OT: Depression

Continuous Positive Airway Pressure. This treatment (via mask or special pillow) is for persons with sleep apnea. While it works well for many, it isn't suitable for everyone and is a huge annoyance when traveling.

Both my parents now use these, and they look like spacemen with them on. It was pretty funny when my youngest saw them in these things for the first time. She wasn't scared, but she stood there, totally speechless, when she went to wake them! This is not a kid who is speechless much, so it was doubly funny to me.

Caryn

Now I wonder who she takes after! (Duck!)

Pat P

Elizabeth

Yep, you definitely need to investigate. My DH went through a sleep study to discover the problem and then stayed through another night a few weeks later working with various machines to see which worked best for him. He went to a youth group lock in as a chaperone and wouldn't go without it! The kids had a blast teasing him, but he told them it was either that or they all stay up all night listening to him snore! DH's ENT (ear, nose and throat doctor) ordered the sleep study. We had originally gone to see about his sinus problems and ended up with this diagnosis instead.

I explained to my DH that his snoring was such an issue that I was losing sleep and if he wanted to remain sleeping in the same room with me, he would do something about it pronto. The next step after sleeping in separate rooms would have been separate houses, and he knew he had to do something fast! Shortly afterwards, his father also did a sleep study and found that he also has sleep apnea and has to use the CPAP as well.

Hopefully your DH will see how much it affects you and will do something about it that will not only help you, but will make him feel a lot better too!

Dannielle

I hope others have better luck in persuading their DHs to have a sleep study. Mine just snorts in derision!!! Still, after 51 years I`m pretty much used to it, and with the help of my radio/CD player I cope OK. If I leave the World News on I get more nightmares, though! Beethoven`s Pastorale gives me good dreams!!! If I get to sleep before the thunderstorm bit, that is!

Pat P

Pat P

I know how that is, Pat. My NSDH won't do anything either. So I won't let him sleep in the bedroom with me anymore. He's bad enough I can still hear him through two closed doors or on the other level of the house. And that's with his CD playing and my TV on! I leave The Weather Channel on overnight because they run the same dozen commercials all the time and the background music for the local weather is usually soothing.

The tragedy is that it's not just about the snoring. People with sleep apnea don't get enough rest because they rarely complete a full sleep cycle. Instead, they're interrupted by the inability to breathe. I rarely woke up enough to know that I had stopped breathing, but it definitely interferred with my rest. I feel so incredibly much better since getting my machine. It's like a whole new me, truly.

Elizabeth

Thanks, Elizabeth, this is very reassuring!! I was JUST given my diagnosis for sleep apnea yesterday, and am not looking forward to living life with a CPAP machine. I'm 36 and still single....all I can think about is how to not make CPAP a turnoff for any potential life partners LOL.

Jinx

I wouldn`t dare have seperate rooms - in case either of us was taken ill in the night and neither of us heard (both being in our seventies and with heart and other assorted problems!).

Pat P

I'm interested in the level of sickness in this newsgroup! Particularly the staggering numbers of people across the States whose life and breathing depends on the CPAP.

Several years ago my mother was rushed to the hospital, blue and not breathing. They administered the CPAP and after several days of stearoids, etc, she was released as an enigma!!!!!!!!!!! They could not find any reason why she lost her breath to begin with.

She lives on the ocean on Long Island where they spray for mosquitoes to prevent West Nile Virus. The pesticide they use by crop plane is malathion. Nothing conclusive was ever proved, but this has to have something to do with a person who can't breath an hour after they spray.

I'm sorry to those who have any reas>Thanks, Elizabeth, this is very reassuring!! I was JUST given my

When it gets to that point, let the partner spend the night with you without it. My DH far prefers the noise the CPAP makes to the noise I make without it! LOL! And he prefers it to wondering when I'll start to breathe again and if he should wake me.

I was amazed at what a difference using the CPAP made to how I feel in general. I had to wait about 6 weeks after my calibration test before my machine was delivered and that one night had made such a difference that I thought I would go nuts waiting.

Elizabeth

My town on Long Island always used trucks. They had loud speakers on them announcing their arrival and ordering us to close our windows and stay inside for an hour or something like that. This was over 25 yrs ago, not sure if they have updated the system since then!

That spray hung in the air for hours and stank to high heaven!

Caryn

Brenda Lewis wrote:

Actually, where they spray is behind the barrier island, Fire Island. There is a very large wildlife estuary where sea turtles nest, osprey, barn swallows and about 70 different migratory species. They can use bacillus thurngiensis, which is a nautrally occurring pathogen which doesn't permit the larva from becoming mosquitoes. It comes in pellets and other type baits. It is not more expensive.

The whole thing is unbelievable. They preserve the estuary and shoot them with toxicity.

DH and I have seen TV bits on sleep studies but DH's comment is always: "How in the world can anyone get a normal night's sleep anyway with wires hooked up to their head & having to wear something when you usually don't"? Also, does a person with a CPAP always have to sleep on their back? I suspect DH could use one, at least sometimes, but I just can't see him sleeping with some kind of contraption on his head. I hate the idea of having some kind of noise all night long (one of the best things about living in the country is the absolute silence at night time) but would do it if it helped him sleep better. Liz from Humbug

The noise from the machine itself isn't that noticeable. And you don't have to sleep on your back. My DH goes from side to side and on his back...He doesn't stay put very well. He's never been a belly sleeper though and that's a bonus. There are also different face masks, not only just the ones that cover the whole face, but nasal ones like the oxygen at the hospital and such.

HTH Dannielle