Wednesday, June 30, 2010

Long time, no write

Okay, this has been terrible....soooooo long since I've written. Now, I have a good reason. My hands have gotten really bad, painful and weak. But, I will just write some short updates and that way, for those who follow here, if you are still around, you get updated.

The results of the sleep study were that I have Central Sleep Apnea. I knew I did, but this was the first official diagnosis of it because the other sleep study I had done, the techs were very inefficient and the sleep clinic closed down two weeks after I was there, so I never got a true analysis.

From the Mayo Clinic website:

Central sleep apnea is a disorder in which your breathing repeatedly stops and starts during sleep due to lack of respiratory effort. Unlike obstructive sleep apnea, in which you can't breathe normally because of upper airway obstruction, central sleep apnea occurs when your brain doesn't send proper signals to the muscles that control your breathing. Central sleep apnea is less common, accounting for less than 5 percent of sleep apneas.

Central sleep apnea occurs when your brain fails to transmit signals to your breathing muscles. Central sleep apnea can be caused by a number of conditions that affect the ability of your brainstem — which links your brain to your spinal cord and controls many functions such as heart rate and breathing — to control your breathing.

The doctor offered me the CPAP machine, said what I have warranted it. But also said if I didn't want it, he wasn't going to push it on me. I didn't want it!