Posted by Bird Watcher on February 15, 2009 at 08:46:52:In Reply to: Are you ever cured of Sleep Apnoes posted by gingernuts on February 15, 2009 at 04:30:44:
You may be well on your way to better sleep. It is a good sign to be off CPAP for four days and not notice any change. Usually, people who have been on CPAP for years become reliant on it and cannot sleep at all without it, and don't function the next day after one night without it.
Lab testing will show two important results: Your number of events (or your index) and a measurement of oxygen in your blood during sleep. The O2 saturation is the critical number - the index is a guideline for how bad the disturbances are.
If you want to be off CPAP permanently, you should first be certain your O2 saturation is normal during sleep. Discuss these results with your doctor to understand the numbers.
The number of events you still (?) might be having is the tricky part. You many find that CPAP can almost eliminate these while sleeping without it can't quite bring the number low enough. At that point you need to ask yourself what the burden/benefit payoffs are to keep using CPAP.
If you find that you can be off CPAP and be and feel relatively normal due to your weight loss, you have quite a story to tell!!! I would personally recommend you tell the world, literally. Do a google search for CPAP chat forums on the internet and post your story on as many as you can find. There are many many apnea and CPAP forums. If you can, also get a copy of your sleep studies and, if you can, scan them to documents and post them on the forums that suppoprt file transfers. If you can do all this and tell your story of weight loss and return to un-disturbed sleep, you can make a difference in many other people's lives.