Sleep Study Number Three

Last night I slept at sleep-away camp again.  South Street Hospital, here in London, at the sleep lab clinic for my third sleep study.  This time they had me try the CPAP mask to see if it would relieve my sleep apnea. CPAP stands for Continuous Positive Airway Pressure.  Sleep apnea develops in people whose soft tissues close their airway as they sleep.  They (or we) stop breathing for a long while until the brain goes, uh-oh, better wake them up so they breathe again!  Snoring is often another indicator

I’ve been in two previous studies and while my apnea hasn’t gotten a lot worse between testing it’s not getting better!  The custom mouth guard I had made that pulls the lower jaw forward in an attempt to keep the airway open only pulled my jaw forward. I spent many nights in discomfort with no benefit.  All that’s left is the mask.

Before they taped me up with a couple of dozen probes and put me to bed, I was asked to watch a video.  In it, a man who was very troubled by his lack of sleep develops new energy and apparently learns to play frisbee as a result of using a CPAP.  As I watched the video, a fellow patient – albeit a first-timer – happened to come by and decided to join me.  He said his wife was worried about him stopping breathing so often so that’s why he came to the lab. “Just like the guy in the video”, I said.  When the technician put the mask on the man in the video, my fellow patient visibly recoiled.  “That’s what I’m getting tonight”, I said with a smile.

Little did I know I had attracted a sleep buddy.

Later as I was being taped up and trying out my mask, sleep buddy wandered down to my room to get a peek.  The look of horror on his face is something I won’t soon forget but he must have realized he was being less than complimentary because he gave me a firm thumbs-up and skittered away. However, he walked by for a peek a few more times.

Normally you don’t get a witness to your private shame.

My technician was a very nice woman named Judy.  She strapped me up and tucked me in after allowing me to choose which mask felt more comfortable and off I went to dreamland, more quickly than I would have thought considering the circumstances.

Until you see an analysis of your night, you might swear you never slept on your back or didn’t get more than 20 minutes of shut-eye. Perception of your own sleep is wildly inaccurate.   I did wake up several times but the mask always stayed in place and other than the bed being as comfortable as the average kitchen table it was a fairly pleasant night.  Finally I woke up and couldn’t get back to sleep.  I buzzed Judy and found out it was 5:15 am so we called it a night.

It will be several weeks before I see the sleep doctor and get the results.  Frankly, unless there are dramatic improvements with the mask I’m really not sold on the whole thing, for me.  My apnea isn’t severe and even though the CPAP is virtually silent and not that big a deal I just can’t help viewing it like dentist of today must look at early dental implements.  Surely they’re going to come up with something less intrusive, smaller and frankly, not as ugly, to solve the apnea puzzle?.  And if I wait long enough, maybe I’ll be on the leading edge of the new apnea treatment revolution!