Sleep Apnea Dave – Sleep Apnea Blog

The ultimate homemade alarm clock for sleep apnea

Have difficulty waking up?

With sleep apnea, sometimes adjustments to treatment can make a big difference. Telling your doctor might help too. Even changing to more regular sleep hours might make a difference for you.

But other times, when all else fails, a good alarm clock will get you out of bed.

Check this homemade alarm idea out.

It you have trouble waking up and need a boost, this alarm clock will certainly require some work to turn off each morning – and wake you up in the process.

It is an idea from Instructables.com, a website full of DIY projects.

Cheap and Easy Clock Hack for Heavy Sleepers – More DIY How To Projects

The quest to stop CPAP mask leaks

Being a patient with sleep apnea is a journey. It is a constant learning experience.

As I wrote last time, I’m on a quest to stop the air leaks associated with wearing a full face mask with my CPAP machine – to try to improve my sleep apnea treatment. I feel like I’ve tried everything, but fortunately, trying new things has lead to more progress in this quest.

I had been wearing a CPAP mask that had a lot of air leakage because it didn’t fit right. I’d sleep 8 or 9 hours and still not feel as awake as I would have liked.

After paying a visit to my local medical supplier where a therapist fitted me with a new mask that seemed to fit just right, my first night’s experience was great. I actually awoke in the morning feeling refreshed.

Refreshed?

Yes, refreshed.

It was an unfamiliar feeling.

It lasted for a good week or so until the bridge of my nose started getting red from having the mask on too tight. Then I had to adapt further. But that is a sleep apnea story for another day…

Are you on the CPAP mask air leak quest? Have you had to try multiple CPAP masks to get it right?

Full-face mask leaks? Time for a CPAP mask fitting

Many of us with obstructive sleep apnea have been prescribed a CPAP with a face mask for treatment. It does work well for many people. However, not everyone wins all of the time, especially with air leaks on full-face style CPAP masks. Air leaks, air leaks, air leaks.

Air leaks blowing air in the eyes and causing us to wake up at night irritated or giving us itchy eyes in the morning
Air leaks making a loud flapping/buzzing sound and waking us up several times throughout the night
Air leaks reducing the level of Continuous Positive Airway Pressure the CPAP machine is supposed to give us, leaving us tired during the day and without the full benefits of treatment

I’ve been having these problems with my full-face mask more often lately than not. This means treatment is suboptimal.

What can one do in this situation when air leaks are a regularly disruptive occurrence? How can one beat the sheep and get the sleep?

Good and bad ideas:

Good: Read your mask’s manual. Make sure it is adjusted and cleaned properly.
Better: Try different adjustments and sleeping in different positions. Call your medical provider for guidance.
Bad: Wait 6 months until your next scheduled doctor’s appointment to mention it. Hope it remedies itself before then.
Worse: Drink more coffee to make up for the tiredness from lack of good sleep. The increased coffee then makes you more sensitive while sleeping, thereby creating a vicious cycle.
Worst: Stop using the CPAP altogether.

My response to the situation (after I realized coffee was not the answer): call my local medical supply provider and arrange a fitting for a new mask of a different size or style. I’m hoping this is the best solution.

My fitting was today.

Air leaks are one of the potential challenges of wearing a CPAP mask. CPAP masks need to really fit right to avoid air leaks. I believe each mask fits each individual slightly different.

This belief was confirmed at today’s fitting. I tried 3 different masks.

The practitioner hooked up the CPAP at my pressure setting. Then, we worked together to adjust the angle settings and strap pressure of each mask.

The first two masks just kept leaking no matter what we tried. I was surprised. This was the same situation I was experiencing with the mask I had at home. My thoughts:

Why are these masks not fitting? Did my face change? What do I do now?

Luckily, the last mask I tried ended up fitting like a glove. No leaks. I was relieved.

The practitioner let the CPAP run for 5 minutes with me moving my head around and putting some simulated pillow pressure on it. It seemed to hold up.

Tonight will be the real test.

