Faux.paws
16-04-16, 03:07
Heyla,
I posted several weeks ago about my fear that my sleep paralysis might be sleep apnea and my impending sleep study. I want to thank everyone who responded.
So the study was awful. I don't deal well with routine changes and of course I was nervous. I had anxiety and physical pain (unrelated) all night and they were burning pasture here so my allergies were so bad I could barely breathe for the swelling and gobs of thick drainage. Even awake it felt like my throat and sinuses were trying to close up. In hindsight, I should have left the kids with my parents and taken my husband in with me to help me stay calm. I slept a grand total of 30 minutes. The tech said I had twenty events but the study was inconclusive. I went home, panicked a little, cried a little, waited for my dr to follow up.
A few days later, her nurse calls. The head sleep dr dx me as having severe obstructive sleep apnea, saying I had 53 events an hour (I guess she extrapolated from the 30 minutes?) and they will be contacting me for another full night "study" to set me up with a cpap. All events were hypopnic (meaning I didn't stop breathing but it became obstructed enough that my O2 sat dropped at least 4% and/or sleep disruption occurred) and obstructive. I had no central or mixed events (meaning my brain kept sending all the right signals so i can at least cross that off my panic list).
So I'm sure anyone here can guess where I'm sitting. I'm absolutely freaking out. I haven't heard from the sleep lab yet and probably won't until Monday at the very earliest.
Every doctor I've talked to along the way has assured me that while sleep apnea (and the consequent lack of sleep) has potential dangerous long term consequences, I'm not going to die in my sleep and I should try not to let myself worry and lose more sleep in the meantime.
I can't help it, though. I'm scared out of my mind that my oxygen levels are going to drop so low for so long that I stroke out or have an infarction from the stress on my heart. They didn't say how much it dropped in the report the nurse had, so I have no idea and I'm not sure I want to know. I had a full cardio work up and stress test with every blood test my dr could justify to insurance less than a year ago and was pronounced "disgustingly healthy" other than being a bit obese. That and the fact that no one seems terribly concerned with my study results are what I keep reminding myself of. The sleep dr seemed much more concerned with my inability to get to sleep at all and went on about it at length.
I feel terrified and I also feel like such a failure for being scared. My sister can't afford a study or cpap and she knows she has really severe apnea; she would possibly knife someone if she thought it would get here where I am right now. I thought she was going to verbally knife me bc she thought I was going to refuse treatment. I am absolutely not refusing treatment, but I want it NOW so I can stop panicking every night that my husband is going to wake up next to my corpse, or worse the kids will find me while he's out of town for work.
I don't know what to do except keep taking my meds and try not to let it get away from me too much. Every time I wake up at night now feeling fuzzy I freak myself out trying to figure out if it's lack of air or just exhaustion and can't get back to sleep. I know that doesn't help anything but... I just don't know what to do to convince myself I'm not going to die.
I posted several weeks ago about my fear that my sleep paralysis might be sleep apnea and my impending sleep study. I want to thank everyone who responded.
So the study was awful. I don't deal well with routine changes and of course I was nervous. I had anxiety and physical pain (unrelated) all night and they were burning pasture here so my allergies were so bad I could barely breathe for the swelling and gobs of thick drainage. Even awake it felt like my throat and sinuses were trying to close up. In hindsight, I should have left the kids with my parents and taken my husband in with me to help me stay calm. I slept a grand total of 30 minutes. The tech said I had twenty events but the study was inconclusive. I went home, panicked a little, cried a little, waited for my dr to follow up.
A few days later, her nurse calls. The head sleep dr dx me as having severe obstructive sleep apnea, saying I had 53 events an hour (I guess she extrapolated from the 30 minutes?) and they will be contacting me for another full night "study" to set me up with a cpap. All events were hypopnic (meaning I didn't stop breathing but it became obstructed enough that my O2 sat dropped at least 4% and/or sleep disruption occurred) and obstructive. I had no central or mixed events (meaning my brain kept sending all the right signals so i can at least cross that off my panic list).
So I'm sure anyone here can guess where I'm sitting. I'm absolutely freaking out. I haven't heard from the sleep lab yet and probably won't until Monday at the very earliest.
Every doctor I've talked to along the way has assured me that while sleep apnea (and the consequent lack of sleep) has potential dangerous long term consequences, I'm not going to die in my sleep and I should try not to let myself worry and lose more sleep in the meantime.
I can't help it, though. I'm scared out of my mind that my oxygen levels are going to drop so low for so long that I stroke out or have an infarction from the stress on my heart. They didn't say how much it dropped in the report the nurse had, so I have no idea and I'm not sure I want to know. I had a full cardio work up and stress test with every blood test my dr could justify to insurance less than a year ago and was pronounced "disgustingly healthy" other than being a bit obese. That and the fact that no one seems terribly concerned with my study results are what I keep reminding myself of. The sleep dr seemed much more concerned with my inability to get to sleep at all and went on about it at length.
I feel terrified and I also feel like such a failure for being scared. My sister can't afford a study or cpap and she knows she has really severe apnea; she would possibly knife someone if she thought it would get here where I am right now. I thought she was going to verbally knife me bc she thought I was going to refuse treatment. I am absolutely not refusing treatment, but I want it NOW so I can stop panicking every night that my husband is going to wake up next to my corpse, or worse the kids will find me while he's out of town for work.
I don't know what to do except keep taking my meds and try not to let it get away from me too much. Every time I wake up at night now feeling fuzzy I freak myself out trying to figure out if it's lack of air or just exhaustion and can't get back to sleep. I know that doesn't help anything but... I just don't know what to do to convince myself I'm not going to die.