was to I was "too young, too thin and too female" to have sleep apnea. By the time I was finally given a sleep study, I was having hallucinations, random blackouts and a sleeping sat ox of 68% (very low).

There are a lot of things that can cause sleep apnea. In my case, it's called mixed apnea - my brain 'forgets' to breathe plus abnormalities in the structures if the upper airways.

[Shandris]

33. I beleive most of the diagnoses are accurate.

Sleep apnea can range from pretty mild to downright severe, and causes everything from nonstop nightmares to potentially death. I stop breathing 42 times in 60 minutes of sleep according to studies I underwent, and have had vivid, lucid lifelong nightmares every single night until I finally started on one of those machines. Takes forever to get used to, but WOW...you have no idea what its like going from horrific mind-bending nightmares every night to gentle, relaxed sleep and the occasional pleasant dream. You want to talk about life-altering, that's it right there.

[BlackHoleSon]

35. I am a Registered Sleep Technologist

and have been in the field for almost 20 years.
I can tell you that OSA or obstructive sleep apnea is incredibly underdiagnosed.
There is no end to the # of patients who come in night after night, month after month, year after year with SEVERE cases of OSA. These are people, who when you are monitoring their studies at night, may have 1-2 apneas (a stoppage or significant decrease in airflow) in a minute. Each one of these events is usually accompanied by a significant oxygen desaturation - a resting O2 saturation is usually in the 90% range - we often see drops into the 50's and 60's, with sharp increase in the heart rate when the airway reopens and breathing resumes. In addition, each apnea is usually resolved with the patient WAKING UP, what we call an "arousal." For someone with moderate to severe OSA, it is not unusual for them to be waking up 60-120 times per HOUR.
Needless to say, this disorder is INCREDIBLY disruptive to sleep, with a lot of patients unable to get into any kind of deep, restful sleep. A lot of the patients I initially test remark they they feel more tired, more worn out when they get up then when they went to bed.
In addition, the physiological ramifications of having OSA are significant: hypertension, right-sided heart failure, increase in Diabetes for starters. We think a lot of hormones are released in the deeper stages of sleep, especially ones that manage metabolism. People with OSA are deprived greatly of that deeper sleep and thus have a harder time taking off weight. It becomes a vicious circle if left untreated.
Not everyone who has sleep apnea is even remotely fat. It has a lot to do with the structure of your upper airway. If you are overweight, it makes sense that you will probably have excess tissue in your neck that crowds your upper airway and causes it to collapse when you are in bed, in the relaxed state of sleep. However, many folks have retronathia or a "weak chin" that leaves very little room in the upper airway. Some of the worst cases of OSA I've seen have been in rail thin folks with "weak chins."
There is NO satisfactory treatment for OSA other than CPAP/BiPAP, which use positive airway to splint open your airway, much as air in a tire keeps it from going flat.
The other treatments - dental/oral appliances, surgery to remove excess upper airway tissue - may be helpful for a small percentage of patients, but they come nowhere near the efficacy of CPAP/BiPAP.
There may be some new treatments on the horizon that use electrical stimulation of the airway muscles to keep them from sagging and collapsing the upper airway.
Inability to tolerate the mask and the machine with CPAP therapy is probably our biggest problem. Many people who really, really need the therapy put it away in their closet. The good news is we are getting MUCH better at finding something that will work for just about anybody.
I encourage anyone who is diagnosed with OSA and has given up on their CPAP to contact their local Sleep Disorders Center to try again - chance are you WILL find something that works for you and get the treatment you need.
Historically, sleep apnea has been recognized for ages. In fact there is a character in Dickens named Pickwick (I assume from the "Pickwick Papers") who is described as having the stereotypical body type we see with many OSA patients - overweight, round, prone to falling asleep easily.
As far as increasing prevalence, I just suggest you compare any crowd photo from pre-WWII to anything current and it is easy to see why the incidence of OSA is increasing. We are getting fatter.
The government found in a study such a high percentage of truck drivers with OSA (I'm thinking 50% or more) that I believe there is now some requirement for OSA screening for OTR drivers. A sleepy driver is every bit as impaired as a drunk driver.
Please, seek out testing for you and your loved ones if you suspect OSA.
Signs and symptoms may include any of the following: BMI over 30, neck size 17 or greater,snoring, gasping for breath while asleep, non-refreshing sleep, falling asleep at inappropriate times during the day, problems with decision making and concentration, weak chin,irritability, depression, low sex drive, morning headaches, bloodshot and bulging eyes, hypertension that doesn't respond to medication.
The best news is that CPAP/BiPAP therapy will return you to getting normal, restorative sleep. On the testing we do, a patient on CPAP/BiPAP often has nearly perfect-looking sleep.

[Caretha]

41. That was a very informative reply

thank you for your time sharing that with us. It's always good to hear from someone who has the skill and knowledge in a field that most/many of us are not cognizant of.

[Odin2005]

37. Yes, they do. It was just not known untill recently.

[Hannah Bell]

38. rising weight has something to do with it.

[Nevernose]

44. That was my entire family's position.

Then a doctor at Mayo set us straight. A CPAP machine has literallly saved my mother's life; I'm just waiting until I go back to my doctor next week to get my own.

The sleep study, at least for me, was almost a formality. My wife diagnosed just fine when she said, "Honey, you stop breathing in your sleep all the time and I'm really worried about you."