I think this goes to show that what works for one person may work entirely different for another. And there might just be a better solution for you out there.

Maybe your solution will be a CPAP mask fitting.

Is your CPAP mask working? Did you ever need to change masks? Did you give up the CPAP and try one of the many other sleep apnea treatment alternatives?

Could the secret to sleep apnea treatment success be thinking about the future?

I read an article by the Associated Press “Future-minded people healthier” citing a study by Kansas State University researchers on the healthy lifestyle choices people make.

The study found that healthier lifestyle decisions are made by people who are future-minded as compared to present-minded.

According to the article, present-minded people need immediate rewards. Future-minded people understand the long-term implications of a decision today and will make better decisions.

This has me thinking about sleep apnea treatment success in relation to future-minded and present-minded thinking.

One of the big issues in sleep apnea today is compliance. Patients are failing to use prescribed CPAP machines because, well, CPAPs are not particularly convenient or comfortable. I wonder if a future study will one day show that future-minded sleep apnea patients are more compliant with treatment versus present-minded patients.

Would you think that a present-minded patient would ignore some of the long-term benefits of treatment if the CPAP doesn’t help them eliminate daytime sleepiness and feel more awake “right-now”?

Could it be implied that future-minded patients will put up with any short-term discomfort because treatment today has long-term benefits?

SleepGuide Forum and ASAA Apnea Support Forum - Success and Fail from a sleep apnea patient blogger's perspective

As a sleep apnea patient with a blog, I thought I was onto something when I heard about Mythbusters’ Adam Savage having sleep apnea. I thought fellow people with sleep apnea would like to know and feel encouraged that they are not alone.

SleepGuide Sleep Apnea Forum

After I wrote about it here on SleepApneaDave.com, I thought mentioning it on the SleepGuide Forum would reach more people. I’m just a little blog. SleepGuide is a huge active community. So, I created a sleep apnea forum post about Mythbusters, linking back to my blog post here on SleepApneaDave.com.

The response on SleepGuide was great and many people provided feedback and it spawned a good discussion about celebrities and sleep apnea. SleepGuide is an active sleep apnea community, a mixture of medical professionals and patients, and everyone helps each other out.

I walked away feeling very inspired by the community to try to help further.

SleepGuide Sleep Apnea Forum: SUCCESS

Based on the level of interest I saw on SleepGuide, I went onto ASAA’s Apnea Support Forum (apneasupport.org) to share the link.

ASAA’s Apnea Support Forum

On ASAA’s Apnea Support Forum I went into the “Interesting Links” section and posted something similar. Maybe it would brighten someone else’s day. Not so.

A day or so later my post was removed, deleted, gone. This is the response I received in my inbox:

“Your recent posts breach the Posting Guidelines for this forum, and have been moderated.

I have pasted the relevant section below.

Websites or Blogs operated by Patients or Medical Professionals:
Links to websites or blogs operated by patients or individual medical professionals will not be permitted. Also, excessive promotion of these types of websites will not be permitted. The ASAA provides this forum website as a source of open discussion. This forum does not monitor, endorse or promote individual expressions of related issues provided on other private websites. Therefore, posts which provide links to or promotes these types of websites will be moderated.
I must also request that the link to your site, contained in your signature file, be removed.

Daniel.”

I did make a mistake in failing to fully read the policy and they had a right to delete my post given their policy. And I understand where they’re coming from.

Still, I think ASAA’s policy sucks, to put it bluntly. ASAA allows links to articles in magazines like NYTimes.com and links to medical websites like ImThera but stipulates:

“This forum does not monitor, endorse or promote individual expressions of related issues provided on other private websites.”

Not allowing links to the medical professional community and patient bloggers seems old-school. This is 2010, the post-Web 2.0 era of the maturity of the online community. Organizations should be leveraging the community not fighting against it. Build a good forum and it will regulate itself.

