Last night (Tuesday) I slept at Dr. Zzz's again... I haven't mentioned the first time, you say? Cathy has gotten more and more concerned about the quality of my sleep... I've always snored, but apparently lately I've been pausing in my breathing, and she was concerned that I might have sleep apnea, which in extreme cases can cause things like strokes and death, and in less extreme cases can cause fatigue. A few weeks ago I got all wired up at Dr. Zzz's and slept over, and they determined that I was having spells of sleep apnea and that I needed treatment with what's called a CPAP machine. Dad has one; we must have the same narrow air passages. Apnea is normally caused by something in the back of the throat closing up when the body relaxes during sleep; what the CPAP machine does is basically blow room air up your nose when you're breathing in; the air pressure prevents the throat from closing up, so not only does the snoring go away, but so does the apnea! However, the machine has to be custom-set for the patient; too little or too much pressure and it doesn't help.Anyway, last night was the "treatment portion" of my sleep study; they wired me up again and put the CPAP mask on me, and over the course of the night they experimented with how much air pressure they used. Once the machine synchronized with my breathing, it actually did seem to help... I goot a pretty good night's sleep. When I get my own CPAP machine hopefully it will help me every night! (Once I get used to having that crazy mask on my nose, that is...
