I had another appointment with my sleep specialist this week, so I wrote him a one-page summary of all the conventional treatments I’ve been exploring in the hope of curing my obstructive sleep apnea.
Here are the main points: (more…)
I’ve spent the last few weeks actively researching surgical, orthodontic and dental treatments for obstructive sleep apnea and visiting a lot of specialists to fully explore my options. I have underdeveloped jaws and nasal obstruction causing severe sleep apnea, possibly the result of extraction/retraction orthodontic work done when I was 13.
I visited orthodontist Derek Mahony recently who referred me to an ENT surgeon to investigate Maxillomandibular Advancement (MMA) surgery and Distraction Osteogenesis Maxillary Expansion (DOME). The success rate is high but it looks nasty. Derek said I would need 12 months of braces before the surgery, and I would need to be on CPAP in the meantime; so no matter what I do I realised I need CPAP to stay alive while I’m getting a permanent treatment sorted out. I’ve been on it for about a month and I’m hoping my general health will improve while I explore my options to expand my jaws and sleep naturally again.
I first came across Dan Neuffer, the author of the ANS Rewire Program, in 2012 after watching some of the videos on his CFS Unravelled YouTube channel. At the time, I had been desperately ill for almost 5 years and wasn’t getting any helpful response from my doctors. They just didn’t seem to know what was wrong with me. I checked out Dan’s CFS Unravelled website, read his free e-Book Discover Hope, and sent him an email to thank him for putting the information out there.
It’s exactly ten years to the day since I started this blog. Oh my god, that’s a fucking long time to feel like shit every minute of every day. I’m so angry about the whole thing, there aren’t even words to describe it.
Fortunately, there is some hope on the horizon for me, so I channel that anger into action that will hopefully restore my health. It’s also just over 12 months since I was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA), which I now suspect is the cause of my malaise. It turns out that getting a really good nights sleep is incredibly important for your long-term health. The symptoms of CFS and sleep apnea are both like an extreme version of what athletes experience when they overtrain, the common link being that the body isn’t getting sufficient chance to repair itself. (more…)
I’ve been using a combination of a Mandibular Advancement Device (MAD), Vocal Training and Didgeridoo practice to treat my severe sleep apnea for about 4 months now and I thought it was time for an update.
I wear the MAD all night every night, and most of the times that I have the occasional afternoon nap. During this time I have gradually adjusted it out by 6mm, when I hit the point where my temporomandibular joint (on which the lower jaw pivots) started to ache too much. I don’t find the MAD particularly uncomfortable to wear during the night.
It took about a week or so to adjust to sleeping with a chunk of plastic in my mouth but after that I didn’t really mind. I use the repositioner that came with my Somnomed device each morning to reposition my jaw. I notice some pain in my teeth eating crunchy foods particularly in the morning, but figure it will be worth it if it restores my health.
I’m definitely never getting laid again.
As I mentioned in my last post, the treatment I’ve chosen for my Sleep Apnea is a combination of didgeridoo playing, vocal training and a Mandibular Advancement Device (MAD). However the treatment plan has been delayed somewhat because the dentist I attended to get the MAD fitted identified that I had gum disease.
It’s not sensible to use an MAD if you have gum disease because it relies on a stable foundation of teeth in order to hold the bottom jaw forward. But besides that, gum disease alone turns out to be really bad for your health. I used to think that because I brush my teeth every day and don’t have any cavities at age 50, my dental maintenance approach of avoiding dentists altogether was working.
Turns out I was dead wrong, and without intervention my teeth were likely to start falling out early. (more…)
It’s about 3 months since I was diagnosed with severe obstructive sleep apnea, after spending a sleepless night in hospital wired up to a monitoring machine doing a sleep study. Since that time I’ve been trialing a Continuous Positive Air Pressure Machine, which is the front-line treatment for sleep apnea.
I haven’t posted in a while as I’ve been doing Dan Neuffer’s ANS Rewire program and decided to focus on just doing that rather than providing updates on my progress. He even suggests not blogging about the illness as part of the program and I’ve been following his advice.
However, something significant happened part-way through the program: I did a sleep study in hospital during November last year and the results showed that I have severe obstructive sleep apnea (OSA). The sleep specialist believes this would explain why I’m tired all the time.
I had put off doing a comprehensive sleep study because an overnight sleep oximetry test I did at home shortly after falling ill over 10 years ago showed no abnormality in my blood oxygen level. The test involved sleeping with a machine which measures blood oxygen via a sensor clipped on my finger. In someone with sleep apnea, you would normally expect their blood oxygen level to dip significantly each time they experience a blocking of their airway, called an apnea. In my case the result was sufficiently normal that my doctor at the time didn’t recommend any further action.
I’m also not in a high risk group for sleep apnea since I’m not overweight, I don’t drink and don’t smoke. However I have noticed that when I lie on my back I wake up choking, and a partner recently noticed that I wake up in the middle of the night wheezing. On this basis, the sleep specialist I saw in November suggested doing a full sleep study. (more…)
I’ve been watching some of Irene Lyon’s videos about healing the autonomic nervous system, which seems to be at the root of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Irene uses techniques based on Somatic Experiencing and has trained with Peter Levine.
I own Peter’s book Waking The Tiger: Healing Trauma, and have read it previously. At the time however, I was so anxious and desperate for a miracle cure that I didn’t really take the time to do all the exercises. Before I fork out for one of Irene’s online courses, I thought it would be worth revisiting the book… but this time taking it more slowly so my nervous system has time to titrate out the trauma; if that is, in fact, the problem.
Here are some quotes from the book that resonated with me on the second reading: (more…)
I pay my bills these days by working as a confidence coach/therapist via Skype. I have clients all around the world. Some of my clients have CFS and contact me via this site, while others dealing with anxiety contact me via The Confident Man Project website.
I recently wrote an article on How To Recover From Childhood Emotional Abandonment which several readers have really related to. I avoided addressing this issue for a long time out of fear, but I believe it’s the core issue behind my illness.
Whether I got sick because my nervous system was just overwhelmed with existential anxiety or whether it was because I was always pushing myself too hard to try and compensate from a deep seated feeling of “not being good enough”, I can’t really say for sure. (more…)