Patient Stories - Mike's Story

Sleepy Teacher Wakes Up to Sleep Apnea

I Had All the Symptoms

There I was: male, 50ish, 50 pounds overweight, size 18-1/2 neck. I had high blood pressure and acid reflux with heartburn. My wife said not only did I snore like a hog, I choked, gasped, snorted and gurgled, and then would suddenly quit it all until I started again with a choking gasp. She also complained that I tossed and turned and kicked all night.

For years I had been getting sleepier and sleepier. I went to bed early, but woke up the next morning feeling dragged out and unrested. I used to sit on the edge of the bed in the morning and count the hours till I could take a nap. I fell asleep at work, and I am a teacher. I had 32 beady little pairs of eyes just waiting for me to nod off! I fell asleep during the 5 o'clock news. I dragged off to bed at 8:30 or 9:00 at night and woke up the next morning to start the whole thing all over.

I could not drive any distance in the car without having to pull over and let my wife drive while I went to sleep. My wife claimed that I was irritable and that I had occasional bouts of depression. But the most telling symptom of all was that I totally denied that I had any sort of sleep disorder.

I thought it must be the medication I was taking. I searched the net for information on my pills, to figure out which one was making me drowsy. Meantime, my wife, being wiser and more realistic, was using the search engines to look for sleep, then sleep disorder, and finally narrowing down her search to sleep apnea. She found many wonderful web sites, including this one, which simply confirmed her suspicions. She even downloaded an audio file of an apnea patient snoring, which she played for me and told me that it sounded exactly like I did.

Seeing the Doctor

So I finally gave in to her and agreed, reluctantly, to mention the sleepiness to my doctor. I still hoped he would identify it as a side effect of medications. Fortunately, my primary care physician is a wise and well-informed doctor, and he immediately referred me to an accredited sleep specialist in our town. I think my home town of Merced, CA. (population 50,000) is one of the few towns of our size to have an accredited sleep doctor and sleep lab.

The sleep specialist gave me an appointment and asked me to bring my wife along. On arrival there, we were both given checklists to complete. I was blithely going down my list, making a check mark here and there, when I glanced over to see my wife occupied with making one big black X after another on her form. Words ensued, and when the doctor got the forms mine was a little more realistic than it originally was! The doctor looked at the forms, checked my nose and throat, and promptly scheduled me for a sleep study.

Other pages on this website describe the sleep study. I will just say that it was neither painful nor uncomfortable, not really even inconvenient. The tech was very good about explaining what was happening to me. She told me that if I met the criteria in the first part of the study they would put me on a CPAP for the second part and determine the proper setting.

Well, to make a long story short, my study showed an Apnea-Hypopnea index of 105 and a blood oxygen saturation of 75%! I did get the mask for the second part of the night and they titrated it at 14 cm of water pressure for my optimum pressure. When I met with the sleep doctor, he translated this very simply for me: severe obstructive sleep apnea and a dire need for immediate CPAP usage!

Adjusting to CPAP

Fortunately my Blue Cross insurance was very co-operative, and a very nice respiratory tech fitted me with a Sullivan 5 CPAP and a Mirage mask with a cold-water passover humidifier, since I had a history of nose bleeds. He spent a long time explaining how to use and care for it. Initially the doctor prescribed 10 cm and planned to raise it if I adjusted well. Eventually he raised it to 14 cm.

I had no trouble with the CPAP in the sleep study, and I adjusted to CPAP use from the very first night at home. I did experience a little dryness and congestion, but the doctor prescribed Nasonex and that helped. The noise of the machine was minimal, and my wife said she vastly preferred it to my snoring. From the very first night, the snoring quit almost entirely, and my wife reported I did not toss and turn and kick nearly so much.

Feeling Better!

It took a little longer for me to notice results, but gradually over the next few weeks I found that I could now wake up in the morning feeling refreshed, that I could make it through the school day without nodding off, and that I could stay up a lot later in the evening. I was watching TV programs that had always been too late for me before! I also was able to drive for hours without scaring my passengers or myself. In addition I found that my daily blood pressure readings were in a whole new range. I was averaging 10 to 15 points below where I was before. After about a month on CPAP, it also dawned on me that I was no longer having the violent attacks of acid reflux heartburn that I had suffered for many years. I have not had a single reflux incident since starting CPAP! Click here for more on Reflux and Sleep Apnea.

I have now (September 2001) been on my CPAP for 1 year! Everything is great! My whole lifestyle has changed in a positive manner. I feel vastly better than I have for years. My wife is totally delighted, and says not only does she not have to put up with the snoring any longer, but my bouts of irritability and depression are gone too! In fact she has practically become the poster girl for sleep studies, and has gotten two of her friends to nag their husbands into sleep studies and both husbands are on CPAP now! The sleep study is truly the best thing a doctor has ever done for me.

I welcome e-mail and would be glad to discuss my experiences with any one who is interested, and my wife would love to hear from concerned wives!

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