For years, Jennifer Miller, 55, of Carleton, Michigan, was a problem sleeper, snoring and gasping through the night. Because she struggles with PTSD from the car crash that injured her spinal cord — and isn’t the biggest fan of doctors and hospitals anyway — she put off seeking treatment for her sleep issues. “I didn’t say anything for a long time,” she says. But that changed a year ago, on a night that literally left her speechless.
“I couldn’t find breath and I couldn’t say anything. I couldn’t wake up my fiance. I had to sit up and … kept trying to breathe in and nothing was happening,” Miller says. When finally she could draw a breath, her sleep issue had new urgency. “It scared me [and] prompted me to actually speak to the doctor.”
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| Illustration by Mark Weber. |
Miller’s overnight scare is an extreme example of sleep apnea, the interruption of breathing during sleep. Sleep apnea is experienced by between 9% and 38% of the general population, according to one study, but within the disability community it can be much higher. More than 80% of those with T6 -vertebrae-level injuries and higher have sleep-related breathing problems, according to pulmonologist Dr. Abdulghani Sankari of DMC DRH Sleep Disorders Center in Detroit. In those with disability similar to mine, at C4 and higher, the rate is more like 90% of people.
So then it's no surprise that I turned out to have sleep apnea. Although I didn't learn about it as dramatically as Jennifer Miller did, but I still do so remember exactly the moment I found out. I'd just switched to a new neurologist, Daniel Wynn of Northbrook, Illinois, who would change my life. My daily 20-minute naps clued him in to order an overnight sleep study. Shortly afterwards, he left a voicemail … on a Saturday afternoon: “Mr. Mohler, you have very severe sleep apnea.” My sleep study report read like a horror movie script. In six hours, I had stopped breathing 327 times, with full stoppages averaging 45 seconds each. In short, I wasn’t breathing for 2.5 of the six hours. My blood-oxygen level — considered healthy in the 90% range and severe below 80% — nose-dived to 62%.
“At least we know you have a healthy heart,” he said later, “because if you didn’t, you’d be dead.” He always has a way with words.
Sleep apnea is nothing to snooze about. Uncorrected, it often leads to, fatigue, messed up decision-making and memory problems, as well as risks for high blood pressure, heart problems and type 2 diabetes. Chronic poor sleep has been linked to shorter lifespans.
The good news is that it can be effectively treated with CPAP and BiPAP machines — but for some people, the bad news is that it is treated with CPAP and BiPAP machines. Some people get used to the things, and others not so much. The masks and tubing come in various degrees of cumbersome, ranging from annoying and uncomfortable to triggering full-on alien-abduction vibes, with strange, elephant-like hoses and Hannibal Lector-type face masks. In terms of looks, they bring to mind the spidery face-suckers from the Alien movies, and they sound like Darth Vader gasping for air. And that push/pull between very good and very creepy, my friends, is the basis of a story:
https://newmobility.com/better-nights-better-days-cpap-bipap-and-disability/
How do you sleep?
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