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Be Thankful If They Just Snore

Posted by michael on from the falling-falling-falling-splat dept.

The NYT is running has a lengthy piece in their weekend supplement about sleep disorders. Besides a certain amount of humor value, the article covers sleep terrors and sleepwalking and even weirder disorders.

9 of 167 comments (clear)

  1. Faithless by Library+Spoff · · Score: 5, Insightful

    having had some problems sleeping recently due to stress I can tell you it ain't funny...

    can't sleep cause you're stressed...
    this stresses you...
    cant sleep cause you're stressed...

    not much fun..

    and *everyones* got a cure:

    "tried lettuce sandwiches"
    "tried a piriton" etc etc.

    thankfully i'm sleeping again, but I don't envy anyone who has this all the time.

    --
    Acid House saves Souls
  2. It's all pseudo-science... by ch1a · · Score: 5, Funny

    and I'll believe none of it until they produce a cure for sleep-kicking-your-boyfriend-in-the-shins.

    --

    --Just because you can doesn't mean you should--
  3. Joke.... by superspoon · · Score: 5, Funny


    What do you call a nun who sleep walks?

    A roamin' Catholic


    source: joke.com

    --


    YarrRrr
  4. Registration Free Link by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

    here

  5. I can identify with that... by Flounder · · Score: 5, Interesting
    I've been diagnosed with obstructive sleep apnea. According to the sleep lab, I stopped breathing 62 times per hour average. That's once a minute. My wife has told me that I've screamed at the wall, talked with her about problems with my code, and have actually punched her in the face twice. I have absolutely no memory of any of this.

    I've lost jobs because I fall asleep at work, because I don't get any rest when I sleep at night. My marriage ended because my wife was afraid that I'd do something to her or to the kids while I slept. My health is in the crapper, and treatments I've taken for this hasn't had any affect. I've slept 14 hours and still felt tired when I woke up.

    The article doesn't quite fully describe how hard this is on the patients. You are told that you do things at night, and you have no memory of any of it. I have accused my wife of lying to me when she told me I screamed at the wall for two hours one night. Things are happening, you are told you do things, and you have absolutely no control because you don't even know you do any of it.

    My doctor is close to recommending that I undergo another surgery to try to take care of this. I've already had my tonsils and adnoids removed. Now, he's recommending a surgery that would actually scar the tissue in my throat, causing it to tighten up and open the airway.

    --

    No boom today. Boom tomorrow. There's always a boom tomorrow. - Cmdr. Susan Ivanova

    1. Re:I can identify with that... by BWJones · · Score: 4, Informative

      My wife has told me that I've screamed at the wall, talked with her about problems with my code, and have actually punched her in the face twice. I have absolutely no memory of any of this.

      Years ago I used to run a sleep lab and this behavior is not sleep apnea. You also sound like you have a primary diagnosis of sleep apnea, but this behavior is a sleep parasomnia, possibly a REM related dissasociation that might result from severe sleep fragmentation. From your other symptoms, yes you do sound like you have sleep apnea and I should say that surgery is only effective in about 50% of patients. More effective is something called NCPAP (nasal continuously popitive airway pressure) or BiPAP (Bilevel positive airway pressure) depending upon the application. It is a small mask you wear connected to an air pump to provide positive air pressure to your airway maintaining a patent pathway for while you sleep. It is cumbersome, but very effective. Ask your physician about it.

      Most of my patients also found weight loss to be dramatically helpful along with an exercise regimen combined with use of the NCPAP to maintain good sleep architecture. Also, posture during sleep can be important and I would suggest mechanisms to help you sleep on your side and avoid sleeping on your back.

      --
      Visit Jonesblog and say hello.
  6. Got it, too. by budalite · · Score: 4, Informative

    I have sleep apnea. The fix for it saved my career, my marraige, and maybe my life. For years, I woke up 2-3 times a night. My wife told me of my snoring, my stopping breathing & gasping for air while asleep, etc. I was always dog-tired, taking naps every opportunity, etc. Went to the doc. He sent me to a sleep study clinic.
    Turns out a flap in my throat closes off and prevents breathing while I am sleeping. I thought something like that happened, but I thought it happened like one or twice an hour. Turns out, if untreated, it happens about every 15 seconds while I am asleep. The "cure" is a CPAP machine (controlled pressurized air pump, I think) that keeps a very small steady air flow (about 1/10th normal) down my throat while sleeping, to keep the flap, that closes off my breathing, open.
    Since using the CPAP, I now sleep normally. 8 hrs and then I am truly awake and alert, for the first time in maybe 15 years. This is a new thing for me. My medical insurance covered every penny of the clinic visits and all the CPAP stuff. (Since using this, I have gotten 3 doctorates, made $30B, and sired 47 children.;P) I do think that the life of my family has improved by finally having a husband and father who is "there" all the time. Well, as "there" as a geek gets. :)
    If you don't feel alert all the time, go to the doctor. Find out why. And if the doctor does not help you, dump him or her and go find one who will help you. Keep looking until you do. It really is worth it to see life without a haze of sleepiness.

