Doctor's visit

I went to the doctor's office today. Not for being sick, just a normal follow-up to that sleep study I had last week. I can actually say that it was an interesting visit. Usually when I go to the doctor's office I do not hear anything I do not already know. Mind you, I say that with a lot of respect for my current's MD's. But, heck, this is my body and I am knowledgable enough to have an idea what's going on...even when I choose to ignore it.

But, like I was saying. Today was good. The main issue I already knew. I have sleep apnea. The neat thing as all the stuff the sleep study showed. I kinda figured what it showed, I knew what all the wires were for. It was just neat to see all the results spelled out in a report.

First a definition for those who need it, the results refer to AHI or Apnea/Hypopnea Index. Apnea = not breathing, Hypopnea = breathing slower than you should. AHI is the two combined into one total. Also, they only count times that were over 10 seconds long. The average is 4-5 times per hour for a normal adult of my size.

Believe it or not, I do not mind sharing this information with the net:

• In a 6.6 hour span, I slept 5.5 hours.
• My AHI was 191 during that time. So, think of it as that I stopped or near stopped breathing 191 times in 5.5 hours. The doc considers this severe sleep apnea (go fig).
• My apnea was just as bad on my side (33/hr) as on my back (36/hr).
• My blood oxygen level dropped to 90%, which in the scheme of things is not so bad.
• My heart rate dropped to 55/min (60-65 is normal for me) during apnea and then rose to 87 at the end of apneas.
• Perecent of sleep time in each stage of sleep: Stage 1: 16.7%, Stage 2: 63.9%, Stage 3&4: 6.6%, REM: 12.8%. Notice the amount in stage one and two compared the the rest. Never got enough deep sleep.

This lack of deep sleep along with the low oxygen level and up-down changes in heart rate lead to greater risks for hypertension, stroke, heart attack, etc. All the bad stress on body type problems.

So, guess what. I now have a CPAP machine to blow up my nose when I'm sleeping to hold the airway open. We'll see how it goes. I have another sleep study to go to in about a month for them to see if it needs to be calibrated more and to see how I am doing. Fun, Fun.

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Thank you DJ for the great comment to a post I made a few days ago about medic pay vs. nurse pay. Please check out his blog at:

http://psychonomic.blogspot.com/