ASAA’s Apnea Support Forum: FAIL

People like me do blogs and participate in sleep apnea communities because of what we perceive to be inefficiencies in the “system” (an eager medical community who’s hands are tied by government and insurance company policies). In the US alone, there are potentially tens of millions of Americans unaware and untreated for sleep apnea, a potentially deadly condition. Organizations representing sleep apnea need the medical and patient community to help it do things in the best interests of sleep apnea patients, to do what’s right.

The community can be a powerful tool to help augment success and reduce failure.

Did you know Adam from Mythbusters has sleep apnea?

I was surprised to learn last night during Mythbusters on the Discovery Channel that Adam Savage has sleep apnea.

As defined by the American Academy of Sleep Medicine, obstructive sleep apnea (OSA) is “a sleep-related breathing disorder that involves a decrease or complete halt in airflow despite an ongoing effort to breathe.”

During a portion of the show, Jamie and Adam were seeing if putting a sleeping person’s hand in warm water while sleeping would cause the person to, well,…wet the bed.

Mythbusters - Jamie and Adam. Adam, right, has sleep apnea.

To test this, someone had to reach a deep sleep first. So, the Mythbusters headed to a sleep center where deep sleep could be measured.

The Mythbusters were hooked up to a “polysomnogram” machine at the sleep center to measure their brainwaves. The goal was to determine when they were truly asleep and then place one of their hands in warm water and see what happens. Jamie tried first. He tried for a few hours but was unable to fall asleep. Adam went next.

When it was Adam’s turn, Jamie mentioned that it would be hard for Adam to be truly asleep because Adam has sleep apnea. The monitoring of Adam’s brainwaves revealed how Adam failed to reach a deep sleep because apnea causes improper breathing while sleeping. The American Academy of Sleep Medicine points out what happens during sleep apnea to prevent proper sleeping:

“The brain responds to the lack of oxygen by alerting the body, causing a brief arousal from sleep that restores normal breathing. This pattern can occur hundreds of times in one night. The result is a fragmented quality of sleep that often produces an excessive level of daytime sleepiness.”

Watching the Mythbusters get hooked up at the sleep center reminded me of my own experience of being tested for sleep apnea. When I asked my doctor about my snoring, I was sent to a sleep center like the one in the show. I was hooked up and measured. The expert staff discovered I had severe obstructive sleep apnea. I started treatment and here I am today, years later, happy to be treated.

Let’s hope Adam is getting proper treatment too. I hope Adam doesn’t believe the myth that sleep apnea treatment only reduces daytime sleepiness. The potential impacts of never being diagnosed or failing to comply with treatment are not a myth:

Fluctuating oxygen levels
Increased heart rate
Chronic elevation in daytime blood pressure
Increased risk of stroke
Higher rate of death due to heart disease
Impaired glucose tolerance and insulin resistance
Impaired concentration
Mood changes
Increased risk of being involved in a deadly motor vehicle accident
Disturbed sleep of the bed partner

As a Mythbusters fan, I’d love to see more about snoring and sleep apnea myths. Imagine the positive awareness it could create on a condition that impacts a lot of people!

How to get your spouse to see a doctor about snoring and maybe even save your spouse's life

It took years of nagging and my wife sleeping in a different room to get me to ask my doctor about ways to control snoring.

When I finally went, my savvy primary care physician asked me a series of questions that helped to simply identify the likely cause for the snoring. My doctor had me go to a sleep center for a sleep study. I ultimately ended up diagnosed with severe sleep apnea and am extremely happy to now get proper treatment.

Sleep apnea can be life threatening.

If I knew that my snoring and daytime sleepiness could be sleep apnea-related, I would have gone to the doctor many years earlier. I missed out on years of treatment.

I cannot be the only stubborn husband (or wife) out there.
Continue reading How to get your spouse to see a doctor about snoring and maybe even save your spouse’s life

Does your spouse/ brother/ friend/ roommate gasp while sleeping?

Does your sleep-mate look like this video when sleeping? Do you notice gasping or periods of not breathing while sleeping?

