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:
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Requests for advice and / or encouragement. On basically any topic and for any scale of problem.
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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.
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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.
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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 :(
I have severe sleep apnea (about the same numbers as you, from what I recall) and I have had a CPAP for about a year now. I definitely feel it has made a difference for me. I don't feel as tired in the afternoons as I used to, mainly. Before I would need to take a nap most days, but now I'm taking a nap like once every two or three weeks. I can also tell a difference on nights when I forget to use my CPAP. I wake up just feeling more "blah" than usual when that happens.
The main challenge I had was getting the mask tightened enough to stay snug while I was asleep. At first it would come loose as I moved around in my sleep, and I would wake up from the air leaking out. But once I got that set (which was tighter than I thought, it's not painful or anything but it's noticeably tight and leaves lines on my face) it's been smooth sailing.
Thanks! That's reassuring, even though it grates on me to even consider a lifelong nuisance like having to lug a CPAP machine around at such a young age.
But if it does make for a decent QOL improvement, I can subdue my injured pride haha
Go for surgery
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