  7. They missed a good one by Liquidrage · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Sleep paralysis.
    From the time I was 18 till 22 or so, I would occasional wake from a dream but still have the paralysis from REM sleep.

    It is the opposite of fun waking up and being totally paralyzed. Couldn't even talk. It would happen within a dream first as well. One time in a dream I was being chased up a hill by *something* and I slowed down to a crawl. Before long I couldn't move. Woke up. Couldn't move.

    Usually took about 5 minutes to wear off. The worse was when I woke up paralyzed one night face down on the inside of couch with my (now) wife sleeping on the outside but basically on top of me. My face was wedged down between the back of the couch and cushions. Could barely see anything, but I knew someone was on me. Nope, didn't like that one at all.

    http://www.stanford.edu/~dement/paralysis.html

  8. Testimony by MouseR · · Score: 4, Interesting

    I thought I'd share my own experience with sleep disorder.
    About 2 years ago, extensive snoring, driving my wife nuts and keeping me from sleeping more than 5-6 hours or suffer intense headaches pushed me into seeing an ear-nose-throat doctor?an otho-rhino-laringologist.

    After discussing the situation, and examining my throat, he thought he'd knew what to do, but some tests had to be done to make sure of the steps to take to fix the issue.

    First, all wired-up like your typical Hi-Fi system back panel, and a forced-fed breading machine (augmenting the air pressure as you bread through a mask), I spent a night at home while being monitored. Back at the hospital (after some weeks--the free healthcare system in Quebec has it's drawbacks), the doctor just wasn't sure about the readins he had on the small "portable" machine. So, he suggested we redo the test in the sleep clinic of the hospital, using better equipment (aka, much less portable).

    In the ORL sleep disorder business, an "event" is a sequence of 10 to 15 seconds of halted breading caused by blocked airways--this is referred to as apnea. From 0 to 5 "events" per hour, it's considered normal (none being ideal), and can be caused by a bad sleep position, your dreams etc. In the province of Québec, at 15 events per hour, the government feels it's serious enough to do something about it and pay for it. I was doing 32.

    The ORL confirmed this to be the source of my headaches fatigue (due to restlessness and lack of oxygen during the night). In my case, the snoring was caused by oversized amygdalaes, and a soften (over time) soft palace due to years of snoring--as times goes, the situation usually worsens.

    If you want to know where the soft palace is, stick your figer up the roof of your mouth and slide backward (towards the throat). Where it gives in, that's where it is.

    My soft palace was weakened over the years because of the snoring, causing, by ricochet, the uvulae to swell up and further blocking the airways at night. Sleeping on your back worsens the situation because all the soft tissues fall back as you rest.

    Now, before you're too amused by the Fred Flintstone images and sounds, be aware that acute snoring can lead to severe health problems and ultimately, cardiac problems and even cardiac arrest. It's VERY serious.

    What was prescribed to me was what is known as a UPPP, an uvulo-palato-pharyngo-plastia. After documenting myself on the procedure and consulting a number of web sites about the issue. A google search on UPPP can lead you to interesting sites, such as this one or this one.

    The alternative was to spend the rest of my life with a breathing machine, or to suffer the consequences of ignoring the remedes.

    I finally opted for the procedure. The first web site I refer above has a throat photo of the before/after surgery, which illustrate a bit what they did. They took out my amygdalaes, part of the soft palace (including the uvulae) and tightened the back throat tissues. Recovery from this was a snap (about 16 hours after surgery I was eating toasts--although I was told this wasn't typical).

    The result are amazing. I can not do the same 5 hour nights but be completely rested! I can do 12 hour nights if I want to lay down a bit, and not have headaches. I can concentrate better, I don't make a single whistle as I sleep, and overall feel healthier.

    There is a slight (5-10%) chance of occasional nasal-reflux with the UPPP procedure. Nasal-reflux is food that shoots up your nose if you're not careful as you eat. I've only gotten this twice since the procedure, about 16 months ago. It's easily avoidable, and basically involves changing your swallowing timing (the absence of the amygdalaes causes food to go down quicker in your throat).

    Another possible side effect to this surgery is not being able to pronouce the R (as in "farce") as we do in french (rolling the Rs). This is of no concerns for the anglophones, however. Hispanic might be affected. You still can pronounce Rs, but it's hard to roll then as we do in french.

    If you think you have a sleep disorder, ACT ON IT. Ask questions, get doctor referrals and begin your journey to a healthier life.