This video shows a typical breathing pattern of someone who has sleep apnea. An “apnea” is an episode of not breathing and varies in frequency. Mild sleep apnea may mean apnea occurrences a handful of times whereas severe sleep apnea can mean apnea episodes almost every minute. Someone with sleep apnea is likely to experience excessive daytime sleepiness, having trouble concentrating, waking up feeling tired, and other symptoms. The individual should ask their doctor about it.

Traveling with Sleep Apnea #3 - At the Hotel

If you have sleep apnea and use a CPAP or BiPAP machine for treatments, always bring an extension cord for your CPAP machine when traveling.

I only had to learn this lesson once when the cord for my CPAP machine was too far from the nearest power outlet! Believe me, sleeping on the floor is no fun – with or without sleep apnea!!

Most hotels have ready access to electrical outlets, but some may only have a power outlet on the other side of the room away from the bed- regardless of whether it is an expensive hotel or not. Other times, the power outlet by the bed is taken up by the light and alarm clock – both of which you may want to keep plugged in. Unfortunately, hotel designers are often unaware of the needs of people with sleep apnea who may need to plug-in a CPAP or BiPAP machine.

If you arrive at a hotel without a place to easily plug-in a CPAP machine and you forgot an extension cord, a back-up plan is to place a call into the hotel service desk. Though most travelers would rather avoid that so they can get on with traveling.

What type of extension cord do you need for a CPAP or BiPAP machine?

The extension cord can be basic and small. A length around 8-10 feet (3 meters) should do fine. If you don’t want to carry an extension cord, call the hotel ahead of time and tell them you have a powered medical device for sleeping and need a power outlet within 5 feet of the top of the bed. A good hotel should be able to help and have an extension cord ready when you arrive. Calling ahead will help avoid any stress.

A bonus tip is to take a look at both your CPAP machine’s and you extension cord’s plug. Make sure the CPAP will plug in. In the US, if the extension cord is 3-prong, bring a 3-prong outlet adapter – because some old or historic hotels may only have 2 prong outlet. It has happened to me too!

Hopefully, these tips will allow sleep apnea patients to reliability use CPAP and BiPAP machines while traveling.

For more tips about traveling with sleep apnea, be sure to read:

Experimental sleep apnea device stimulates tongue

According to Technology Review, a new experimental device may help those with Obstructive Sleep Apnea (OSA) by stimulating the tongue while sleeping. The device by ImThera is in its first sets of clinical trials.

ImThera’s sleep apnea device uses Targeted Hypoglossal Neurostimulation (THN) Sleep Therapy to stimulate the tongue to control upper airway flow, stopping or reducing sleep apnea.

According to ImThera, “The THN sleep therapy system will help moderate‐to‐severe OSA patients who cannot or will not comply with CPAP as a first line therapy. It is designed to reduce or eliminate OSA events in these patients, therefore restoring normal breathing and restful sleep while diminishing the progression of associated diseases.”

The device is comprised of a power generator implanted below the skin at the top of the chest. A wire runs to the stimulator on the tongue.

This has the potential to be the solution some sleep apnea patients need. Imagine never having to wear a CPAP mask ever again!

Let’s hope for the best with the trials.

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The ultimate homemade alarm clock for sleep apnea

The quest to stop CPAP mask leaks

Full-face mask leaks? Time for a CPAP mask fitting

Could the secret to sleep apnea treatment success be thinking about the future?

SleepGuide Forum and ASAA Apnea Support Forum - Success and Fail from a sleep apnea patient blogger's perspective

SleepGuide Sleep Apnea Forum

ASAA’s Apnea Support Forum

Did you know Adam from Mythbusters has sleep apnea?

How to get your spouse to see a doctor about snoring and maybe even save your spouse's life

Does your spouse/ brother/ friend/ roommate gasp while sleeping?

Traveling with Sleep Apnea #3 - At the Hotel

Experimental sleep apnea device stimulates tongue

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Categories

Disclaimer

Archives

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SleepGuide Sleep Apnea Forum

ASAA’s Apnea Support Forum

Recent