[Diagnosis] Just received my results... unsure about what would be best!

[catalina]

I just received my results over the phone, will be getting the report sometime today by email. I did the test at home with a machine around my torso and a saturation thing on my finger.

I am 38 years old, mom to three young daughters. I have high blood pressure (treated with Spirolactone and Diovan with HCT), a glucose intolerance (treated with metformin) and I am morbidly obese (BMI about 42).

I am always tired, especially in the afternoon. I wake up at least 3 times a night.

I finally did the apnea test after a year of having my Dr asking me too since she was convinced it was the reason for me having such a lack of energy.

According to what I have received as information so far, I have mild apnea. On my back I have 6 an hour. On my side its 9 an hour. Saturation is good at about 95%, did go down to 87% for 2 minutes. Alot of snoring. Clinic said the Dr wanted to see me and meet with me to decide what would be the best option for me. Especially since my symptoms are severe but my results are mild. The CPAP, positional therapy or a mouth piece to sleep with. My meeting with the Dr should take place sometime in February.

Any advice?? Your experiences??
I am a little diappointed, I think I would have liked to be able to blame my tiredness on sleep apnea. But with such a mild case, could it still be the cause? And with all my other underlying problems, should I go ahead with the machine to help?

Thanks, Caroline

[PollCat]

, catalina

I'm probably not going to be of much help, but others on the forum should will be along shortly to provide some answers.

How many hours a night do you actually sleep? This could be an issue of quantity versus quality of sleep.

[catalina]

I normally get around 7 hours of sleep a night.

[surferdude2]

Hi catalina! What I posted in another thread may give you some insight into how to prepare for your conference with your doctor. It's important to know some of the options so you can mention them as possibilities for treatment. Good luck with whatever you choose to do.

Folks with mild sleep apnea who cannot easily tolerate the PAP therapy still have options for minimizing or eliminating their apnea problem. Sometimes merely changing their pillow is all that is needed. Other times it requires sleeping on their side instead of their back. If insisting on back sleeping, elevating the upper body by using a wedge pillow or equal, or sleeping in a recliner, can work. The mandibular displacement devices also work for many people with mild cases of apnea. There are also nasal inserts that can provide relief from stuffiness that aggravates some apnea sufferers.

Then neck and throat exercise along with losing some weight, when indicated, can also work in concert with some of the things mentioned above to give sufficient relief to escape the PAP machine.

PAP treatment is often referred to as the "gold standard" for apnea treatment to infer that it works as well as gold does for value. In some cases the "gold" part of that standard often refers to the cash cow that the medical mafia has created out of this treatment option. It would be foolish to ignore the simple options mentioned before submitting to what amounts to an expensive, inconvenient and often uncomfortable device when it may not be necessary.

Educating yourself is the best way to ensure that your prescribed treatment is suitable, proper and necessary for your level of apnea. Do not be afraid to try something other than the "gold standard" since it's your gold and your well being that is at stake and the simplest and least invasive method is often the best way to go. If in doubt, discuss these options with your doctor and let him know that you are prepared to take an active part in your treatment plan.

Best regards, Dude

[trish6hundred]

Hi catalina,
WELCOME! to the forum.!
If you decide to go with CPAP therapy, check out the following link. it is full of information to help in your decision. http://www.apneaboard.com/wiki/index.php...ne_Choices
Hang in there for more responses to your post.
Good luck to you aon your decision and much success to you.

