I have sleep apnea and been on CPAP therapy for nearly 30 years. My narcoleptic wife’s treatment led me to her physician and the diagnosis. My initial symptom was a slight reduction in short term memory. But once diagnosed and CPAP treated, the symptoms abated provided I get at least one CPAP treatment every three days. I choose nightly treatment just to be safe but CPAP is invasive to your bedmate. It was an accidental 14 day absence that led to AutoPilot saving me and my late wife the second month of Tesla ownership in 2019. Regardless, here is another example: I had seen similar behavior with Joe Biden. It is an under diagnosed syndrome that explains a lot of single car accidents (and some multi-car ones.) There are online questionnaires that help screening. Ask your search engine (or not) to find them. CPAP treatment works but only if diagnosed and treated. Bob Wilson
I feel that driving is a bit unnatural and it's forced on all of us, at least in countries like the USA. If driving were a hobby I'm sure there'd be a lot of people who wouldn't have started driving in the first place. Every day I see people make driving mistakes, mistakes that could lead to a deadly accident. The SUV craze seems to have also given people a bit of overconfidence too, so they're even less concentrated on driving safely. Autonomous driving might be the solution. If you can make every car drive itself better than the average driver then accidents should go down. I will say that I also enjoy public transportation when I'm in an area where it's good. We went down to the big city of Denver the other day. We took the light rail and a few buses all over Denver and its surrounding cities. For the most part it was nice, no traffic to deal with, no need to find a parking spot. Then, on the next day, we decided to take the car downtown. The next thing you know we were gridlocked into extremely slow traffic. We could have made it there and back on the light rail in half the time. And once downtown I dropped my wife off and spent the next half hour driving in circles looking for a place to park. I finally found one and of course it was paid parking. The nicest thing about public transportation is I can set my watch alarm to wake me up before my stop and then sleep all I want up to that point.
I remember when I was a little kid in the 70's and political leadership at the federal level was done by some of the smartest, most articulate people I learned about. Then the Reagan "revolution" moved in and every aspect of the government that served the common folk was attacked and gutted and we ended up with really old senile presidents who would fall asleep in cabinet meetings. And ever since, with the exception Obama and Clinton, we've been led by nepotistic village idiots who only serve as president to the extent it makes the rich richer and the poor poorer and their highest moral virtue is their ability to ignore the importance of their work so much that they're constantly falling asleep. If someone told me the USA didn't make it past 250 years I wouldn't be surprised at all.
Can't argue with that Back on topic... speaking as also on CPAP but much shorter duration 'in service': bit over a year now. Severe SA was how it was diagnosed and related to me by local med pros... and the difference on nightly CPAP is massive (diff. betw. waking up ready to go, and contemplating staying in bed). When off CPAP, get maybe 4.5 hrs useful sleep a night, dark circles under the eyes for decades; 6 used to be my normal until the last few yrs. No sleep buddy, of course (tho tbh, if your partner's wanting you off when your machine is one of the modern ResMeds? They need earplugs, not you off CPAP When off the plastic lung... the number of episodes I'm sat sedentary > few mins, drastically less. Used to nod regularly, so caffeine of course would pinch-hit (as far back as the '90s)... at least, for a while. Tolerance w/o imbibing until the jitters, meant the nods'd be back... and when driving, it's a showstopper -- literally, if you're time's up. Find zero actual subjective value to nodding off / microsleep say, waiting in the doc's ofc; seems more a natural imperative you lack input into, than a solution to lack of sleep. You never get it back, you just let the body catch up to damage control and waste sanitation after a while, provided good sleep all your 'recovery' days (for me, about 3 - 4 after an all-nighter like New Year's prep / ceremony at the temple)
Yeah... If you want to talk CPAP then we should talk about how its a brute force therapy that forces air past an obstruction. And rather than working on the problem (eliminating the obstruction) with physical therapy and the correct pillow and sleeping positions, they instead ignore the cause and treat the symptom. Classic problem in Western Medicine that's more interested in incentives to sell expensive medical equipment rather than incentives to treat the patient with better sleeping configurations, targeted physical therapy and more exercise, as well as eating a healthier diet.
