I Stuck My Head In a Pencil Sharpener

Well, at least that's what it felt like. My mind went from dull back to sharp in literally one night!

For several years in the back of my mind I knew I had some degree of sleep apnea. After all its been a few years since my wife has slept in the same bed with me due to my earth shattering snoring. I had all the physical signs, my wife and kids would tell me I would stop breathing throughout the night only to burst out with a loud gasp for air, I would wake up groggy in the morning (I'm normally a morning person), I would fall asleep in my chair at the office almost every afternoon, and I could never make it through watching a movie without dozing off. My mind was not as sharp as it used to be and I knew it.

We are preparing to go on a family vacation in the near future and my wife brought it to my attention that if I didn't do something about my snoring, I would have to invest in getting my own separate hotel room. She was speaking in a language I could understand, If I didn't do something, this vacation was going to cost double all because I don't want to have the official diagnosis of having sleep apnea.

However I knew it was time to do something about it, and I'm glad I did! This is my story:

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What Is Sleep Apnea?

There is an entire article on Wikipedia concerning the subject. In simple terms, sleep apnea is where you stop breathing for a period longer than 10 seconds while you are sleeping. There are three core things you need to sustain life, the ABCs. Airway, Breathing, and Circulation. Take one of those away and well, you die.

There are two types of apneas, central (CSA) and obstructive (OSA). I have obstructive. This simply means that the fat around my neck and throat cause my airway to collapse at some point creating an obstruction to prevent the air from reaching the lungs. When this occurs the oxygen level in my blood would drop preventing my brain, heart, and other organs from getting the proper amount of oxygen while you sleep. The end result was that after stopping breathing throughout the night my body was not getting the proper rest leaving me tired when I wake.

My Problem

Before I developed apnea I know my brain was a lot sharper than it was. However without proper amounts of oxygen reaching my brain this severely affected my memory. I could be talking to someone, ask them a question, then come back and ask them the very same question a few minutes later. I've also been famous for kissing my wife as I leave for work in the morning 3 or 4 times before I finally walk out the door. And there is the snoring..... I can say its been years since me and my wife slept in the same bed, or room. Well that would have been our last vacation in 2007 and it wasn't a pleasant experience. Everyone (except me) wore ear plugs to bed and had pink noise generators turned up full blast.

OSA is rated by your Apnea Hypopnea Index (AHI). This is calculated by averaging the number of apnea events you have in an hour. My AHI was at the bad end of the scale, in fact nearly off the scale at 41.

The Solution

I knew what the solutions was, I needed a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine. This machine supplies a flow of air to a mask to maintain a set pressure to help keep the airway open. Imagine blowing up a balloon in your throat. The problem is that you can't purchase this machine without a prescription, and that prescription requires a sleep study. I absolutely dreaded the thought of having to go to some sleep center and trying to sleep all night with #1: someone watching me and #2: with little probes all over my body.

I checked with my doctor and found out that he would have to refer me out to a sleep specialist, who will conduct a sleep test, review the results, issue an initial prescription, rent a CPAP machine, use it for a few days, go back in, have the pressures adjusted, sleep some more, go back in have the pressure adjusted again, and continue to repeat this process for the rest of my life. I then checked with my insurance company to find out that I would end of paying my maximum out of pocket for this process.

There has to be a better way, and there is! A friend introduced me to secondwindcpap.com. Their representatives directed me toward having a in-home sleep test done. Once I did that and received a prescription I could purchase the equipment.

I found a company that would do an in-home sleep test at 1800cpap.com for only $249 (price at the time). They ship you the test equipment with instructions for you to wear overnight in the comfort of your own bed. Then you ship the equipment back for them to review.

The results came back stating that I had SEVERE sleep apnea with an AHI of 41.

Once I had the prescription I contacted the team at secondwindcpap.com and was able to purchase the equipment: