There were a few Kevin-related items hanging out there; I’m patiently awaiting one little piece of information before going down that road.
So, let’s talk about me!
Yeah, I snore. And it’s been a problem for a while (a funny side note; all of the pictures of snoring that I found had the woman on the right side of the bed….Suzanne and I are completely opposite of this…..abnormal? who knows?)
Recently, Suzanne commented that I seem to hesitate, or start and stop breathing, sometimes. I have, in the past, dismissed such talk as nonsense…heck I don’t even snore! (Suzanne recorded me on the Iphone one night to stop that talk….) but during the last doctor visit I mentioned this concern, and of course, I ended up being referred for a sleep study. The doc (and the sleep doc) ask me a few questions (do you fall asleep while driving? do you fall asleep while watching TV? I do none of these things….don’t feel overly tired).
Last Wednesday night was the sleep study. Showed up at 9:30 and for the next hour I have multiple (18?) sensors attached to my body that are going to monitor me as I sleep. Two sensors on each leg to see if I kick to jump start breathing. Five around the upper chest to monitor the heart…..8(?) on the head at different spots and then a air-monitoring tube to measure oxygen coming out of my mouth and nose. And, wired up like a Christmas Tree, I’m supposed to fall asleep.
For the study, I fell asleep on my back…..I typically don’t do this, I know through long-trial-and-error with Suzanne that if I’m on my back snoring is at it’s loudest, so, I try to stay on my stomach and on my sides. But, for the study, on my back. And, being monitored like Frankenstein, rolling around like I guess I normally do is out (the tech said at the end of the study I moved to my side only twice….I knew that before she even told me).
But, the next morning, the question was, well, do I have sleep apnea?
Yeah, I don’t just have it, I have what is classified as severe sleep apnea. The results of the sleep study are boiled down to an apnea-hypopnea-index (AHI) number….under 15 is mild, 15-30 is moderate, over 30 is severe. I chart in at 32; to measure an ‘event’ you have to stop breathing for 10 seconds, at my PEAK I had 64 events an hour…the longest was 20.5 seconds. Oxygen? Normal levels are in the high nineties….96-98%….at one point I dropped to 82%.
still trying to figure out what means what here….but those big blocks of N3 sleep around 4 am; that’s normal, and that’s when I was on my side. That mess of lines between 11 and 2 am….that’s me on my back.
So, of course, I get to go back tonight for sleep study part 2. So they’ll be a follow-up post to this one sometime soon…..
