So I had an interesting day. I woke up at 4:30am this morning. For those of you that know me you might realize how odd this is. Anyway I over slept. I went to my first ever sleep conference in New Albany In. which is near Louisville. My ride was a co-worker from Egypt. He is actually getting ready to take the boards to get his medical license. Which is baffling because all day long I felt like he thought his GPS was the smartest thing in the car. Never missed so many rights, lefts, and exits in my life.

So I got to the conference just in time to walk in on one of my favorite topics of late. Yep jnk you guessed it "The chicken and the egg debate". It was as if they had planned this event for me. Let me tell you at this point I knew I had spent my money wisely. What better topic to start of with than the predisposing factors of apnea: Mcdonalds and Pizza Hut, or a faulty anatomy? Good times I tell you. I got to see actual video of a patient with Narcolepsy with cataplexy. This is when your body goes into instant REM due to high emotion brought on by laughter or anger. The effect is sleep paralysis. It was crazy. The Dr. told a joke and the patient went limp. He was trying to talk and it sounded like a bad ventriloquist. I could actually see stage REM sleep in the PSG yet the patient looked totally awake.

The next patient had narcolepsy with hypnogogic hallucinations. This is vivid hallucination during sleep onset brought on by immediate stage REM. This patient, once again with his eyes wide open, thought he had an out of body experience. He actually said “I just left my body flew around the room and back into my body”. Had this not been recorded in a PSG this man might have been thought of as senile (Judylol).

The final patient had REM behavior disorder. Once again the PSG showed REM. He sit up and looked like he was driving something. This patient actually screamed out “Get the F%^K away from my truck or I will shoot you through the G%^&$#n windshield.” Then he made a gun with his hands aimed and fired. The gun even kicked. He actually made the sound of a gun going off like kids do when they are little. OMG I have never had more fun at a lecture in my life.

This part was not as much fun, but I did get to see some video and PSG data of the first and I believe only recorded death caused by apnea. The lecture was by a Marc Dyken MD. Out of the University of Iowa. He has some amazing research going on.

On the way home we had a flat tire. That my friend is another story.

Rock