I don’t remember if I mentioned on here around the time or not that I had gone for a sleep study. I had it done around tax day. My GP was concerned because of the trouble I’ve been having sleeping; given lack of sleep exacerbates any health problem that you might have.
My previous GP had thought my sleep issues were tied in with the FMS that the rheumatlogist had diagnosed me with. This GP doesn’t believe that I do have FMS and so has been conducting a vast number of tests, the most recent of which was the fourteen x-rays I had on Wednesday.
While I haven’t had the results of the x-rays yet I did find out today that despite what my GP had felt on 4/19 I do not in fact have to have a second sleep study with a c-pap machine.
This has me extremely relieved.
My GP had made the previous estimation of a second sleep study based on only partial records from the sleep center as the test had only been done two days previously. So, all he was seeing was the notation that my oxygen level had dropped quite a bit. The person monitoring me at the sleep center hadn’t told me any of my results (although given how tired I was I probably wouldn’t have remembered what she said anyway) just that they would be at my GP within 2-3 days.
Given I still hadn’t heard from the sleep center about a second appointment I called my GP this morning to find out what was going on. I found out they’d finally got the results from the sleep center on May 1st.
The nurse I was speaking to at the doctor’s office told me that there weren’t any notes she could see about going for the second study but gave me the information to get in touch with the sleep center.
I got the sleep center’s voice mail and they called me back around lunch time. Apparently the rest of the results indicate that I do not show “evidence of significant obtrusive sleep apnea”. I don’t actually stop breathing while I sleep my breathing just gets shallow. Apparently this is a sign of something called “upper airway resistance syndrome”. While she was very polite about how she explained it and said that I would more like benefit from going to see an “Ear, Nose and Throat” specialist instead of having another sleep study or using the C-Pap machine, I think what this basically boils down to is that all my extra weight is squishing the appropriate parts of my body while I’m asleep.
Ah, well, I already knew I was overweight, and I already knew I needed to diet more. I’ve been working on it. I’ve started swimming again. It’s not going to happen overnight, but it WILL happen.
I am just so very, very glad I’m not going to have to use a machine to breathe.
