The Story of Mike H.

Editor's Note: This story was written in January, 2002, a little over a year since Mike began his CPAP therapy. It has been updated to reflect that he has now been on CPAP for over two years!

A Story Of A Sleepy Teacher

When you are sitting in a classroom with thirty two pairs of little eyes watching you, it is not good to fall asleep! But that was what I was doing: falling asleep at work, in front of the TV, on the couch, and trying to when I was driving. I came home after work to take a nap, then slept in my reclining chair while the TV blared, and dragged off to bed at nine o'clock, barely able to open my eyes. On weekends, I could easily sleep until noon and then take a nap in the afternoon. Then, my dear wife complained that when I did go to bed, I snored like a hog. But worse, she said, was the fact that I would suddenly stop snoring and hold my breath while she counted the seconds until I gasped, choked, snorted and started breathing again. She said I kicked all night and tossed and turned. She accused me of being irritable and I often felt depressed. Life was basically miserable!

I was a classic picture: a 50ish male, overweight, size 18 1/2 neck. I had suffered with high blood pressure for years and no medication seemed to control it. In addition I frequently woke up at night with terrible heartburn and increasingly strong pills did not help it. My wife got so worried that she started searching the Internet for sites like this one, and what she read formed a strong picture in her mind of a sleep disorder. She worked on me for years, and finally got me to agree to mention it to my primary physician. I still thought it would turn out to be a side effect of one of my medications. Fortunately, my primary physician is a wise and well trained doctor, and as soon as I listed my symptoms he referred me to an accredited sleep specialist.

Getting Diagnosed was easy, once I finally got there!

The sleep doctor asked me to bring my wife along to the initial appointment, and he had us both fill our questionnaires. I am afraid that my answers and my dear wife's answers looked slightly different! We had a few words, and by the time the doctor saw my sheet it bore a little more resemblance to reality. It didn't take the sleep doctor long - he examined me, looked down my throat, went down my list of symptoms and scheduled me for a full polysomnogram, an overnight sleep study in the hospital lab.

The sleep study was not bad at all. I even got to take along my own pillow! A nice technician hooked a whole bunch of wires to me and let me watch TV until I was sleepy. As usual, that was not very long, so off I went to bed. After about 2 hours the tech woke me up and fitted me with a mask over my nose, and told me that they were going to try to find a good pressure for me (I later learned that this is called "titration".) Even that night I did not have much trouble with the mask, and slept moderately well with it.

A few days later I visited the sleep doctor, and he told me that I had an Apnea Hypopnea Index (AHI) of 105 events per hour, and a minimum oxygen saturation of 75%. He said the oxygen should be over 98% and that the 105 events was a very severe case of apnea. In fact he would not let me leave his office until his staff had made an appointment for me to be fitted with a CPAP machine that very afternoon!

Fortunately my insurance was very co-operative and instantly authorized the rental of the machine. I visited a local DME supplier and a very nice respiratory tech gave me a selection of mask types to choose from and showed me how to fit and adjust it. I picked a Respironics Mirage mask and a Sullivan V CPAP. My initial pressure was set at 10, and the doctor told me he would increase it to 14 if I did well.

I took the machine home and set the "ramp" for 20 minutes, so it started at a pressure of 5 and gradually built up. I found it to be a very strange sensation, trying to breathe out against the pressure, but really not too bad to adjust to. I wore it all night the first night and never really had any serious problems adjusting to it. I did experience a little nasal congestion, and called the sleep doctor and he prescribed a spray for me which has helped ever since.

CPAP has changed my life!

My dear wife was immediately delighted, because I did not snore that night and never have since! She says that the soft whirr of the fan in the machine is greatly preferable to that horrible snoring. I did not really notice any big improvements right away, but just to keep her happy I stuck with it. In a few weeks I began to realize that I was no longer falling asleep in the classroom or behind the wheel, and my afternoon naps were pretty much gone. I started staying up later, and watching TV shows that I had always missed 
before!! My wife did not quite know what to do when I started getting up early on weekend mornings, because for years I had always slept till noon! In short I felt 100% better as the horrible tiredness slowly left me.

As I took my blood pressure daily, it began to fall and in just a few months was a full 15 points lower than it had been. Of course my primary physician was very happy with that! In addition, I soon realized that the frequent episodes of esophageal reflux that had been causing that awful heartburn had also ceased. In fact I have not had a single episode of heartburn since starting the CPAP. My wife also reported that the nighttime kicking and tossing were much reduced, and she said that I was not so irritable and depressed during the day. I also found that I did not need to get up at night to urinate so often, and after a while even noticed that a condition 
necessary to a good love life was vastly improved also!

To put it simply, being fitted with a CPAP is the best thing a doctor has ever done for me. My whole lifestyle is changed for the better, and I would not think of sleeping a single night without it. My wife is vastly happier and is one of the principal proponents of CPAP in our town ... in fact she has talked three other women into getting their hubbies into a sleep doctor!!

I have been on CPAP for over two years now and it is a wonderful feeling. I would be glad to email anyone who is experiencing those same sorts of symptoms and discuss Obstructive Sleep Apnea and CPAP with you. Please contact me; I'd love to hear from  you.

Mike

Now that you have read the story of Mike H, if you would like to email your comments or questions to him, click here: MikeH@apneanet.org.  

Mike also has his own personal website, should you wish to find out more about him. You can check that out at www.elite.net/~thehalls/.

If you would like to submit your own story for possible inclusion on the ApneaNET web site, please email Patient-Stories@apneanet.org.

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