JimShedd112 wrote:Spent overnight in a sleep clinic being tested for a CPAP (Continuous Positive Airway Pressure) machine/mask since I have sleep apnea. .....
Jim,
I wish you the best for your health and the CPAP issue. but I am inclined to relate that while I hve found a few that appear to have excellent results, there are many who do not and find better sleep results with CPAP alternatives and there are some real shysters out there.
The first time I went for a sleep test. I was asked to watch a video about what was going to happen that night. The video was essentally a sales pitch for the wonders of CPAP that would gladly supply for a price and the ad
"would have done Ron Popiel proud". (See at
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ron_Popeil The facility was set up in an older house that smelled of mold, and the doctor (supposedly a Pulmonologist) had equipped the house with automated perfume spritzers to cover the smell. There was no way I or anybody else shold be given a sleep test in a place like that, and any pulmonologist should have known that!
The next facility I tried I went and visited first and their facility had some scent in the air too.
My next attempt to get such a test was conducted in a local hospital in the old (and I do mean
old) wing in what used to be the maternity ward, They put me in room and closed the door. Again I was assailed by some odd scent, but the room did have an openable window that opened onto an air shaft in the middle of the building. With the window open the air quickly freshened up. When the tecnician came in and saw the window open he indignantly responded "who opened that" I explained to him that the scent in the air, after he had previously closed me in, was affecting my breathing, He promptly scoffed at that and closed the window. He hooked me up and told me I had to sleep on my back with the bed positioned as he had set it and I eventually got to sleep in spite of the discomfort and numerous hoses and wires connected. The sleep tecnician threw in a few comments about the wonders and benefits of CPAP.
A few days later I went to see the doctor /Pullmonologist who had a
Hindi last name. The reading of the results had just gotten back from
[b]India[/b] after about a week. (Is anyone suspicious of a connection here?) The doctor said how much I really needed to get on CPAP
BUT WAIT ! THERE'S MORE ! This doctor was now talking a mile a minuit about how they had to now repeat the test while they tried all sorts of adjustments to optimize the performance of the CPAP machine,
YOU GET TWO SLEEP TESTS FOR THE PRICE OF TWO ! ! After trying to get any real information out of the doctor about the test and the machine etc. and getting nowhere, With great effort I summoned what ever degree of politness and civility I could still salvage, and left.
Never to return ! I had managed, by researching over the next week or two, to find that 50 percent of the people for who CPAP was prescribed had chucked it all in about 6 months if that long. One can find CPAP equipment at many thrift stores where it was sent by people who found this wonder machine a nuisance requiring costly supplies (special filters or the like which needed frequent changes)and cleaning efforts.
It seems that one can find people who just swear by this technology, but it may be easier to find people who swear at it I really only sleep well on my side or on my front and my wife found that when ever I was laying on my back
IF my breating sounded a bit off, all she had to do is nudge me a bit to roll up on my side or over on my front and any alleged problem vanished. I would rather that they had prescribed me a specially trained "sleep dog" as I suspecct that one could be trained to do that much, (provided it could also be trained to not mess with me during intimate moments and not get distracted either)

(while I am sensitive to scented agents, I have no problem around dogs... Not that I am super eager to share my bed with one, but that would be more tolerable than that stupid head gear.) I do know one guy that loves his CPAP and would not want to do without it, but one can even sometimes hear his breatiing to be a little labored while he is awake. So if you find yourself dissalusioned some time in the first 6 months or so, dont dispair. I do not recall if you are married or not, but a wife may solve the problem or maybe you could get a trained dog to help out. Of course no wife wants to feel in any that she could be replaced by a dog that nudges you in the back or ribs, so what ever you do, if you are married, please do not tell her I suggested that! Or better yet do not spread that around to anyone who knows where it came from. As long as on the rare occasion that my wife thinks I could be breathing better, she nudges me, I get along fine and it has been working well for the last 15 years. And I am appalled that I encountered 2 out of 3 pulmonologists that thought they could, or ever should, conduct a sleep test with anything but pure clean filtered, unscented air in the room. I am skeptical enough to think that maybe that in scented (or odorous) air a lot of people would fail a sleep test. As for CPAP, after my experience, I expect that much of the time the results of the test could be characterized by the same acronym if they would just add a second leg to the first "P".
All my jaundiced comments from my unsatisfactory experiences with sleep tests and the pulmonologists who oversee them aside: I am wishing you sweet dreams and good health, and better experience than I had.

I never met anyone that I could not learn something from.