Does it work tho? Does for me... And whilst yes, could exercise more (on a R full-length medial meniscus tear? Not goddamned likely), eat even more sparely than I do, and could even go on Ozempic as it's been found to improve the root cause of SA (overgrowth of hypopharygeal tissue, which without the above measures would mean surgery -- again, not goddamned likely)... for free on insurance, could instead use CPAP. Agree that Western medicine's all about acute solutions, and 'if no cutting or drugging is involved, why am I' sort of profit-only theatre. In SA's case for me tho, CPAP's the only way I can maintain proper health to a level I can afford, whether or not it's labeled a plaster or not. As long as it keeps working, and don't suffer any further health deterioration on it before the system deems me too expensive to provide for (soon, given retirement age around the corner)... rather have a dollar plaster, than let the sore fester
So having a nap is now a syndrome. PBS’s The New Yankee Workshop used to do it for me: Norm’d say “before we get started let’s talk safety…”, and the next I know he’s putting varnish on the finished project.
Often overlooked, the mask is critical: Nasal - leads to open mouth with ‘dry mouth’ and loss of airway pressure, the purpose of CPAP. Nasal and mouth - leads to jaw displacement and leaking air. Nasal, mouth, and under chin (full face mask) - works although typically more expensive, ~$50-70. A full face mask has risks ‘leak on eye lids’ and air exhaust. There are several full face masks designs but if the leak air on eyelids, OWCH in the morning. This leads too over tight straps leaving face creases and discomfort. Shape of mask needs to pair with the face. The air exhaust can generate noise and blow air on your partner. I have taped loose gauze over the exhaust to solve noise and partner comfort while letting pressure and air flow. Sad to say, CPAP machines come with the cheapest masks leading to poor initial treatment. As for the prescription$, another post if interested. Bob Wilson
Not a syndrome, a symptom of not being able to get a good nights sleep which if left treated will cause an early death!
Sleep deprivation's weird, man. Puts you in a state where you defo can't perform cognitive or motor tasks anywhere near well-rested (compared to 0.10% alcohol intoxication @ 24 hrs w/o rest). But you think you're perfectly fine, just a little tired. Avoid this state, like the plague (which apparently, is back)*... Ran thru the gamut going multiple days w/o sleep, doing guard duty in the chaos of Desert Storm (where deserting your post during wartime will put you in deep sh*t quicker'n installing a screen door on a submarine (tho will defer to ETC(SS) for final authority ). Again around 2004-ish, managing guards in Phx w/ shite upper mgmt (thanks and kisses, AlliedBarton-now-Allied-Universal ). The most dangerous thing, is falling into this seamless state 100% unaware, whilst driving -- and doing that mgr gig in Phoenix, had to drive ~30 mi each way on surface streets -- which when tweakers would run reds so often you'd think your life were stuck in hard mode... not fun to realise, I'd just avoided the end of my life, by less than a foot. Have lost mins on road many times -- which is just terrifying when rent's due. Leveled up even from that, entering 50s-pre-CPAP tho -- few years ago found myself on the bog floor, bleeding a puddle from my busted face about the size of an LP. No idea how long I'd been there, no memory of when it happened. Sought sleep study that same week. So get your rest -- brute forced or no. 7 hrs al least -- brinksmanship with 4 - 5 every night, will catch up to you -- it's call on when --- * seriously -- it's no-BS making its rounds again. Sound like another reason to be glad I'm not gonna be here for when things really go offside
While I've not been a soldier in a war I was a part of many large scale civil disobedience campaigns in defense of ancient forests for more than a decade, mostly in the 90's. Our road blockades and treesits to delay the logging long enough for the courts to hear the legal arguments enviro groups were making because the industry's most successful way of winning lawsuits was to cut down all the trees down and then file for dismissal because the claims are moot. This slowing of the logging came with the risk of jail time and violence from cops and loggers and sleep deprivation was common. I can also say sleep deprivation definitely makes the PTSD experience worse in the long run and in the short run it definitely interferes with knowing which way to run on super steep slopes when loggers are falling ancient trees towards you to keep you from getting close enough to use passive resistance to stop them. That's what got my friend Gypsy killed when a tree broke when it hit the ground and smashed the back of his head off. I remember one Sunday night when we were getting ready for another Monday morning raid on our treesits and my friend Finn said to the group, "I'll do security tonight. I plan to stay awake all night so when I confront them in the morning I'm sleep deprived. I do better with my adrenalin when I'm in that state of mind" Not sure if there's and wisdom in that, but I think that was what he was most familiar with. Here's the Ballad of Gypsy if you want to listen:
