It's long been common medical knowledge that an increase in physical activity can help prevent people from getting cancer. A recent study, though, has found something new: that the cancer preventative effect of exercise can be undermined by insufficient sleep. The study, conducted by a team of researchers led by Dr. James McClain, cancer prevention fellow at the National Cancer Institute in Bethesda, Maryland, tracked women aged 65 or younger over the course of nearly a decade. It… Continue
Do you experience frequent urination at night? Or did you experience frequent urination at night before getting treated for Sleep Apnea? If you have Obstructive Sleep Apnea, it is very likely the cause of your urination problems. Treat the Sleep Apnea problem, and you will find yourself waking up to go to the bathroom less often. Here's how come:
When the airway is blocked or partially blocked as it is during an apnea or hypopnea event, the body must exert more effort to… Continue
in honor of today's inauguration, we wish to reprint the following Top 10 article: My grandmother, quoting Benjamin Franklin, used to tell us kids that "an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure." As Barack Obama and his administration consider their health care priorities, I respectfully remind our President of this old truism. Aggressive diagnosis and treatment of the estimated 30 million Americans with Sleep Apnea is the ounce of prevention that would be worth a pound… Continue
Does OSA raise a red flag on the dating scene? I'm clueless since I was already in a committed relationship when diagnosed, but it remains an open question, especially for my single friends. Here's one personals ad I came across that just "puts it out there":
"Yes, I am a man with Obstructive Sleep Apnea. I am not obese, nor do I have a neurological condition. Some doctors claim they can 'fix me' with surgery, but after much research about the procedures I decided not to pursue… Continue
This is a copy of a recent newsletter we sent from our sleep lab in Oak Ridge, TN. I thought some of the information may still be helpful for those elsewhere.
If a loved one ever winds up in jail, you might think twice about smuggling contraband in by using a CPAP machine as the Trojan Horse. That's exactly what an El Paso woman, Bernadette Valenzuela, pictured here, did for her husband, an inmate at the El Paso County Detention Facility. Ms. Valenzuela got caught loading up the CPAP with a nice assortment of contraband, including 200 pain and barbiturate pills, 10 utility blades and a knife.
At the request of some members of the community, we thought we'd jazz things up here by offering more variety in the default profile pictures you can add to your profile page. Right now, you're automatically assigned a picture of a snoring man next to his frustrated wife if you have not uploaded something else there. We encourage you to make this icon your own. You can change your default icon by going to your profile page ("My Page" on the above menu bar), and clicking the link to change your… Continue
If you didn't like first three minutes of the Sleep Apnea Surgery segment on FOX featured in yesterday's article, you're going to hate the last minute. At about the three minute mark in the video, embedded below, the host, co-host and even the surgeon being interviewed each take turns at belittling and mocking CPAP users:
"Kind of makes you look like the Montauk… Continue
Sleep Apnea surgery vs. CPAP: a recent FOX News interview provides some colorful commentary on the battle unfolding between proponents of either treatment option. During the interview, FOX News interviews Dr. Jennifer Walden, a doctor who is presented to us without any information other than she is affiliated with New York City's Lenox Hill Hospital. The topic of the interview is one which we have reported here, that Sleep Apnea kills. So far, so good: an interview with a trained medical… Continue
A publicly traded company in Canada made an announcement yesterday that would allow us Sleep Apnea folks to give the Six Million Dollar Man some stiff competition, at least when it comes to healthy breathing at night. The company, Victhom Human Bionics Inc., filed a patent related to "decod[ing] what the lungs and the airway passages are reporting to the brain to identify [when someone with Sleep Apnea] is in distress and is in need of help. . . [O]nce apneas [or hypopneas] are… Continue
I am 99% sure my friend has Sleep Apnea. He is too. Problem is, he's not going to do anything about it. The reason: purely financial.
I have been spending the weekend with a dear childhood friend; I'll call him Bruce. Now, I'm an odd kind of guy in a lot of ways, not the least being that not many conversations go by when I don't mention something Sleep Apnea related. So the conversation of course turned to Sleep Apnea. I was taken aback when Bruce not only knew what Sleep… Continue
Added by Mike on January 12, 2009 at 11:30am —
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It's the ordinary little good deeds that go unnoticed that are often the most powerful. One of our members donated a CPAP machine to a person in need, and now that person is headed down the path to compliance with CPAP and a better life. To avoid embarrassing the donor and the recipient, I will not mention their names, but the deed speaks volumes about the quality of the community we are building here.
Like many in these troubled economic times, the recipient of the machine… Continue
Yesterday, we ran an article on the risk of death if Sleep Apnea is left untreated. We were a bit reluctant to post such a morbid article, but the response has been overwhelming -- it obviously struck a chord with many of you. Below are some of your comments. We couldn't have said it any more eloquently:
"My dad died 25 years ago at age 67. Now we know that he had untreated obstructive sleep apnea. He never…Continue
Sleep Apnea can kill you. There, I said it. I didn't want to say it, because I prefer to emphasize the positive aspects of treating Sleep Apnea rather than dwelling on the negative consequences of not treating it. But some among us will only respond to fear, so for their benefit, I'm putting this stark message "out there."
What's the proof that Sleep Apnea can kill? The study published by Terry Young, Ph.D. and her colleagues at the University of Wisconsin at Madison is… Continue
Metis Laboratories, an R&D innovation laboratory, announced yesterday that it had developed a novel CPAP device built on the principles of nanotechnology. Metis says that the device, which they call "PAPWear," is integrated with clothing and wearable by a user. The total weight of the machine and the accompanying mask, tubing and headgear system, Metis says,… Continue
Chances are that if you haven't followed up with your doctor in years, or at all, about your CPAP therapy, something isn't quite right in CPAP-Ville. PAP treatment is as much an art as a science, and it requires continuous monitoring and attention, preferably between you and your physician. That said, I'm finding that doctor follow-up is more the exception than the rule. So you the patient must take the initiative. If you haven't seen your doctor in awhile, make an appointment, and… Continue
A bunch of members have asked me how to post their data to the site, including sleep study results and daily data results. First off, let me ask you not to post anything you are not willing to make public. Everything posted on this site is public and available for anyone to see, even non-members. But for those of you like me who aren't hung up on keeping this stuff private, what you can do is:
1. scan a document or take a picture of it so that it is in JPEG format
2. go to the… Continue
We came across the following home testing option on a doctor's website in New York. We think it strikes a nice balance with respect to home testing. It makes it easy for people "on the fence" about getting a sleep study to get one, and then in the case of a positive result, they will presumably have more incentive to go in for the full overnight sleep study, which gives physicians the diagnostic tool the home test does not provide to screen for sleep disorders other than Sleep… Continue
Added by Mike on January 5, 2009 at 1:00pm —
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My sleep certified physician once let me in on his little secret: he can diagnose Sleep Apnea in a person while sitting across a crowded room from that person in a restaurant. Now, he qualified this by saying that he'd only be able to do so with 85% accuracy, but still... it came as quite a shock to me. Especially when he told me how he'd do it. It wasn't by looking at their waistline or gut. It certainly wasn't from hearing them snore. No, he'd do it just by looking at their jaw. If… Continue