I have put the concern about having sleep apnea on the backburner for a few years now. At this point, the wife wears ear plugs when I am at home because my snoring has gotten so bad.
My plan was to ignore getting tested, and just lose weight. You know, via diet and exercise. Well, I think I have put this off for so long that I am just too tired at the end fo the day to even think about exercise. I've noticed for quite some time that I am just not as alert as I used to be, and obviously, I'm always tired.
I've been monitoring my sleep via an app and my apple watch. I'm lucky to show 4 hours of restful sleep, and none of it is for more than 30 minutes at a time, if I'm lucky. Something is obviously preventing me from staying in a deep sleep for any amount of time, usually no more than about 10 minutes.
I emailed the folks at NASTC this evening, and got surprised by a phone call from the person I emailed. We talked about the testing procedure that I would be doing at home. First would be an oxygen level test. Basically putting a monitor on my finger to monitor oxygen levels overnight. From there, if that test indicates any sore of concern regarding potential sleep apnea, they will recommend the sleep study, again done at home.
If it turns out I do have sleep apnea (I am almost positive that I do), I will get a machine, and then have a zoom meeting with the doctor that they use in order to explain the machine to me and guide me through setting it up.
A couple reasons I am doing this. First, because sleep apnea obviously leads to more complicated health problems. 2nd, I want to speed up the process of getting healthy again, and I think the lack of energy from not getting rest is causing a major problem there.
One key discussion we had was getting off of the machine and cleared of having sleep apnea, because I have no intention of wearing this thing my entire life. I will if I have to, but if the problem goes away as I lose weight, I don't want to continue having to wear it because of DOT. He told me that they routinely get people off of the machine as well. Sometimes, they do it via the oxygen level test with and without the machine, sometimes it is required to do another sleep study, all depending on the DOT physical location.
I would be tempted to just not tell them when I get my physical, but I think it is better to be up front about it.
My plan was to ignore getting tested, and just lose weight. You know, via diet and exercise. Well, I think I have put this off for so long that I am just too tired at the end fo the day to even think about exercise. I've noticed for quite some time that I am just not as alert as I used to be, and obviously, I'm always tired.
I've been monitoring my sleep via an app and my apple watch. I'm lucky to show 4 hours of restful sleep, and none of it is for more than 30 minutes at a time, if I'm lucky. Something is obviously preventing me from staying in a deep sleep for any amount of time, usually no more than about 10 minutes.
I emailed the folks at NASTC this evening, and got surprised by a phone call from the person I emailed. We talked about the testing procedure that I would be doing at home. First would be an oxygen level test. Basically putting a monitor on my finger to monitor oxygen levels overnight. From there, if that test indicates any sore of concern regarding potential sleep apnea, they will recommend the sleep study, again done at home.
If it turns out I do have sleep apnea (I am almost positive that I do), I will get a machine, and then have a zoom meeting with the doctor that they use in order to explain the machine to me and guide me through setting it up.
A couple reasons I am doing this. First, because sleep apnea obviously leads to more complicated health problems. 2nd, I want to speed up the process of getting healthy again, and I think the lack of energy from not getting rest is causing a major problem there.
One key discussion we had was getting off of the machine and cleared of having sleep apnea, because I have no intention of wearing this thing my entire life. I will if I have to, but if the problem goes away as I lose weight, I don't want to continue having to wear it because of DOT. He told me that they routinely get people off of the machine as well. Sometimes, they do it via the oxygen level test with and without the machine, sometimes it is required to do another sleep study, all depending on the DOT physical location.
I would be tempted to just not tell them when I get my physical, but I think it is better to be up front about it.
