Posted by Hysterical on February 28, 2006 at 18:28:39:

In Reply to: Phobic posted by Hysterical on February 27, 2006 at 17:50:27:

Thanks to all for your comments. I appreciate your suggestions & support.

To those who suggested I hang in there, thanks but no thanks - the phobic response was identical to my dental phobia, & THAT'S never changed, so I wouldn't expect this to moderate. Assuming I could manage not to scream & rip the mask off my face (managed not to do that @ the sleep center, but it took all the strength I possess not to do so, after only 10-15 seconds), & that's a HUGE assumption, I don't think it's worth it.

In my first post, I omitted mention of my belief that I don't have sleep apnea, or if I do, it's too mild to treat with the current (draconian) methods available.

My real problem is Stage-3 lung cancer, & I maintain that my fatigue is cancer-related. I have to work to support myself, & by late morning each workday I can feel the fog descending. At the end of the day, I get home & immediately nap for 45 mins to an hour. Note that I don't "take" the nap - the nap "takes" me. I'm pretty useless the rest of the evening, & on weekends have only enough "oomph" to do laundry one day & grocery shopping the other. If I try to have a social life - a movie, or dinner/shopping with friends - I pay for it for the next 24-36 hours with TOTAL exhaustion, no relief from naps or a night's sleep.

Last October I had a week without work (hurricane-related). Also, in November I had a week-long vacation. Interestingly, on both those occassions, the fatigue was lessened & I never had the total "crash" of exhaustion. Didn't even need to nap, & was able to stay up past dinnertime - first time I've been able to do that for more than one day in a row for nearly a year. What a revelation: If I can rest when I begin to get tired, instead of having to push thru to exhaustion, I can have a (nearly) normal life. From what I've read, that's not typical of sleep apnea.

Oh, & did I mention that there's been no appreciable change in my weight since recovering from cancer treatment, & that according to people who've shared a bedroom with me, my snoring has lessened over the past few years?

My MDs have checked out the usual suspects - I'm not anemic, not depressed, don't have thyroid problems. That leaves two possibilities as the cause of my fatigue: cancer or sleep apnea.

Since I'm 2 years post-op, 21 months post-radiation, & 18 months post-chemo, my Pulmonary doc suggested a sleep study. After all, his view is skewed towards breathing-related conditions, & my symptoms sounded (to him) like sleep apnea. (Apparently, he wasn't listening when I mentioned the changes on Oct & Nov.)

So I had a sleep study & guess what? They were looking for sleep apnea, & darned if they didn't find it! Amazing! Who'd have thought it? Afterall, a DX of obstructive pulmonary disease (based on a pulmonary function test run 2 weeks prior to the sleep study) combined with cancer treatment couldn't possibly have anything to do with the results of the sleep study, could it? Any more than the total artificiality of the sleep study set-up itself might have an effect on the results. I mean, I usually sleep on my side - couldn't do that because of the electrodes, etc - so is it really surprising that I had a lousy night's sleep?

My oncologist is more receptive to the possibility of cancer-related fatigue, a documented side effect of treatement (& possibly of the disease process itself), which is known on occassion to persist for years after treatment has ended. Maybe because he doesn't look at the world thru pulmonary glasses?

So again, thanks for your input, & thanks for letting me tell my story, but I don't think I'll be using CPAP, Bipap, dental devices, or surgery. It's just not what I need.

Follow Ups:

• Re: Phobic sleepy-in-seattle 14:36 3/01/06 (0)
• Re: Phobic santasnore 08:43 3/01/06 (0)

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