[Tez62]

Welcome catalina, glad you found us, sorry you didnt get the results you were after but you still have sleep apnea, personnally, I don't like home sleep tests, I don't believe they are as accurate as a clinic / hospital over night sleep study.
First, I would be trying to see your Dr ASAP you don't want to leave it any longer than you have to.
You say you only wake up 3 times a night, you are actually waking up a lot more than that, everytime you have an apnea (stop breathing for 10 secs or more) you wake up either conciously or subconciously, so in your case at least 9 times an hour.
Each time you stop breathing you you go into a fight or flight response and blood rushes to your vital organs, your heart and brain, imagine the stress this puts on your body.
Apart from your other health issues this is one of the reasons you are tired.
When we are tired, we don't want to exercise and want to eat more to boost our energy levels, by not exercising and eating more we put on more weight, our apnea gets worse and it is a vicious cycle.
I would suggest when you speak to your Dr you try a CPAP and see if it helps, I don't like mouth pieces as no one really knows if they work and you would still need to be monitored
to make sure it is working, a CPAP will do that for you.
CPAP is the gold standard treatment for sleep apnea even for people with mild sleep apnea.

Try to do something about this as soon as you can for the most important person, YOU, and so you can live a long life to see your daughters grow up, get married etc.
Untreated sleep apnea only gets worse and can cause other illnesses like heart attack, high blood pressure, depression, diabeties etc

Keep us updated and ask any questions you have, I'm sure there will be a lot and we can try and motivate you as much as possible.

[Amie87]

As with Tez said, home tests are not all that accurate, and had you had a sleep test in a clinic, you'd likely have had a higher AHI, here's why.

You recall waking up 3 times a night (or so) but you really wake up more than you're consciously aware. A sleep study is able to determine when you're asleep and what stage of sleep your in. As you drift into deeper sleep, with the goal being REM, you are being woke/aroused 6 to 9 times an hour. So basically, every 6-10 minutes you are being disturbed through the night.

Also, just a thought, but a lab test would have been able to determine when these episodes are happening and how much REM sleep you are getting.

Next, your AHI is probably higher because you are not sleeping from the moment you put the mask on until the moment you wake up. Which means, the machine calculates all your episodes from when you have your mask on, and averages it out from the time you start until the time you stop. It is unable to subtract the time it took you to fall asleep, any time you were woken/not sleeping throughout the night, and any time you were not asleep at the end of the test. Even if this only totals say 1h in a 7h window, that could still increase your AHI 1 or 2 points. Not a lot but still some.

And lastly (as with not being able to tell how much of your REM sleep is disturbed), everyone is different, and perhaps you, are one of the people that don't do well with even slight disturbances. Some people take a long time to fall asleep when they are aroused from sleep, other drift of instantly. Some people do well with sporadic sleep, others need solid sleep to feel restful.

My advice is, if you are able to get a sleep study in a lab done, I would recommend it. Even if you think you won't sleep much, they can get a lot of information from just a few hours of sleep, and they can also check for other sleep disorders while they are at it. If this is not an option, you could try the mouth piece if you want, I'd weigh the costs. I know here in Ontario a basic CPAP system is $215 out of pocket with no private insurance, but since mouth pieces are not covered by the provincial (or most private insurance), it's about 1-2 thousand. Although there are some you can buy off the internet and mold yourself at home.

[catalina]

Yeah here the test to sleep in a lab is over 1500$. The machine is about 1400$ but my insurance covers 80%. I cant have my test done in the hospital since it has to be a pneumologist that requests it and it was requested by my internal medicine Dr (Im in Quebec).

Mind you since I am seeing the Pneumologist for my results, perhaps I could ask him about having the test done in the hospital.

I think I will go with the CPAP. The fact that I am waking up 6-9 times an hour obviously means I am not getting the deep sleep I need to get.

Top that with my high blood pressure, obesity and pre-diabetic status, I think it would be wise to get the machine and start getting use to it now. I have heard wonderful things about how it changes peoples lives, hopefully it can help me to get better sleep.

[Tez62]

Catalina, now make sure you get the right machine, try and get an auto adjusting machine with data capability, that means it will adjust to the pressures you require and you can monitor what is happening each night minute by minute, this allows you to take your treatment into your own hands, good luck and keep us updated

[quiescence at last]

whether it changes your oxygen level or not, the therapy does knock out the snoring, and if you really were being disturbed that often, there is no way you could be sleeping well enough for your body and brain to heal itself. good luck.