Apnea Forum Posting

Posted by wife of non breather on July 11, 2000 at 06:58:07:

When by husband and I were first married I told him, "You must dream about swimming because you always hold your breath." (He was a swim coach.) How naive. Twenty years later the condition was so severe it terrified me. Finally one night he woke up gasping. I forced him to talk to the doctor about it. He always says it is nothing. We started with a sleep study at home. This monitor measured his oxygen and I think respiration. He had 362 interruptions that night and his oxygen level was about 71 all night. I sat up and stared at the monitor from 12 - 2 AM. It took us six weeks to get into a sleep study at the hospital. That night they had him sleep about 2 hours and woke him up. They said he was doing so poorly they didn't want him to go all night like that. The said he definitely was a candidate for c pap and they were putting him on it now so he could sleep with it there and skip another step in the process. One month later after many calls we finally got the results and were able to meet with the doctor again. Some of his episodes are due to blockage and others are due to central apnea. We started with c pap at home this week. It seems a little better, but there are still times when his brain just forgets to tell his lungs to breathe. This guy is a busy, hard working executive and they say they're amazed he is doing as well as he is with test results that look like this. When he sits down at home in the evening he falls asleep in the chair and I really feel he is having trouble with mild memory loss that probably only a wife would notice. After 20 years I am still crazy about this guy and want to live another 40 years with him. Will I wake up some morning next to a dead man?

Follow Ups:

• For Cental Apnea . . . Doug H. 15:51 7/11/00 (0)

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