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Wellness Wednesday for February 15, 2023

The Wednesday Wellness threads are meant to encourage users to ask for and provide advice and motivation to improve their lives. It isn't intended as a 'containment thread' and any content which could go here could instead be posted in its own thread. You could post:

  • Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.

  • Updates to let us know how you are doing. This provides valuable feedback on past advice / encouragement and will hopefully make people feel a little more motivated to follow through. If you want to be reminded to post your update, see the post titled 'update reminders', below.

  • Advice. This can be in response to a request for advice or just something that you think could be generally useful for many people here.

  • Encouragement. Probably best directed at specific users, but if you feel like just encouraging people in general I don't think anyone is going to object. I don't think I really need to say this, but just to be clear; encouragement should have a generally positive tone and not shame people (if people feel that shame might be an effective tool for motivating people, please discuss this so we can form a group consensus on how to use it rather than just trying it).

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I've been long providing semi-solicited medical advice online that people who experience chronic fatigue, sleepiness and tiredness should get assessed for sleep apnea.

And now that I've finally decided to take a dose of my own medicine, the results are in: I've got severe sleep apnea, especially the positional variant which is much worse when I sleep on my back.

I stop breathing approximately every 2 minutes while asleep, and have had my oxygen saturation drop to as low as 70% for prolonged periods. No wonder I feel like shit during the day!

There are a bunch of potential therapies, ranging from using a CPAP machine to keep airways patent through the night, surgical removal of tissues in the throat, mandibular splints, and even ensuring that you lie on your side so that you're less prone to apnea.

Has anyone ever been treated for it? I'd love to hear your experience so I can decide on what to do for myself, it's rather frustrating to find out that I've got it at such a young age, especially since I'm not obese. Even more annoying if it turns out that I took antidepressants for so many years only for my symptoms to not actually be due to depression :(

How could I reliably assess if I have sleep apnea without getting any tests done?

I'm young and fairly fit, and sleep exclusively on my side, so I don't think I should have it. But I do have some of the symptoms sometimes such as sleepiness and tiredness.

You could try SnoreLab app. If you snore a lot there's a good chance you have it.

Are you really sure you don't want a test done? Polysomnography is quite minimal these days, I had it done at home myself.

If that's not an option, then your best bet is to ask your partner if you snore and also stop breathing for prolonged periods at night. I suppose you could ghetto up some kind of surveillance with a phone to observe yourself too.

(Even if you go to sleep on your side, you might just be tossing and turning while asleep)

You would probably need someone who is around while you sleep, to observe if you stop breathing as you sleep. Otherwise I'm not sure. Though if you're concerned, your doctor should be able to set you up with a test you can do at home. That is how I got diagnosed, I didn't have to go sleep in a lab or anything.