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December 2008 Articles (32)

Síntomas de la Apnea del Sueño

Si usted o alguien que usted conoce tiene una o más de los siguientes síntomas, puede ser Apnea del Sueño:

• Ronquidos

• jadeando por aire o detener la respiración durante el sueño

• quedarse dormido en situaciones inapropiadas, como por ejemplo durante la conducción, en una película, o sentado en una reunión

• Despertar sentimiento unrefreshed

• Gran cuello tamaño (más de 17 "en los hombres es mayor de 16" en la mujer)

• Por la… Continue

Added by Mike on December 31, 2008 at 6:00pm — 2 Comments

Symptoms of Sleep Apnea

If you or someone you know has one or more of the following symptoms, it may be Sleep Apnea:

• Snoring

• Gasping for air or stopping breathing during sleep

• Falling asleep in inappropriate situations, such as while driving, at a movie, or sitting in a meeting

• Waking up feeling unrefreshed

• Large neck size (greater than 17” in men; greater than 16” in women)

• Morning headaches

• Getting up during the night to… Continue

Added by Mike on December 31, 2008 at 2:00pm — 17 Comments

Price Controls for CPAP

It's a dirty little secret of Respironics, ResMed and other CPAP manufacturers, but one that touches the lives of each and every one of us, especially in these difficult economic times: vendors of CPAP equipment aren't allowed to advertise CPAPs below a certain price that the CPAP manufacturers dictate. The result is that you will more often than not pay more… Continue

Added by The SleepGuide Crew on December 30, 2008 at 3:09pm — 2 Comments

CPAP Cleaning: A Lazy Man's Method

I'm a fairly black and white kind of guy, so when I first got CPAP, I actually read the care and maintenance instructions. I'm also a fairly lazy kind of guy, so half-way through reading them, I stopped and gave up. I never liked puzzles, and assembling and disassembling and caring for a mask, humidifier, CPAP, tubing, etc., all seemed to me like a puzzle from hell, each night for every remaining night of my life.

Then my physician, who is at Stanford Medical Center and is… Continue

Added by Mike on December 29, 2008 at 1:30pm — No Comments

PAPer "Bill of Rights" --- Your Feedback Needed

DRAFT VERSION

Friends,

Today, we face an unacceptable situation with Sleep Apnea. Sleep Apnea is a chronic, serious disease that approximately 30 million Americans have, only 10% of whom have been diagnosed. Although the disease is completely treatable with the “gold standard” of positive airway pressure (“PAP”), of those who… Continue

Added by Mike on December 28, 2008 at 4:00pm — 9 Comments

Respironics, ResMed and Fisher & Paykel

Here at SleepGuide, ResMed and Respironics have always loomed large as the big boys of the Sleep Apnea industry. Bad news for us, the patients, because that kind of duopoly can't be good for competition and innovation, the two forces we see as critical to moving these devices forward in terms of ease of use and comfort for patients. So we were delighted to see… Continue

Added by Mike on December 27, 2008 at 4:30pm — 7 Comments

Sleep Apnea Kills Christmas

Unbelievable. Check out this story from the Chicago Sun Times.

Added by The SleepGuide Crew on December 26, 2008 at 4:57pm — 1 Comment

My Journey Through CPAP Treatment - I

I have copied the following here from my personal blog. It has been lightly edited but is mostly the way I wrote it on March 7, 2007 after I had completed my second sleep study or Titration test. I am posting it here to capture how I was feeling before starting CPAP treatment.

After 18 months, or so, of weight gain, loss of drive to do just about anything, and a complete lack of energy, I awoke one night in January gasping for air, scaring the hell out of both my wife and… Continue

Added by Jess on December 25, 2008 at 7:54pm — 2 Comments

Sleep Apnea Home Testing

If you have no idea what happened on March 13, 2008, you're in good company. What happened on that day rocked the world of absolutely nobody except for the owners of sleep labs across the country: Medicare, for the first time ever, agreed to reimburse for CPAP equipment prescribed pursuant to home tests, rather than under the ordinary in-laboratory sleep… Continue

Added by The SleepGuide Crew on December 25, 2008 at 4:30pm — No Comments

I Have A Dream -- Ideal CPAP use

I have a dream for CPAP use that I announced in a previous blog posting on this site that has sparked a fair amount of controversy which I did not anticipate. The agenda was as follows:

• Users should use their machines at least 5 hours a night, almost every… Continue

