A Bolt of Lightening
Dec. 21st, 2016 11:27 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
stitchwhichFor a long time my posts have been about my health - and I regretted that even while I recognized that journals are about what weighs on our minds. Bear with me here, this is a relief one, and hopefully one of the last of the long slog.
After my diagnosis for sleep apnea1 I felt first shock, strong denial, and then acceptance. And then I googled "long term symptoms of sleep apnea" and found a fairly comprehensive list. Now, every "symptom of____" list is going to contain things that are also due to any number of other conditions. I know that, you know that, and only a handful of our friends don't know that. But I was stunned to see some of them because they seemed so non-intuitive. Insomnia is a symptom of sleep apnea. Once you think about it, it makes sense. The body, if it could speak, would be saying, "What, set up that whole "I'm going to starve myself of air for the next few HOURS on purpose? Are you kidding me???" so your subconscious resists sleeping. Nocturnal leg cramps are a symptom, MIDNIGHT MUNCHIES are, believe it or not, also a symptom - reminding me of the Inuit saying, "food is sleep and sleep is food". In that case, your system is looking for the energy supply you are not getting via REM sleep as well as forcing you awake long enough to raise your oxygen levels again.
I dug into my past LJ entries, where I had started trying to suss out what was going on with me during what I shall refer to as 'my cancer phase'. Notes about various apnea-related symptoms started showing up in the fall of 2011. The incidences of comments about them and attempts at workarounds began increasing early the following year and I can follow the snowballing of the symptoms in the last eighteen months or so to the point where it is now, with me constantly exhausted, sleep starved, and emotionally volatile. And all that time I never even twigged to it, would even have scornfully scoffed at anyone who'd suggest that was what was bothering me. According to specialists, this is fairly common in the case of women, who do not present the same sort of symptoms as men, which most GPs are more familiar with. Apparently women are sent for testing only half as often as men.
So I am really, actually, looking forward to sleeping with a horse-halter stupid attraction-killing mask on my face as soon as I can get one. I know, you don't have to try to tell me, that it will not solve all of the difficulties I've been bitching about online. But it will address at least a third of them, if not nearly all - and even with a third of them relieved, I can get back to being me. Because one other thing that journal-digging did was show me how strong I have had to be over the last few years as my body battled this debilitating undiagnosed condition while also trying to recover from cancer, the onset of diabetes, and a major change in diet & exercise routines. I have no idea how long this has been as bad as my test showed it to be but I do know that over the last couple of months I was gearing myself up to ask for an Alzheimer's test as well as antidepressants because of my very apparent cognitive and emotional degeneration. I was that desperate and scared. Now I have hope.
1 (and sidenote: one 15 minute discussion about getting the tests started was billed over $5000 to my insurance!!!)
After my diagnosis for sleep apnea1 I felt first shock, strong denial, and then acceptance. And then I googled "long term symptoms of sleep apnea" and found a fairly comprehensive list. Now, every "symptom of____" list is going to contain things that are also due to any number of other conditions. I know that, you know that, and only a handful of our friends don't know that. But I was stunned to see some of them because they seemed so non-intuitive. Insomnia is a symptom of sleep apnea. Once you think about it, it makes sense. The body, if it could speak, would be saying, "What, set up that whole "I'm going to starve myself of air for the next few HOURS on purpose? Are you kidding me???" so your subconscious resists sleeping. Nocturnal leg cramps are a symptom, MIDNIGHT MUNCHIES are, believe it or not, also a symptom - reminding me of the Inuit saying, "food is sleep and sleep is food". In that case, your system is looking for the energy supply you are not getting via REM sleep as well as forcing you awake long enough to raise your oxygen levels again.
I dug into my past LJ entries, where I had started trying to suss out what was going on with me during what I shall refer to as 'my cancer phase'. Notes about various apnea-related symptoms started showing up in the fall of 2011. The incidences of comments about them and attempts at workarounds began increasing early the following year and I can follow the snowballing of the symptoms in the last eighteen months or so to the point where it is now, with me constantly exhausted, sleep starved, and emotionally volatile. And all that time I never even twigged to it, would even have scornfully scoffed at anyone who'd suggest that was what was bothering me. According to specialists, this is fairly common in the case of women, who do not present the same sort of symptoms as men, which most GPs are more familiar with. Apparently women are sent for testing only half as often as men.
So I am really, actually, looking forward to sleeping with a horse-halter stupid attraction-killing mask on my face as soon as I can get one. I know, you don't have to try to tell me, that it will not solve all of the difficulties I've been bitching about online. But it will address at least a third of them, if not nearly all - and even with a third of them relieved, I can get back to being me. Because one other thing that journal-digging did was show me how strong I have had to be over the last few years as my body battled this debilitating undiagnosed condition while also trying to recover from cancer, the onset of diabetes, and a major change in diet & exercise routines. I have no idea how long this has been as bad as my test showed it to be but I do know that over the last couple of months I was gearing myself up to ask for an Alzheimer's test as well as antidepressants because of my very apparent cognitive and emotional degeneration. I was that desperate and scared. Now I have hope.
1 (and sidenote: one 15 minute discussion about getting the tests started was billed over $5000 to my insurance!!!)
