What Is Sleep Apnea?



Here's a simple response to the question of what is sleep apnea: sleep apnea is a common disorder in which you have one or more pauses in breathing or shallow breaths while you sleep.



Breathing pauses can last from a few seconds to minutes. They often occur 5 to 30 times or more an hour. Typically, normal breathing then starts again, sometimes with a loud snort or choking sound.



Sleep apnea usually is a chronic (ongoing) condition… Continue

The Problem

The HIPAA Privacy Rule must die. Since its inception in 2003, the HIPAA Privacy Rule has been invoked by health care providers not to protect us patients as Congress originally intended, but rather as a crutch for health care providers to fall back on when they have an interest, be it laziness, financial, incompetence or whatever, in making it more difficult for patients to gain control over our own health care decisions.



A Personal Anecdote

The… Continue

Unlike a fine wine, CPAP supplies don't get better with age. In fact, they tend to deteriorate and become less effective over time, and be replaced by ever more comfortable and innovative CPAP technologies. So we're often taken aback to hear that someone's been using the same mask for years, not having even replaced the cushions. Ditto for the machines… Continue

Having Moderate Sleep Apnea is like having had a moderate heart attack: while better than "Severe," it's still dead serious. Mistakenly, my first reaction when getting the diagnosis of Moderate Sleep Apnea was relief. "Well, at least I'm not too far gone," I thought, as I let my guard down and didn't get serious about my Sleep Apnea treatment.



Then I did some research and found out what Moderate Sleep Apnea means.



The American Academy of Sleep Medicine (AASM)…

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