Added by Mike on December 24, 2008 at 1:30pm — 8 Comments

My Sleep Apnea Story

I might have had Sleep Apnea my entire life, but even when I started to wake up in a panic feeling as if I were suffocating to death, I didn't know it. I chalked it up to stress at work, and the feeling of trudging through each day without any energy to some form of depression. Wrong on both counts. How did I find out? During a casual conversation with a friend… Continue

Added by Mike on December 23, 2008 at 2:22pm — 3 Comments

This Holiday, Give a True Gift

So often this time of year, we get caught up giving material things as gifts to the people we care about. That has a place, but for someone who snores, or who feels "not themself" or tired all the time, you have the power to give a gift that may turn their life around... forever. And it's absolutely free! Right now, send a friend or loved one a link to… Continue

Added by The SleepGuide Crew on December 22, 2008 at 3:00pm — No Comments

What excactly is an Auto SV unit?

Hi, I am new to the group, but do have obstructive sleep apnea. At first my doctor gave me a C-PAP, and then within about a month and a half, he ordered a 3rd sleep study and then switched me to a Respironics Bi-PAP Auto SV unit. I also have an oxygen bleed into the unit at a rate of 4 liters per minute, as I also have COPD (Emphysema) and lots of other health problems. I was not aware of it, but I literally stop breathing for up to 2 full minutes several times during the night, and the C-PAP… Continue

Added by Melodie on December 22, 2008 at 1:33pm — 7 Comments

Trouble in Sleep Apnea Paradise

As you probably can tell by my other blog entries, I love CPAP. Since using it, I've felt energized when I wake up in the morning, with a zest for being active during the day instead of bumming around and wanting to sleep in. But even I hit speed bumps from time to time, and the other night was one of them. Around 4:30 a.m., I felt as if I were choking, unable… Continue

Added by Mike on December 20, 2008 at 3:30pm — 2 Comments

Getting the Sleep Apnea Run-Around: Bill's Story

Sleep Apnea is hard enough as it is without doctors making our lives even harder. Of course not all doctors are ignorant, stupid and incompetent. But Bill's doctor certainly is.

Bill is a dear friend of the family who has severe sleep apnea, along with a host of other problems such as diabetes and heart disease, probably brought on in part by not… Continue

Added by Mike on December 19, 2008 at 3:30pm — No Comments

Sleep Apnea and Weight Loss

It sounds too good to be true: lose weight in your sleep! But it is indisputable that an ever-expanding body of peer-reviewed scientific evidence suggests just that: treating sleep apnea can help you shed those unwanted pounds.

The reasons are still not fully understood. Some studies indicate that untreated Sleep Apnea disrupts rapid eye movement… Continue

Added by Mike on December 18, 2008 at 2:00pm — No Comments

Sleep Apnea: A Patient-Oriented Agenda

We at SleepGuide will always stand up for the Sleep Apnea population first and foremost, without regard for what's best for the manufacturers, insurance companies, DMEs, doctors and others whose interests may not always be perfectly aligned with our own. This Sleep Apnea population includes anyone with Sleep Apnea, whether using dental devices, CPAP, surgery, or… Continue

Added by Mike on December 17, 2008 at 2:30pm — No Comments

Sleep Apnea Diagnosis and Treatment: A Political Message

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-elect of this old truism. Aggressive diagnosis and treatment of the estimated 30 million Americans with Sleep Apnea is the ounce… Continue

Added by Mike on December 16, 2008 at 2:00pm — 5 Comments

Mr. Sleep Apnea DME: "Tear Down This Wall !"

In past blogs, I have criticized the manufacturers of CPAP devices for not marketing their latest, greatest CPAP data monitoring software to end-users, the people like you and me who actually rely on the results from these machines to breathe every night. The majority of this software is marketed on a restricted basis to doctors, respiratory therapists and… Continue

Added by Mike on December 15, 2008 at 2:30pm — 1 Comment

U.S. Medical Professionals to CPAPers: "Do You Know Why You're Being Punished?"

The plot thickens. I learned from one of the comments on yesterday's blog that there is "a clash of wills between the medical profession & the rights of US CPAPers to actively get involved in our own monitoring & regulation." Moreover, in the U.S. it is against the law for manufacturers of CPAP devices to explain to people how to change the settings on their machine.

So the powers that be have decided that we CPAPers are too stupid and inept to analyze compliance… Continue

Added by Mike on December 14, 2008 at 1:30pm — 7 Comments