Posted by Captin Cannuck on February 14, 2008 at 08:05:02:

In Reply to: sleep study results posted by argenys on February 13, 2008 at 19:14:03:

Here is a passage that I lifted from a book titled "The Promise Of Sleep", by William C. Dement, MD, Ph.D. He is the founder of the AHI scale. This is his opinion as to when OSA should be treated:

"In 1973 Christian Guilleeminault and I proposed the measure that is still used for the clinical definition of sleep apnea and for rating its severity. We called it the Apnea/Hyponea Indiex (AHI)...We decided that an AHI of 5 should be the lower limit for making a diagnoisis of apnea, so a score of less than 5 is considered too low for clinical diagnosis and doesn't require treatment. However, treatment may be necesary if a patient has an AHI of 5 to 10 with other symptoms of apnea, such as daytime fatigue or high blood pressure. Although not all of my colleagues agree, I feel strongly that an AHI of 10 to 20 should definitely consider treatment, even if tey are not feeling sleepy durint the day. In my opinion anyone with a score over 20 should always be treated - they have or will soon have a serious life-threatening problem. (See page174,175)

If you read the passage, you can really see that Dement, who is an expert in the field (after all, it is his scale), believes that you most definately SHOULD treat your sleep apnea with a score of 18.1. He would advise a person with an AHI of 5-10 to consider treatment. That is to say that if you had an AHI of only seven, and hypertension or insomnia (which you have), and if you were to go to see Dr. Dement, he would tell you that there would be a health benefit from your being on CPAP.

How about you? In your case, you have 18.1. You are very close to the point where you would soon have a serious life-threatening problem (only 1.9 points away from being in that category).

Please seek treatment, and write us about whether or not you notice any improvement in your insomnia. I suspect that there would be.

(You can read this for yourself, and I suggest that you do. The book is called "The Promise of Sleep". Chapters deal with insomnia, sleep apnea, the mechanics of sleep, sleep disorders, and so on. Most likely, you can read it for free at your local public library. It is the most informative book on sleep that I have ever read.

Follow Ups:

• Re: sleep study results Captin Cannuck 08:14 2/14/08 (0)

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